Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/101

Rh blowing up again, he had to be called. She liked the way he came up on deck, with hands clenched, teeth set and smiling grimly.

Latham also came back on deck with Geoff. He had been on duty as long; he was almost as exhausted as the boy, and he was returning without complaint to his work. But it was plain to Margaret, as she met him, that Latham was driving himself to his tasks in a different spirit from the others. The Arctic work—hardship and privation, obstacles ever to be overcome—in itself did not appeal to Price Latham at all; and such work never would. He was forcing himself with his will power to endure exhaustion that he hated and that made him keep tight control over his temper in order to get the work through with, that he might demand his pay for it.

Margaret, of course, knew the pay he expected to require. As she faced him at such a moment as this, suddenly it frightened her to realise how firm was his determination to possess her if he would drive himself thus to gain her.

"Like this?" she asked him.