Nan nodded and some tears that trembled on her long lashes were flicked off by the vigor of the nod; some of them fell on the big gaunt hands that held hers.
"I suppose you haven't sufficient money with which to return to New York?" he continued.
Again she nodded an affirmative.
"Just what are your plans, dear?"
"I suppose I'll have to go somewhere and try to procure a position as a cook lady."
"An admirable decision," he declared enthusiastically. "I'll give you a job cooking for me, provided you'll agree to marry me and permit me to live in your house. I'm a man without a home and you've just got to take me in, Nan. I have no other place to lay my weary head."
She looked at him and through the blur of her tears she saw him smiling down at her, calmly, benignantly and with that little touch of whimsicality that was always in evidence and which even his heavy heart could not now subdue.
"You've—you've—chosen the Sawdust Pile?" she cried incredulously.
"How else would a man of spirit choose, old shipmate?"
"But you're not marrying me to save me from poverty, Donald? You must be certain you aren't mistaking for love the sympathy which rises so naturally in that big heart of yours. If it's only a great pity—if it's only the protective instinct—"