But the stratagem failed to have effect. She was thinking of the apparent inexhaustibility of her own supply. Two nights before she had heard him go from the tent, and the next morning the ring which he usually wore on his finger was found in her sack. Moreover, the contents had seemed strangely increased. She saw it all now. The bag slipped from her fingers and she covered her face with her hands.
“I know!... I know now!” she burst out. “I’ve been eating your food as well as my own. You have been replenishing my supply from your own sack. All this time you’ve been famished with hunger, and you’ve let me go on eating—living on your hunger. Oh, God! don’t you see how mean I feel?” Then her eyes flashed and her tone changed. “But you had no right to do it. How dare you?”
“I guess I’d dare a lot of things for certain reasons. See here, you’ve bin through a hell of a lot up here, but you’ve never suffered hunger, and it wouldn’t be good for you, I’m thinking. Cold and frostbite is one thing, and hunger’s 265 another. There’s nothin’ like starvation to freeze up your heart. It’s like a red-hot iron inside, gittin’ redder and redder.... Shootin’ a starvin’ dog’s a mercy, I reckon.”
“Is it any worse for me than you?”
“Yep.”
With that dogmatic assertion he relapsed into silence. Angela flew to her own small supply of food and produced the requisities for a good meal. The mixture was soon spluttering over the fire, emitting odors almost unendurable to the hungry, watching Jim. Angela turned it out on to a plate.
“Come along,” she said.
“I told you——”
She went to him and put her arm round him.
“If you’ve any regard for me—if you want to make me happy, eat that.”