The two men were looking at her quietly, fondly. Her voice trailed off. Silence for a moment. Here it comes, Addie thought.

But Thor Storm only remarked, as though suddenly recalling a message, “Oh, I saw Ross Guildenstern, he was pilot on my trip up to Oogruk. He told me to tell you he wants to give you a polar-bear rug if you’re going to put in a fireplace. Or even if you’re not. He shot it himself this past winter.”

“How wonderful!” Addie trilled. “I saw him only last week. He didn’t mention it.”

“Eskimos don’t like to be thanked.”

“How interesting!” Addie murmured.

Paul came down from the ladder. “I’ll bring you a chair from the kitchen, Thor.”

“No, I won’t be staying but a minute.”

“Tell her then. Or do you want me to?”

“You’re young and in love. I’ll say it.”

“What in the world are you two talking about!” Her tone was a little shrill for the smile that accompanied it. “Have I murdered somebody!”

“Murder and rape and theft and all the sad crimes committed Outside are to be found right here in Alaska. I have no jurisdiction over those. I just report them in the columns of the Northern Light. But the conduct of the newspaper—the physical and ethical conduct—that’s my business, and Paul’s. We accept paid ads and announcements if they are respectable. But the news and editorial columns of the paper can’t be used for personal gain. You’re a newcomer to Alaska, Addie—–”

“Oh, you’re all so snobbish about your Alaska. I know what you’re going to say. But what have I done that’s so terrible! An old wreck of a house that was falling down—–”

“You are on the staff of the paper, and you used its columns for your own personal gain. You ran a news item that was entirely untrue. You knew it was untrue.”

“But people are complaining. Just last week Ott Decker told me that the Chamber of Commerce and the City Council—–”

“That was after your article,” Paul interrupted, quietly.

“It’s a good thing, then. Now maybe they’ll do something about it.”

“What you did wasn’t a good thing.”

“You two are making a fuss about a tiny little nothing.”

“That tiny nothing, blown up in the Daily Lode, could undo everything I’ve tried to accomplish for the good of Alaska in the past fifty years.”

She turned to her husband, she grasped his arm and shook it as though to rouse him to her defense. “Tell him, Barnett! I had to have a house. I had to have a place to live in! Do you think I’d bring up my child in the back room of a newspaper office! Maybe what I did wasn’t exactly according to the newspaper code. But my reason for doing it was right. Tell him, Barnett! Tell him! You two standing there like prophets out of the Bible or something.”

“Security,” Thor said, quietly. “All women want security. And they’re right, in a way. But the whole country may go down to ruin if people want security more than anything else.”