Part 4 (2/2)
”Myself, and you.”
”Why, pray, am I amusing?” Then she was sorry she had said it.
”Because you are you.”
”And are you other than yourself?” she asked scornfully.
”Not at all, but my own particular interests seem infinitely more important to me than there is any possibility of yours doing.”
”You mean to say that you are an egotist.”
”Frankly, I am,” he agreed. ”One is an egotist, I suppose, when he finds himself and his needs and whims essentially worth while. I'll admit I find mine so. Perhaps you feel the same about yours. One scarcely knows where egotism and vanity meet or end in a woman.” He smiled, for he meant that to provoke, and it did.
Claire's voice was edged when she replied. ”A very penetrating remark.
With men generally, vanity seems to be a widely extended cloak to spread over all things in a woman that they cannot dispose of in any other way.
If I find you dull, or if I am not struck with your ability, or if you do not seem to me sufficiently fascinating, I am possessed of feminine vanity.”
”Precisely. And why not? If I choose to regard myself as all those things which you deny, why shouldn't I find the fault in you rather than in myself?”
”Because it may be in you,” suggested Claire.
”It may, but that doesn't alter the case. I quite agree that you are right, but none the less you are at fault, because I, Lawrence, am the most important of all things to me.”
She did not answer. The conversation seemed to her useless. She saw no reason for arguing the matter, and she half suspected that he was simply teasing her. Besides, she could not but feel that to sit here in his coat and discuss egotism was a trifle ridiculous. He was merely trying to establish a friends.h.i.+p in talk which she did not care to encourage.
That was her conclusion.
As he rose to gather more sticks, he asked: ”Do you happen to see a rock that flattens to an edge?”
Told where he might find one, he brought it and struck it hard against their boulder. It did not break. ”It may do,” he said thoughtfully, and began to grind it against the side of the other rock. He worked steadily and long, and the result was a fairly good edge, which was nicked and toothed, but still an edge. He laid it down with a sigh of contentment.
”My first tool,” he commented.
CHAPTER IV.
MUTUAL DISLIKE.
All day Lawrence worked, and when night came he had hollowed out a piece of log to a depth of some eighteen inches, leaving six inches of solid wood in the bottom. Both were very well pleased with the result. With the coming of darkness, he gathered more berries, and heated water in his log kettle. They were able to cook the mushrooms and to bind her ankle in moss soaked in hot water. The building of a shelter was discussed, but both decided to resume their journey on the following day, so they slept again in the heavy moss.
In the morning, Claire was glad indeed of the hot water, for it warmed her, and her ankle felt much better. They decided to follow the little stream which would doubtless wind its way somehow around the present ridge back to the ocean. Accordingly, they kept down the ravine, which cut across the ridge in a southerly direction.
For the whole of that day and the next they followed the stream, which grew to a small creek. At noon of the third day they dropped suddenly down a steep slope to find themselves at the juncture of their stream, with a river which flowed through a deep gorge out to the ocean. They determined to follow it up toward its head.
”Somewhere inland must be a town,” argued Claire. ”At any rate, it's the only way we can go.”
After living for four days on berries, they were beginning to feel acutely the need of other food, but they discussed the problem at length without arriving at any feasible solution. Two days later fortune temporarily relieved their difficulty.
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