“I—” he paused and turned the stone back again. Then he drew a long breath. “I must make it up,” he said, “and I can do it as well now as a week later, I suppose. Wherever I go there will be a risk, a big risk. Captain Bangs, I'll take that risk here. If you are willing to let me have that office of yours for six months at the figure you have named—and I think you are crazy to do it—I will send for my trunk and my furniture and begin to—look out of the window.”
Captain Obed was delighted. “Shake, John,” he exclaimed. “I'm tickled to death. And I'll tell you this: If you can't get a client no other way I'll—I'll break into the meetin'-house and steal a pew or somethin'. Then you can defend me. Eh . . . And now what about a place for you to eat and sleep?” he added, after a moment.
The young man seemed to find the question as hard to answer as the other.
“I like it here,” he admitted. “I like it very much indeed. But I must economize and the few hundred dollars I have scraped together won't—”
He was interrupted. Emily Howes appeared at the corner of the house behind them.
“Supper is ready,” she called cheerfully.
Both men turned to look at her. She was bareheaded and the western sun made her profile a dainty silhouette, a silhouette framed in the spun gold of her hair.
“John's comin', Miss Emily,” answered the captain. “He'll be right there.”
Emily waved her hand and hurried back to the dining-room door. Mr. Kendrick kicked the stone into the grass.
“I think I may as well remain here, for the present at least,” he said. “After all, there is such a thing as being too economical. A chap can't always make a martyr of himself, even if he knows he should.”