“Yes, of course. There is me and there are other girls. But the men will be few. They will be elderly, I think, and I think, too, tame enough to eat out of her hand.”
“You think, then, that I am out of the running?”
Fanny did not answer. She was drinking the squash. When she put it down she put with it the subject. It bored her.
“Are you going to be here long?” she asked. Until a moment before Annandale had been wavering. But now his mind was made up. Or he thought it was.
“No. I am off tomorrow.”
“Where to?”
“The North Woods, perhaps. I am not sure.”
“If you are not sure, you cannot be in any very tearing haste. Why not stop a day or two longer and take me about?”
Annandale looked at her. In the look was surprise; inquiry, too.
“Yes. Why not?”
Annandale’s look deepened into a stare.
“Now, don’t be stupid,” said Fanny, to whom such stares were familiar. “I am not trying to get up a flirtation with you. But I must have someone to talk to.”
“I like to hear you talk.”
“Yes; men always like nonsense.”
“Only from a pretty girl, though.”