“I want some food,” said Jane, succinctly. “Do you?”
“I’m not very hungry. What are you going to get?”
“Well, if there’s enough wood there to fix up the fire a little, I could make some cocoa. It’s awfully cold in here.”
Paul picked up a stout log and flung it onto the smouldering ashes, and in a few moments, a bright flame crackled up, sending its ruddy light into every corner of the room.
Everyone is familiar with the exquisite feeling of sympathy, which food, produced at just the right moment, can excite between the most hostile natures, and over their cups of cocoa, Jane and Paul, who had never been really hostile, began to see each other in a new light. For the first time they talked with unguarded friendliness, and gradually Paul became more confiding, and Jane listened with her usual eager interest.
At first he talked about his life with his father, his wanderings, and strange adventures, without however, the least exaggeration or the braggadocio with which he had teased and disgusted Carl. It was not strange that Jane, who had never seen any part of the world save the few square miles of earth, bounded by the hills of Frederickstown, listened to his stories of foreign seas and foreign lands as if she were bewitched.
Never before had Paul talked to any of them about himself or his past life; loquaciousness on any subject was not one of his characteristics and concerning his own affairs he had been particularly reticent; but now it was as if he could no longer smother down all that was pent up within him. In the presence of his sympathetic listener, his words now fairly tumbled over each other, and his face grew tight and weird with earnestness and enthusiasm.
At length Jane asked him,
“You don’t want to live here and take over the business after all, do you?”
“Ah, Janey, what kind of a baker would I make?” responded Paul, smiling half-sadly.