"No, but you will have company."
"I have company now," she retorted smilingly, "and believe me I do not feel at all lonely."
"I was thinking you would have the factor's wife for——"
"Pooh!" was the challenging reply. "Do you think a woman cannot live without women?"
He offered no answer to the question, feeling that they were in the danger zone again; and after a moment deliberately turned the conversation backward.
"If I have luck with the traps, you may be able to have a set of furs for a memento of your sojourn here!"
"Oh!" she laughed back, "if that is the only memento I am to have——"
"Yes?" he asked.
For a moment she did not speak, and when she did there was provocation in her voice. "Well, I shall be disappointed, that is all."
He did not ask why. He knew; and his very silence told Helen that he knew, and for a moment both of them were conscious of the surging of that elemental force which had made itself felt out in the forest.