"It's a hungry-looking country to me—looks as if it has eaten all the trees. If it makes you think of breakfast, or just plain coffee and rolls, I've found a place I hope you'll like, with a friend I didn't know was here."
"You are very kind, I'm sure," she said. "I'm afraid we're a great deal of trouble."
"That's what women were made for," he answered her frankly, a bright, dancing light in his eyes. "They couldn't help it if they would, and I guess they wouldn't if they could."
"Oh, indeed?" She shot him a quick glance, half a challenge. "I guess if you don't mind we won't go to the place you've found, for breakfast, this morning."
"You'd better guess again," he answered, and taking her arm, in a masterful way that bereft her of the power of speech or resistance, he marched her briskly down the slope and straight towards Mrs. Dick's.
"Thank your stars you've struck a place like this," he said. "If you don't I'll have to thank them for you."
"Perhaps I ought to thank you first," she ventured smilingly. It would have seemed absurd to resent his boyish ways.
"You may," he said, "when I get to be one of your stars."
"Oh, really? Why defer mere thanks indefinitely?"
"It won't be indefinitely, and besides, thanks will keep—and breakfast won't."