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looked on as a concession, she supposed. Regardless of the provocation he had given her, it was ungracious of her to snap at him. The least she could do was to meet him halfway. “You mentioned last night that you were used to the cold weather. Does that mean that you have spent a lot of time here in the winter, or simply that you have grown used to it in the last few days?”
    “This is one of my favorite places, all right, for obvious reasons,” he said, “but I also come here for the skiing. I enjoy cold-weather sports. I guess if I hadn’t been an actor, I would have wound up a ski bum.”
    Without meaning to, Clare found herself smiling. “Then all this,” she said, waving toward the flying snow, “should be good news to you.”
    “I will admit it has its attractions, but I think the best thing about a fresh snowfall, especially one like this, is that it covers all trace of other human beings. There may be beer cans, candy wrappers, and foil from cigarette packages under the snow, but at least you can’t see them. When the snow stops and you walk out into the woods, everything is clean and quiet. If you are lucky, the only footprints are your own. There is a hush that comes then that is unlike any other time, and the air is so pure and cold, it rings in your lungs. It’s as if you are the only thing alive, the beginning and end of creation, the center of the universe, and yet an unmistakable part of all that is natural around you.”
    His voice was quiet, reflective, but it was plain that what he said held special meaning for him. “There are not many places where that is possible anymore,” Clare commented. “Something always spoils it. In the South it is the scary of timber cutting or the smoke from some factory.”
    “Here it’s the things I mentioned, or the racket of a snowmobile.”
    “The whine of a chain saw … or a hunter’s shot.”
    “Or the litter of their shell casings. Things like that are why I support the formation of wilderness areas — unspoiled places without logging roads, or even trails, closed to any kind of mechanized travel, to logging or hunting, areas left to go back to the wild. These places will be so remote, only people who care about meeting nature on its own terms will want to make the effort to hike back into them. But at least for that breed the opportunity will be there. If we go on as we are now, the generations to come will never know what that means, because the few places like that left will be gone.”
    “I thought the secretary of agriculture recently recommended that several million acres be set aside for designation as wilderness sections.”
    “He did, but already the special-interest groups, the lumber and tourism industries and the sports organizations, are screaming and mounting a campaign of advertising against it. The only thing for those of us who oppose the special-interest groups is to scream louder.”
    “It does seem as if I remember seeing you on some program concerned with conservation.”
    “I speak my piece when I think it will do any good. One of the few advantages I have found to being a big Hollywood name is the extra weight it gives you when you decide to throw yourself behind something.”
    “I would not have thought you had much time for such things.”
    “I don’t have nearly enough. That is why I would like to make the conservation issue the theme of my next picture.”
    “A propaganda film?” Clare queried lightly.
    “You could call it that, though it is also a historical drama with, I think, a balanced presentation of the arguments for progress and free enterprise, as well as for my own views.”
    He went on to tell her the story line of what emerged as a tale filled with grandeur and passion, fine characters and stirring events. If allowed to unfold against the color and majesty of the mountains, it would be a picture of epic proportions and great visual impact.
    “It sounds marvelous,” Clare said when he had finished.