“I am not to speak lightly of my Cousin Richard, I perceive.”

“No.  Please, please, no!”

“I hadn’t meant to.  Richard,” said Mr. Jelnik, gravely, “is a good man.”

“Oh, yes!  Indeed, yes!  And—­and he has a deep affection for you, Mr. Jelnik.”

“We Hyndses are the deuce and all for affection.  We take it in such deadly earnest that we store up a fine lot of trouble for ourselves.”  His face darkened.

I had been right, then, in supposing that there was somebody, perhaps half the world away, for whom he cared. And he didn’t care for Alicia. I was sure of that.

“Don’t go!” he begged, as I stirred.  “Stay with me for a little while:  I need you.  I am tired, I am bored, I am disgusted with things as they are.  There is nothing new under the sun, and all is vanity and vexation of spirit.  Also, I am fronting the forks of a dilemma:  Shall I shake the dust of Hyndsville from my foot, yield to the Wanderlust and go what our worthy friend Judge Gatchell calls ‘tramping,’ or shall I stay here yet awhile?  I can’t make up my mind!”

“Do you want to go?”

“Yes and no.  Hold:  let’s toss for it and let the fall of the coin decide.”  He took from his pocket a thin silver foreign coin, and showed it me.

“Heads, I go.  Tails, I stay,” he said, and tossed it into the air.  It fell beside me, out of his reach.  With a swift hand I picked it up.

“Well?” he asked, indifferently.

My hand shut down upon it.  There was the sound of wind in my ears, and my heart pounded, and my sight blurred.  Then somebody—­oh, surely not I!—­in a low, clear, modulated voice spoke: 

“You will have to stay, Mr. Jelnik,” said the voice, pleasantly. “It is tails.”

And all the while the inside Me, the real Me, was crying accusingly:  “Oh, liar! liar!  It is heads!”

Did he smile?  I do not know.  He did not look at me for the minute, but stared instead at the gray-blue, shadowed woods, the brown boles of the pines, the bright trickle of water playing it was a real brook.

“Tails it is.  I stay,” he said presently.  And with a swift movement he reached out and lightly patted my hand with the coin in it.

“Well, it’s decided.  You have got me for a next-door neighbor for a while longer, Miss Smith.  No, don’t go yet.”

So I stayed, who would have stayed in the Pit to be near him, or walked out of heaven to follow him, had he called me.

“Do you know,” he spoke in a plaintive voice—­“that I haven’t had any lunch?  I forgot to go home for lunch!  Boris, go get me something to eat, old chap!”

Boris hung out a tongue like a flag, looked in his man’s eyes, and vanished, running as only the thoroughbred wolf-hound can run.

“I am so tired!  Should you mind if I kept my dog’s place warm at your feet, Miss Smith?” And he stretched his long length on the pine-needles, his hands under his head, his face upturned.