“I dursn't.”
I looked up at the six feet of strength before me and repeated wonderingly, “Dare not?”
“SHE wouldn't like it.” He made a movement with his right shoulder towards the extension.
“Who?”
“Miss Karline.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “She isn't in the cabin,—you won't see HER. Come along.” He hesitated, although from what I could discern of his bearded face it was weakly smiling.
“Come.”
He obeyed, following me not unlike Chu Chu, I fancied, with the same sense of superior size and strength and a slight whitening of the eye, as if ready to shy at any moment. At the door he “backed.” Then he entered sideways. I noticed that he cleared the doorway at the top and the sides only by a hair's breadth.
By the light of the fire I could see that, in spite of his full first growth of beard, he was young,—even younger than myself,—and that he was by no means bad-looking. As he still showed signs of retreating at any moment, I took my flask and tobacco from my saddle-bags, handed them to him, pointed to the stool, and sat down myself upon the bed.
“You live near here?”