I started.
"Have you heard of him?" she asked. "He's got a million-dollar claim on Bonanza."
Had I heard of him! Who had not heard of Black Jack, his spectacular poker plays, his meteoric rise, his theatric display?
"Of course he's married," she went on, "but that doesn't matter up here. There's such a thing as a Klondike marriage, and they say he behaves well to his discarded mis——"
"Berna!" angry and aghast, I had stopped her. "Never let me hear you utter that word. Even to say it seems pollution."
She laughed harshly, bitterly.
"What's this whole life but pollution?... Well, anyway, he wants me."
"But you wouldn't, surely you wouldn't?"
She turned on me fiercely.