The words he was speaking might have been the utter nonsense to her that they would have been to any but the girl who was lost from the Bates and Cameron clearing for all hint she gave of understanding.

He worked on his supposition, however.

He had all the talking to himself.
"You're mighty secret! Now, look at me.

I'm no saint, and I've come here to make a clean breast of that fact.

When I was born, Uncle Sam said to me, 'Cyril P.Harkness, you're a son of mine, and it's your vocation to worship the God of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Almighty Dollar'; and I piped up, 'Right you are, uncle.' I was only a baby then." He added these last words reflectively, as if pondering on the reminiscence, and gained the object of his foolery--that she spoke.
"If you mean to tell me that you're fond of money, that's no news.