CHAPTER XII
“And now,” continued Miss Colton, after an interval during which, I presume, she had been waiting for some reply to her frank declaration concerning mind and appetite, “what must I do to help? Shall I unpack the basket?”
I was struggling, as we say in Denboro, to get the ship under control. I had been taken aback so suddenly that I had lost steerage way. My slight experience with the vagaries of the feminine mind had not prepared me for the lightning changes of this kind. Not two minutes before she had, if one might judge by her look and tone, been deeply offended, almost insulted, because I refused to permit her wandering off alone into the woods. My invitation to lunch had been given on the spur of the moment and with no idea that it would be accepted. And she not only accepted, but had expected me to invite her, had been fearful that I might not do so. She told me so, herself.
“Shall I unpack the basket?” she repeated. She was looking at me intently and the toe of her riding boot was patting the leaves. “What is the matter? Are you sorry I am going to stay?”
It was high time for me to get under way. There were squalls on the horizon.
“Oh, no, no!” I exclaimed, hastily. “Of course not. I am delighted. But you need not trouble to help. Just let me attend to your horse and I will have lunch ready in a jiffy.”
I led Don over to the little green belt of meadow between the trees and the sand of the beach, unbuckled the reins and made him fast to a stout birch. He bent his head and began to pull big mouthfuls of the rich grass. He, too, was evidently glad to accept my invitation.
When I returned to my camping ground I found the basket unpacked and the young lady arranging the eatables.
“You shouldn't have done that,” I said. “I am the host here.”