“I see,” he said.  “Well, I admit it.  I’m a low down chump.  Still, if I had it to do over again, I should do pretty much the same.  A few things differently, but in general the very same.”

“What would you do differently?” she asked, still without looking at him.

“For one thing, I wouldn’t run away.  I’d stay and face the music.  Earn my living or starve.”

“And now you’re going to stay here?”

“No longer than I can help.  If I get the appointment as assistant keeper I’ll begin to save every cent I can.  Just as soon as I get enough to warrant risking it I’ll head for Boston once more and begin the earning or starving process.  And,” with a snap of his jaws, “I don’t intend to starve.”

“You won’t go back to your father?”

“If he sees fit to beg my pardon and acknowledge that I was right—­not otherwise.  And he must do it of his own accord.  I told him that when I walked out of his office.  It was my contribution to our fond farewell.  His was that he would see me damned first.  Possibly he may.”

She smiled.

“You must have been a charming pair of pepper pots,” she observed.  “And the young lady—­what of her?”

“She knows that I am fired, cut off even without the usual shilling.  That will be quite sufficient for her, I think.”

“How do you know it will?  How do you know she might not have been willing to wait while you earned that living you are so sure is coming?”

“Wait?  She wait for me?  Ann Davidson wait for a man without a cent while he tried to earn a good many dollars?  Humph! you amuse me.”

“Why not?  You didn’t give her a chance.  You calmly took it for granted that she wanted only money and social position and you walked off and left her.  How do you know she wouldn’t have liked you better for telling her just how you felt.  If a girl really cared for a man it seems to me that she would be willing to wait for him, years and years if it were necessary, provided that, during that time, he was trying his best for her.”

“But—­but—­she isn’t that kind of a girl.”

“How do you know?  You didn’t put her to the test.  You owed her that.  It seems to me you owe it to her now.”

The answer to this was on his tongue.  It was ready behind his closed lips, eager to burst forth.  That he didn’t love the Davidson girl, never had loved her.  That during the past month he had come to realize there was but one woman in the wide world for him.  And did that woman mean what she said about waiting years—­and years—­provided she cared?  And did she care?

He didn’t utter one word of this.  He wanted to, but it seemed so preposterous.  Such an idiotic, outrageous thing to ask.  Yet it is probable that he would have asked it if the young lady had given him the chance.  But she did not; after a sidelong glance at his face, she hurriedly rose from the rock and announced that she must be getting back to the house.