“Say, I didn’t mean to– It was confounded stupid of me,” mumbled Blake. “Won’t you excuse me?”
“Of course! It was only the–the thought that–”
“No wonder. I always am a fool when it comes to ladies. I’ll fix the thing all right.”
Catching up the nearest small pot, he crammed the quilted cloth down within it, and filled it to the brim with sticky mud.
“There! Guess nobody’s going to run off with a jug of mud–and it won’t hurt the stones till we get a chance to look up the owner. He won’t be hard to find–English duke minus a pint of first-class sparklers! Will you mind its setting in the cave after things are fixed up?”
“No; not as it is.”
He nodded soberly. “All right, then. Now I’ll go for the new flag-staff. You might set out breakfast.”
She nodded in turn, and when he came back from the bamboos with the largest of the great canes on his shoulder, his breakfast was waiting for him. She set it before him, and turned to go again to her sewing.
“Hold on,” he said. “This won’t do. You’ve got to eat your share.”
“I do not–I am not hungry.”