“Be quiet, Allan, or I'll leave you this minute and you shan't know another thing!” she threatened.
“All right, I'll be good,” he promised. “What next? I'm the Big Chief now, of course? What I say now goes?”
She answered nothing, but a troubled wrinkle drew between her perfect brows. For a moment there was silence, save for the dull and distant roaring of the flame.
By the glow of the bluish light in the hut, Stern looked up at her. Never had she seemed so beautiful. The heavy masses of her hair, parted in the middle and fastened with gold pins such as the Folk wore, framed her wonderful face with twilight shadows. He saw she was no longer clad in fur, but in a loose and flowing mantle of the brown fabric, caught up below the breast with a gold-clasped girdle.
“Oh, Beatrice,” he breathed, “kiss me again!”
She kissed him; but even in the caress he sensed an unvoiced anxiety, a hidden fear.
“What's wrong?” asked he anxiously.
“Nothing, dear. Now you must be quiet! You're in the patriarch's house here. You're safe--for the present, and--”
“For the present? What do you mean?”
“See here.” the girl threatened, “if you don't stop asking questions, and go to sleep again, I'll leave you alone!”