“Haven't you seen it coming?”
“I rather guess the trouble with me was that I have been planning out your future without taking your feelings into account.”
“How do you mean,—planning my future?”
“Oh, it isn't so definite that I could answer that question offhand. I thought I saw a future for myself, and I thought we might go it together. But I was counting on just you and me, without any other interests or impediments.”
“But if I should marry—”
“If you marry, your work will have to take a new direction. Your interests will change completely. And before many years, you will begin to think of quitting the Lake. It isn't the life for a family man. But then—that's the way things go. I have no right to advise against it.” Henry smiled, with an odd, half bitter expression. “And from what I have seen since my eyes were opened, I don't believe it would do any good for me to object.”
“You are mistaken there, Henry,” the younger man replied quietly; “it isn't going well at all. I've been pretty blue to-day.”
“Well,” said Henry, with the same odd expression, “I don't know but what I'm sorry for that. That future I was speaking of seems to have faded out lately,—in fact, my plans are not going well, either. And so you probably couldn't count on me very much anyway.”
He paused. Pink Harper, who acted as cook occasionally when the Anne was tied up and the rest of the crew were ashore, could be heard bustling about on deck. After a moment Henry rose, and, with an impulsive gesture, laid his hand on Dick's shoulder. “Cheer up, Dick,” he said. “Don't take it too hard. Try to keep hold of yourself. And look here, my boy, we've always stepped pretty well together, and we mustn't let any new thing come in between us—”
“Supper's ready!” Pink called down the companionway.