Adrian said nothing at first; then remarked:
“Pierre need not go so far. Across the lake, to the mainland is enough. I can travel on foot afterward, and I know more about the forest now than when I lost myself and you, or Margot, found me. I owe my life to you. I am sorry I have given you pain. Sorry for many things.”
“There are few who have not something to regret; for anything that has happened here no apology is necessary. As for saving life, that was by God’s will. Now—to business. You will see that I have reckoned your wages the same as Pierre’s: thirty dollars a month and ‘found,’ as the farmers say, though it has been much more difficult to find him than you. You have been here nearly three months and eighty dollars is yours.”
“Eighty dollars! Whew! I mean, impossible. In the first place I haven’t earned it; in the second, I couldn’t take it from—from you—if I had. How could a man take money from one who had saved his life?”
“Easily, I hope, if he has common sense. You exaggerate the service we were able to do you, which we would have rendered to anybody. Your earnings will start you straight again. Take them, and oblige me by making no further objections.”
Despite his protests, which were honest, Adrian could not but be delighted at the thought of possessing so goodly a sum. It was the first money he had ever earned, therefore better than any other ever could be, and as he put it, in his own thoughts: “it changed him from a beggar to a prince.” Yet he made a final protest, asking:
“Have I really, really, and justly earned all this? Do you surely mean it?”
“I am not in the habit of saying anything I do not mean. It is getting late, and if you are to go to-night, it would be better to start soon,” answered Mr. Dutton, with a frown.
“Beg pardon. But I’m always saying what I should not, or putting the right things backward. There are some affairs ‘not mentioned in the bond’: my artist’s outfit, these clothes, boots, and other matters. I want to pay the cost of them. Indeed, I must. You must allow me, as you would any other man.”
The woodlander hesitated a moment as if he were considering. He would have preferred no return for anything, but again that effort to be wholly just influenced him.