"Yes," replied Boris, gravely, "but even a supply of golden eggs may be retained at too dear a price.
"However," he went on with an air of gaiety, "this is rather too serious a matter to consider to-night. I simply intended to throw out a kindly hint."
"I'm sure you are very good," said Paul, with a fine sarcasm. "I had not looked to you for such consideration."
Boris laughed, showing his fine teeth, and gave Paul a quizzical look.
"Don't you think," he began softly, "that you had better turn back and retrace your steps to-morrow?"
Paul looked at him scornfully.
"Do you think I have set out on this errand to be turned back by you?" he said to Boris.
"I suppose," Paul cried, with a certain tone of irony in his voice, "that you think I am a mere society butterfly. What do you think I care for all the scented drawing-rooms in the world, for polo, for Hurlingham, for a stuffy reception in some great house in town? Nothing—nothing! Give me the open prairie land, the tall, brown grass, the open sky, the joy of the weary body that has ridden hard all the day!"
He laughed shortly.
"Do you think," he continued to the astonished Boris, "that there is any soft, silk-bound pillow in Mayfair that could appeal to me when I could sleep under the stars?