The fat men, occasionally calling to ask if he had caught anything, busied themselves with preparations for lunch. One of them made tremendous chopping sounds in the wood and furnished from time to time incommensurate supplies of fire-wood. Smoke arose and a kettle was slung.
Meanwhile Eve, cowering among the bushes, for all the world like her famous ancestress when the angel came to the garden, did not quite know what to do. She had only to lift her voice and explain, and the men would go away for a time. She felt sure of that. She had been brought up to believe in the exquisite chivalry of the plain American man.
But there was something about the four which repelled her, which stuck in her throat. She did not wish to be under any sort of obligation to any of them. And so she kept mousy-quiet, and turned over in her mind an immense number of worthless stratagems and expedients.
Have you ever tried to lie on the lawn under a tree and read for an hour or two—incased in all your buffer of clothes? Try it some time—without the buffers. Try it in the buff. And then imagine how comfortable Eve was on the island. Imagine how soft it felt to her elbows, for instance. And imagine to yourself, too, that it was not an uninhabited island—but one upon which an immense gray spider had made a home and raised a family.
From time to time the inept caster of flies returned to the camp-fire, always in answer to a boisterous summons from his friends. And after each visit, his leathery face became redder and his casting more absurd.
Finally his flies caught in a tree, his rod broke, and he abandoned the gentle art of angling for that time and place. Meanwhile steam ran from the kettle and mingled with the smoke of the fire. The sound of voices was incessant. Ten minutes later the gentlemen were served.
Midway of the meal, some of which was burnt black and some of which was quite raw, there was produced a thermos bottle as big as the leg of a rubber boot. And a moment later, icy-cold champagne was frothing and bubbling in tumblers.
In that high air, upon a thick foundation of raw whiskey, the brilliant wine of France had soon built a triumphant edifice, so that Eve, cold now, miserable, and frightened, felt that the time for an appeal to chivalry was long since past.
Far from their wives and constituents, the four politicians were obviously not going to stop short of complete drunkenness. Indeed, it was an opportunity hardly to be missed. For where else in the woods could nature be more exquisite, dignified, and inspiring?
It got so that Eve could no longer bear to watch them or to listen to them. Pink with shame, fury, hatred, and fear, she stuffed her fingers in her ears and hid her face.