John stood looking at me blankly.
"You savee, John?" said I, showing him one of the canvasbacks, and he
remarked mildly, "All litee." If anything, his lunch was better than
his breakfast, and when I saw him take Jimmy's funny little turtle
from him and examine it with appraising eye, I felt fairly well
convinced that we should not suffer at the dinner hour.
But though a certain gaiety now came to others of the party as we sat
about our midday meal, warm now and well fed, and although the boys
excitedly made plans about putting up the tent and furnishing it and
going into camp for the winter, I could not share their eagerness.
There was one other reticent figure at our fireside. Helena sat
silent, the head of Partial in her lap. I felt resentment that she
should steal from me even my dog. At last, having nothing better to
do, I picked up my gun, and slipping on my coat, started down the
beach, telling the boys that I was going alone, perhaps too far for
them to follow, with the purpose of making some sort of an exploration
of the island.
Moody and depressed, not in the least well satisfied with life, even
with matters thus so far more fortunate than we had so recently had
reason to expect, I walked along the hard sand, sometimes looking at
the long lines of wild fowl streaming in above the fresh-water lagoon,
but in reality thinking but little of these. I did not at first hear
the light step which came behind me on the sand.