Lou regarded him gravely, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again and for an appreciable moment there was silence.
“Well, I don’t see anythin’ in that that says you can’t have somebody travelin’ along with you,” she remarked, and that odd little smile flashed again across her face. “It don’t make any difference to me what you can or can’t do. I’m foot-loose!”
Not until later was the meaning of that final statement to be made manifest to her companion; the one fact upon his mind was 25that nothing he had said had moved her an iota from her original decision. They would go along together.
Well, why not? It was obvious that he could not send her back to the Hess farm nor hand her over to the authorities. His own appearance would not be conducive to confidence in his assurances if he attempted to leave her in the care of some country woman until he could return and make proper arrangements for her, and the only alternative was that she must tramp the roads by herself until she found work, and that was out of the question.
At least, he could protect her, and she looked wiry in spite of her skinniness; it was as possible that she might make the distance as he, with his aching back. But on one point he was determined: when they neared the suburbs of New York he would telephone to a certain gray-haired, aristocratically high-nosed old lady and persuade her to send out her car for this waif.
The child had been kind to him, and he would protect her from all harm, but not for 26all the gilt-edged securities in Wall Street would he have the story of his knight-errantry get abroad, nor the unprepossessing heroine of it revealed to his friends.
The old lady would find some suitable position for her, and, as she evidently possessed no reputation of any sort at the moment, a six-day journey in his company could harm it no more if the truth became known than if she had tramped upon her way alone.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll be partners, and I’ll do my best to look out for you.”
She laughed outright, a merry, tinkling little laugh like the brook rippling over the pebbles at her feet, and the man involuntarily stared. It was the sole attractive thing about her that he had observed.
“Reckon it’ll be me that’ll look after you!” she retorted. “Oh, there’s somethin’ comin’! Duck in here, quick!”