"But what?"
"It's not much fun going alone."
Here was her first chance. "Take me," she cried, leaning forward. "I'd love to go. I've never fished, but you could teach me."
Franklin looked at her sharply to see if she were joking. But her expression was that of a child eager for adventure. "But the launch has no cabin," he said, "and we sleep under a hood hauled over her."
This was wonderful,—a test, indeed. She pressed the point eagerly. "Why not? I don't mind roughing it. I don't mind anything if it has compensations. Come out and talk it over."
Franklin followed her. She was leaning against the rail with the breeze in her hair and the sunlight on her shoulders. What if he fell in with her impetuous wish? Jones and one of the crew would sleep, as usual, up in the peak and he and she must lie almost side by side under the awning in the stern.
"Please don't make difficulties," she said. "Let me have my own way just for once."
He could have yelled with laughter. Confound it, the girl was having her own way all the time, except in unessential things.
"There are various degrees of roughing it," he said, cursing his conscience.
"Yes, but if I don't mind,—if I want to?"