"To which," said Grace, with a soft laugh, "you, of course, belong. What made--you--a democrat?"
Sewell made a little gesture. "Ah," he said, "that is a different story, and one I hardly care to go into, but perhaps the instincts one is born with can't be entirely rooted out. I am, at least, not the iconoclast I was when I came into the valley. That, however, really isn't very astonishing. I now have a good deal to lose."
He looked at her steadily with grave deference, but as like to like, and the girl recognized this and what his words implied. She was, however, playing a game then, and another swift glance at her watch showed her that she had little time in which to finish it.
"And so, for fear you should lose it, you did not strike the spark? Well, I think that was wise. It would certainly have cost you one thing which you seem to value," she said.
This was vague, but it seemed to Sewell that there could be only one meaning to it. What he had feared to lose was not yet beyond his reach. He did not know that there were in the girl qualities which would have made her a successful Pompadour. Just then her craving for influence was irresistible; but she swept away from the topic with a swift smile expressive only of the indifference which of all the feelings that she could show he most shrank from.
"Still, to be practical, how could the blaze have spread?" she said. "It would have smouldered out in one snow-bound valley, and in the spring there would have been a very inglorious downfall to the strictly limited Utopia."
Sewell was nettled. There was, though it was seldom apparent, vanity in him, as both Hetty and Grace had guessed. Her blame he could have borne, but there was a sting in her smile. That she should think him a visionary schemer led away by his imagination, and without the faculty of execution, hurt him.
"The blaze would have leapt the snowy barriers," he said. "In fact, that was all arranged. Then it would have flashed from range to range across to the Yukon. One tolerably big bonfire has been waiting some time ready for lighting. I had only to send the message. I think you know why I didn't."
Grace saw his eyes, and understood the look in them. It was suggestive of passionate admiration. She also knew that a word would dispel it, perhaps forever, but she was lost in the game now, and what the man might think of her afterwards did not matter.