"Hello!" he said. "Haven't you been asleep?"
For reply she pointed silently through the tree trunks to the rosy East.
He got to his feet, shaking himself, rubbed his eyes sleepily, and took from her hand the dead branch which she was dragging to the fire. Between them they awoke Cleofonte, who lumbered to his feet and stared about with bleary eyes.
"Bon giorno, Signora—Signor. I have slept—oh, what sleep! Luigi! Up with you. Dio! It is already day."
Immediately the camp was in commotion. The Signora descended from the wagon, and with Hermia's help prepared the breakfast while Stella held the baby. By sunrise the gray horse was hitched to the shafts of the wagon, the bear hitched to its tail and the travelers were on their way—the contents of one's valise is on one's back in Vagabondia. Cleofonte had invited Hermia to sit with him upon the seat of the wagon, but she had refused and taken her place by Markham's side behind Clarissa, who, quite peacefully, followed in the trail of Tomasso, the bear.
In this order the procession moved forward into the golden wake of the morning. Hermia was in a high humor—joyous, sparkling, satirical by turns. If yesterday she had found a talent for living, to-day it seemed the genius for joy had gotten into her veins. Her mood was infectious, and Markham found himself carried along on its tide, aware that she was drawing him by imperceptible inches from his shell, accepting his aphorisms in one moment that she might the more readily pick them to pieces in the next. He couldn't understand her, of course. She hadn't intended that he should, and this made the game so much the more interesting for them both. He didn't mind her tearing his dignity to taters—and this she did with a thoroughness which surprised him, but he discarded the rags of it with an excellent grace, meeting her humor with a gayety which left nothing to be desired.
"O Philidor!" she cried. "What a delusion you are!"
"Me? Why?"
"Your gravity, your dignity, your wise saws and maxims—your hatred of women."
"Oh, I say."