“Well, I didn’t burn my kremlin behind me.”
“Your kremlin?”
“My ships, then: they—they are just the same,” he earnestly pleaded. Foolish youth, to attempt to take such a heart by surprise and storm!
“That is very interesting,” she said, “but hardly wise. To make fortunes and be happy in new countries, one should forget the old ones. Meditation is the enemy of action.”
“There’s one meditation could make me conquer the North Pole, if I could but grasp it definitely.”
“Grasp the North Pole? That would be awkward for your friends and gratifying to your enemies, if one may believe science and history. But, perhaps, you are in earnest after all, poor fellow! for my father tells me you are going over the hills and far away to the moose-yards. How valiant you are, and how quickly you grasp the essentials of fortune-making!”
“Miss Malbrouck, I am in earnest, and I’ve always been in earnest in one thing at least. I came out here to make money, and I’ve made some, and shall make more; but just now the moose are as brands for the burning, and I have a gun sulky for want of exercise.”
“What an eloquent warrior-temper! And to whom are your deeds of valour to be dedicated? Before whom do you intend to lay your trophies of the chase?”
“Before the most provoking but worshipful lady that I know.”
“Who is the sylvan maid? What princess of the glade has now the homage of your impressionable heart, Mr. Thorne?”