"What is it?"
"A gold strike has been made in Alaska—"
"Alaska!"
"Yes! The Klondike. You have read of it? I am told that the chances there are like those in the days of '49, and I am going."
So it was that he had made his choice, fixing his own time for returning, and so it was that Mildred Wayland had awaited him.
If to-day, after three years of deprivation, she seemed to him more beautiful than ever—the interval having served merely to enhance her charm and strengthen the yearning of his heart—she seemed in the same view still further removed from his sphere. More reserved, more dignified, in the reserve of developed womanhood, her cession was the more gracious and wonderful.
His story finished, Boyd went on to tell her vaguely of his future plans, and at the last he asked her, with something less than an accepted lover's confidence:
"Will you wait another year?"
She laughed lightly. "You dear boy, I am not up for auction. This is not the 'third and last call.' I am not sure I could induce anybody to take me, even if I desired."
"I read the rumor of your engagement in a back number of a San
Francisco paper. Is your retinue as large as ever?"