"I'm so hungry," she said. "Do you think they'll taste good?"
He did not answer. She could not but be impressed by the deftness with which he split and boned the fish, and the invention he displayed in evolving cooking utensils out of shells and sticks.
"You know," he said suddenly, "this fire must never go out. This will be your job. Sort of vestal-virgin idea."
The charge made her nervous. The responsibility was serious. During one of his absences she began to think the flame was dying down. She put in a stick. It blazed too quickly. A crash followed and one of the fish disappeared into the fire.
After a time she managed to drag it out, black and sandy. She dreaded his return. How could she make clear to him that it had not been her fault? She decided on a comic manner. Holding it up by the tail, she smiled at him. "Doesn't that look delicious?" she asked gayly.
His brow darkened. "All right, if you like them that way," he returned.
"Don't you think the other is large enough for two?"
His answer was to remove the other from the fire and to eat it himself.
Miss Wilbur watched him to the end, and then she could contain herself no longer. She had been extremely hungry.