Not Miss Dina Drake, Chris thought. Any dinner now I expect to find arsenic in my soup. I must write Bridie about her.

Bridie had written in reply. “… That girl had clear sailing with him till you came along. Like they say, if you can’t fight her join her. She won’t know what you’re up to.…”

Oh, won’t she though! Chris thought. You don’t know Dina, Bridie dear. Besides, I’m not up to anything. I just don’t like to be patronized.

Suddenly now, as she sat with Bay in the dim handsome Husack library, so rich in shelves and shelves of lovely leather whose contents no one read, she suddenly felt relaxed and at ease with this rather frightening young man. His arm was about her, her hand was in his. It was surprising.

“For the first time in all these months I feel comfortable and cosy with you, Bay.”

“Women always have to talk about their emotions. All right. You feel that way because you think you’re going to say something that will help me. Women love that. Gives them a warm glow.”

“You’re an upset person. You came home from the War, upset. And angry at a stupid horror and you decided to stay that way. That was ten or eleven years ago. I know lots of men in Baranof who are like that.”

“You been around a lot, Miss—uh—–?”

“And you don’t like your father, lots of people don’t like their fathers. And you’re bored with his business. If you cared more about people—I mean if you knew what’s going on. Here in Seattle you’re all so old-fashioned!”

“That’s a refreshing one. I’ll have to tell that to Pop.”

“Please do. He’s the most old-fashioned of all of them. It’s the middle of the twentieth century—past the middle—and they’re still behaving as if it were the nineteenth. Robber Barons! It couldn’t be more old-fashioned.”

“Like your Grandpappy Czar Kennedy—who’s paying your bills here at Washington, I understand.”

“Yes. Like him, too. And don’t think I don’t feel guilty. I don’t know what to do. But at least Grampa Czar lives in Alaska and loves it and does things for it.”

“Such as what?”

“Newspapers. And banks. And shops. And coal. And the Ice Palace.”

“What’s that?”

“A building. An apartment hotel. Fourteen stories.”

“You babe! You kill me!”

“At least he isn’t an absentee millionaire. The first Alaska absentee millionaire was Peter the Great—and then Catherine the First. There’ve been lots of absentee millionaire landlords since then, and your father is one of them.”

“Yet you come here to dinner!” His tone was mock horror.

“I know. Aunt Louise has been so good and kind.”

“Are you sure it isn’t me? I’m not good and kind, but I’m interesting.”

The honest merry eyes regarded him searchingly. “I’ve thought of that. You’re a kind of challenge. Like converting a drunkard.”

“Better be careful. You might get seriously involved in the process. You know—like the woman who tries to cure him by taking a drink every time he does. Next thing she’s right down there in the gutter with him.”