“I have been thinking about the night I went to dinner at your house,” he said at last. “I had no business to say what I said then. I've got a miserable habit of saying just what comes into my mind, and I've been afraid, ever since, that it would end in your not wanting to see me again. Just try to forget it happened, won't you?”
“I knew it was an impulse, but it made me very proud, Willy.”
“All right,” he said quietly. “And that's that. Now about your grandfather. I've had him on my mind, too. He is an old man, and sometimes they are peculiar. I am only sorry I upset him. And you are to forget that, too.”
In spite of herself she laughed, rather helplessly.
“Is there anything I am to remember?”
He smiled too, and straightened himself, like a man who has got something off his chest.
“Certainly there is, Miss Cardew. Me. Myself. I want you to know that I'm around, ready to fetch and carry like Jinx here, and about as necessary, I suppose. We are a good bit alike, Jinx and I. We're satisfied with a bone, and we give a lot of affection. You won't mind a bone now and then?”
His cheerful tone reassured the girl. There was no real hurt, then.
“That's nice of you, you know.”
“Well,” he said slowly, “you know there are men who prefer a dream to reality. Perhaps I'm like that. Anyhow, that's enough about me. Do you know that there is a strike coming?”