“Yes, and—and I’d like to go further still.”
“Better not—better not.”
“But, of course, I would!” She put her hand in the pocket of her long cloak and drew out the “latest map” of extreme northwestern Alaska. “I’m like the rest. The more I see up here, the more I want to see.” She sat down on the earthen floor just inside the threshold, and spread out the yard square tinted paper. As she bent over it, “What part of the map lures you most?” she asked, wandering if she would hear where was the home of this curious being dying up here alone.
As he did not answer at once, she looked up, laying her hand on the paper and saying, “This for me.”
She saw him take surer hold on the packet he was guarding, and he leaned across it to see precisely what portion of the earth’s surface her hand was covering.
“You want to know the name of the most interesting country in the world?” she asked smiling.
“Well, what do you say?” He seemed to humor her.
“The name of the most interesting country on the face of the globe is under my hand.” She lifted it. He peered down. She pushed the rustling paper across the uneven floor, till leaning over he could read, in big black letters, the word “UNEXPLORED.”
“Ah!” he said softly, with as great a light in his face as if those letters had indeed spelled home. “You feel that? I didn’t know that women—” He broke off, and absently took a fresh hold on the bundle, as though anticipating some adroit attempt upon his treasure.
His foolishness about that packet had got upon Hildegarde’s nerves. “People who don’t know them think Chinamen are all alike. Men who know little of women think the same of us.”