lapsed into silence.

"Shall we go into camp, then," he asked, as if they had not mentioned
anything else.

Claire hesitated, then said slowly: "It's our only chance. Are you
willing to spend a winter with me?" Her eyes glanced amusedly at him.

Catching the note in her voice, Lawrence laughed. "It seems inevitable,"
he said, "and, anyway, I couldn't ask for a better companion. You don't
disturb me, and I don't irritate you--that is, not especially."

She looked at him impatiently. "Don't you?" she said, meditatively.
"Well, I'm glad I don't bother you."

"Yes," he assented seriously. "You've been mighty open-minded, Claire,
and you haven't hampered me with incredulities."

"Oh, that is what you mean."

He moved uneasily, his muscles drawing a little. Claire saw and
wondered.

"Yes," Lawrence said shortly. "When morning comes, we'll hunt for a
location."

They ceased speaking, each occupied with his own thoughts.

Claire was asking herself what the winter would mean to her, spent with
this silent man, and he was questioning how long she would continue to
regard him as a mere imperfect carrier, devoid of the stuff that men are
made of. Sometimes when her body was in his arms, he had wondered if she
was capable of love, but always he had remembered her husband, her
social life, her assumption of superior reserve, and had forced himself
into a habitual attitude of indifference. The strain was telling on his
will, however, and often he longed to make this woman see him as he was.
He thought of the old days in his studio when he had proved himself
master of blindness in his power to imagine and carry the sense of form
into the carved stone. He recalled the praise of his comrades, and over
all else there surged in him the swift, warm blood of the artist.

"Lawrence," said Claire suddenly, "at what do you value human life?"

"That depends," he answered, "on whose life it is."

"Well, at what would you value mine?" she demanded.

"From varying points of view, at varying prices. From your husband's
point of view, it is invaluable. From your own, it is worth more than
anything else. From my point of view, it is worth as much as my own,
since without you mine ceases."

"Then your care of me and all your trouble is merely because you value
your own life."

"What else?" He moved uneasily.

She ignored that question. "If you could get through without me, would
you do it?"

"That depends on circumstances. If I