"Ah, look up at the heavens! And we two alone. Is this not best, after all? Was I not right?"
"Perhaps," he answered after a pause. "It is good, at all events."
"To-morrow we will explore; and when this place tires us—but my lord has not praised it yet—"
"Must I make speeches?"
"No. When this place tires us, we will strike camp and travel up through the pass. It may be we shall find boatmen on the upper waters, and a canoe. But for some days, O my love, let these only woods be enough for us!"
Their dessert of fruit eaten, she arose and turned to the business of washing-up. He would have helped; but she mocked him, having hidden his shoes. "You are to rest quiet, and obey!"
Before setting to work she brought him coffee and a roll of tobacco-leaf, and held a burning stick for him while he lit and inhaled.
For twenty minutes, perhaps, he watched her, stretched on the rock, resting on his elbow, his hunger appeased, his whole frame fatigued, but in a delicious weariness, as in a dream.
Far down the valley the full moon thrust a rim above the massed oaks and hemlocks. It swam clear, and he called to her to come and watch it.
She did not answer. She had slipped away to the house—as he supposed to restore the plates to their shelves. Apparently it took her a long while. . . . He called again to her.