And all the while the inside Me, the real Me, was crying accusingly: "Oh, liar! liar! It is heads!"
Did he smile? I do not know. He did not look at me for the minute, but stared instead at the gray-blue, shadowed woods, the brown boles of the pines, the bright trickle of water playing it was a real brook.
"Tails it is. I stay," he said presently. And with a swift movement he reached out and lightly patted my hand with the coin in it.
"Well, it's decided. You have got me for a next-door neighbor for a while longer, Miss Smith. No, don't go yet."
So I stayed, who would have stayed in the Pit to be near him, or walked out of heaven to follow him, had he called me.
"Do you know," he spoke in a plaintive voice—"that I haven't had any lunch? I forgot to go home for lunch! Boris, go get me something to eat, old chap!"
Boris hung out a tongue like a flag, looked in his man's eyes, and vanished, running as only the thoroughbred wolf-hound can run.
"I am so tired! Should you mind if I kept my dog's place warm at your feet, Miss Smith?" And he stretched his long length on the pine-needles, his hands under his head, his face upturned.
"I wish I had a pillow!" he complained.
I scooped up an armful of the pine-needles, while he watched me lazily, and packed it over and between the roots of the pine-tree.