"All right, Jack," he said, with a trace of bitterness in his tone, "I can't say but what you've used me straight as a string all the way through. Mining's a young man's work, I guess. Maybe you'd act a mite foolish over the old claim yourself, Jack, if you'd wintered and summered with her the way I have. Never mind, though. Have it your own way."
Harrison had started to reply, when heavy footsteps sounded on the path without. "Good for you, Jim," he said quickly, "it won't hurt to talk it over, and we'll be careful we don't make any mistake. I guess that's them now."
CHAPTER III
[THE RETURN OF MR. FROST]
Gordon, with apparent reluctance, rose slowly from the table. "Rose," he said, "this has been most delightful. If life, now, were all Saturday afternoons and Sundays, with none of this getting back to work again on Monday mornings, what a good time we should have."
The girl forced a smile, though her eyes were troubled. "Yes," she said, "it has been delightful, only—I do so wish things were really settled for good. Can't you begin to tell something, Dick, about how long it will be?"
Gordon made an effort not to appear annoyed. "No," he answered, a trifle coldly, "I certainly can't, and, for that matter, nobody can. For a guess, though, I should think that another six months would see things pretty well fixed. I expect to see Frost this morning, and of course a lot depends on the kind of report I get from him. If it's what I'm hoping for, it's practically the last link in the chain. If it isn't, then it's a choice between waiting or taking a chance on something that may go and may not. So it's really an impossibility, as you can see for yourself, to say just when things will be settled Still, I can't see but what we're doing pretty well as we are. You're not unhappy, are you?"
The girl's troubled look did not alter. "No," she said, half doubtfully, "not really unhappy, but if I didn't know that this would all be over soon, and that within a year we should be married and settled down, I'm afraid I should be—miserably so. It's no kind of a life to be leading, the way we are now. Do you remember, Dick, the afternoon we went to the island?"
Gordon nodded. No incident connected with his trips to the island was ever likely to escape his memory. "I do, very well," he answered shortly.
The girl nodded in her turn. "Then you probably remember," she continued, "what I said that day. And I've never changed my mind since. Just to be by ourselves somewhere in a little place in the country, and I should never want to be rich or want to see the city again. That would be my idea of being happy, Dick, but of course you've got your ambitions, and I've no right to want to hinder them."