“Not at all. The partridges do it, and suffer no grievous harm. I’ve done it often enough myself, and very rarely died of it. You don’t seem to understand the situation. Ambling along as we are, it’ll take us about a week to get to Innsbruck. At the moment, we are the proud possessors of some thirty-five marks. You pay four marks for a bed in a gasthaus, and we’ve still got to eat.”
She realized that the man in the corner was watching her curiously. It came to her that at all costs her dignity must leave that room untouched. The inexorable mathematics of Simon’s argument scarcely made any impression on her; she was in the grip of circumstances that were crushing her till she could have screamed, but she could not make a scene and bring herself down to the level she had just despised.
She stood up and went out without speaking, Simon following her. It had grown darker, and the twitter and chirp and rustle of night creatures was all around them as they entered the wood. Simon took the lead, humming. The spot the gamekeeper had described was near a tributary of the river they had recently quitted, a grassy hollow away from the footpath and a few feet above the stream. Simon’s expert eye appraised it and found no fault. He lowered his pack to the ground and began to unfasten it.
“Will you get some water while I make the fire?” he said.
He put the billy-can down beside her and went off to gather dry logs. In a very short time he had kindled a cheerful blaze, and she huddled gratefully up to it, for it had turned colder after the sun went down. Simon took bread, eggs, and butter from his rucksack, and picked up the billy. It was empty.
“I asked you to get some water,” he said.
She raised her sullen eyes to him over the fire.
“I’m not a servant,” she said.
“Neither am I,” said the Saint quietly. “You’ll do your share or go hungry — whichever you prefer.”
The girl struggled to her feet.