“You flatter me.”
“You have drawn a wrong deduction.”
“Then you flatter me still more. I had never thought of myself as a poet. However, if you fear the dreams—an old man’s dreams—it is not too late to withdraw.”
“I should call it a great deal too late.”
“No,” he answered decidedly. “I’ll frame some sort of an excuse for returning to Alaska to-morrow. It may be a bit clumsy but I can make it answer.”
“You’re an adept at that sort of thing.”
“It is for you to decide what we shall do,” he insisted.
The little old lady hesitated. She disliked very much being cornered in such fashion. But Barnes had caught the worry in the girl’s eyes and realized the necessity of having this settled at once.
“It is already decided,” she fenced.
“Only as far as this. He has his dreams for to-day. That is something. To-morrow is not decided.”