“Then why do you? Bender told me you had a lifelong record of pilfering.”
“Lifelong! Kind Kurt, I am young—only twenty.”
“He said you’d been given a chance over and over again, but that you were hopeless. I—think you are.”
“I think so, too,” she acknowledged, with a little giggle that brought back his scowl. “You’ve got a white elephant on your hands, Kurt. What are you going to do with me?”
“There’s only one thing I can do, now,” he said glumly. “Carry out a bad bargain. I’ll see it through.”
“Oh, Mr. Britling!” she murmured sotto voce.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Traveling libraries evidently don’t hit this trail. What is it the trail to, anyway? Your house?”
“To Top Hill Tavern.”
“Gee! That sounds good. A tavern! I hope it’s tiptop as well as tophill. How did you come to build a hotel way off here? Summer boarders? Will there be dances?”