"No, thanks," said Lister. "Do you think I'm going to let you pull me up?"
"Why not?" she asked with a twinkle.
"To begin with, I'm obstinate and don't mean to be beaten by a bit of greasy rock. Then I expect I'm heavier than you think."
"You're ridiculously proud. It would hurt to let a girl help," Barbara rejoined. "After all, you're a conventionalist, and I rather thought you were not."
"Anyhow, I'm going up myself," Lister declared.
He got up, but his clothes gathered some slime from the rock and his skin was stained by soil and moss. Barbara looked at him with a twinkle.
"Your obstinacy cost you something," she remarked. "If you're tired, you had better stop and smoke."
Lister lighted a cigarette. She had been rather keen about rejoining the others, but he thought she had forgotten. Barbara's carelessness gave her charm. Perhaps he ought to go on, but he meant to take the extra few minutes luck had given him.
"I'm really sorry I forgot about your boots and brought you up the rock," she said.
"I wonder why you did bring me up?"