There was some constraint upon them both at first; and Max had had time to feel a momentary regret that he had been foolish enough to stay, when he was surprised to find the girl's eyes staring fixedly at a small parcel which he had taken from his coat-tail pocket and placed upon the table.
It was a paper of biscuits which he had brought from the public-house. He had forgotten them till that moment.
"I brought these for you—" he began.
And then, before he could add more, he was shocked by the avidity with which she almost snatched them from his hand.
"I—I'd forgotten!" stammered he.
It was an awful sight. The girl was hungry, ravenously hungry, and he had been chatting to her and talking about kisses when she was starving!
There was again a faint spot of color in her cheeks, as she turned her back to him and crouched on the hearth with the food.
"Don't look at me," she said, half laughing, half ashamed. "I suppose you've never been without food for two days!"
Max could not at first answer. He sat in one of the wooden chairs, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped, calling himself, mentally, all sorts of things for his idiotic forgetfulness.
"And to think," said he, at last, in a hoarse and not over-steady-voice, "that I dared to compare myself to a knight-errant!"