"That's a distinction, because few fishermen have. Now I'd like to thank you again for your note of a few weeks ago."
"Do you really remember that?" she said earnestly.
He nodded, and over him came a slow conviction that there was an avenue of life he had never traversed and which seemed to be, after all, more inviting than he had allowed himself to believe. Elsie was years younger than Clark, but just now the latter felt strangely young.
"Do you recollect finding out that I had but a few personal friends?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well," he said thoughtfully, "I would like another."
"Oh!" She stared at him, her startled eyes full of light.
"You don't mind, I hope?"
The canoe drifted like a leaf towards his heavy boat, but Elsie's paddle was motionless.
"It would make me very happy. But could I really do anything for you? It has always seemed that," she hesitated and her lips became tremulous, "that you didn't need any one." Then she added under her breath, "like me."