"Now we're ready," he cried at last. "Quick, while they're hot, Lena!" His tone had changed entirely since the early morning; it was brisker now, but markedly civil and considerate. He proceeded to apologise for making use of her Christian name; it had slipped out, he said, without his thinking.
At this fresh evidence of his indifference, the girl forced a smile, and declared it did not matter.
"Surely we can still be friends," said she.
"Yes, friends in adversity!" he laughed. "Don't you feel as if we'd been wrecked together on a desert island? I do. But what do you think of the chops?"
"Very good for a desert island."
She was trying to adopt his tone; it was actually gay; and herein his degeneracy was more apparent to her than in anything that had gone before. He could not put himself in her place; the cruel dilemma that she was in, for his sake, seemed nothing to him; his solitary dog's life had deprived him of the power of feeling for another. And yet the thought of those boots outside in the sand contradicted this reflection; for he had put them on soon after her reappearance, thus showing her on whose account they had been taken off. Moreover, his next remark was entirely sympathetic.
"It's very rough on you," he said. "What do you mean to do?"
"I suppose I must go back to Melbourne."
"And then?"