"But," she continued more seriously, "this has nothing to do with
you, of course, nor me, for that matter, and I was trying to tell
you how hungry--how hatefully hungry I was, and I couldn't beg,
could I, and so--and so I--I--"
"You came back," said I.
"I came back."
"Being hungry."
"Famishing!"
"Three pounds, fifteen shillings, and--sevenpence is not a great
sum," said I, "but perhaps it will enable you to reach your family."
"I'm afraid not; you see I have no family."
"Your friends, then."
"I have no friends; I am alone in the world."
"Oh!" said I, and turned to stare down into the brook, for I
could think only that she was alone and solitary, even as I,
which seemed like an invisible bond between us, drawing us each
nearer the other, whereat I felt ridiculously pleased that this
should be so.
"No," said Charmian, still intent upon the twig, "I have neither
friends nor family nor money, and so being hungry--I came back
here, and ate up all the bacon."
"Why, I hadn't left much, if I remember."
"Six slices!"
Now, as she stood, half in shadow, half in moonlight, I could not
help but be conscious of her loveliness. She was no pretty
woman; beneath the high beauty of her face lay a dormant power
that is ever at odds with prettiness, and before which I felt
vaguely at a loss. And yet, because of her warm beauty, because
of the elusive witchery of her eyes, the soft, sweet column of
the neck and the sway of the figure in the moonlight--because she
was no goddess, and I no shepherd in Arcadia, I clasped my hands
behind me, and turned to look down into the stream.
"Indeed," said I, speaking my thought aloud, "this is no place
for a woman, after all."
"No," said she very softly.
"No--although, to be sure, there are worse places."
"Yes," said she, "I suppose so."
"Then again, it is very far removed from the world, so that a
woman must needs be cut off from all those little delicacies and
refinements that are supposed to be essential to her existence."
"Yes," she sighed.
"Though what," I continued, "what on earth would be the use of
a--harp, let us say, or a pair of curling-irons in this wilderness,
I don't know."