Dinner was served, and he fell to like a harvest hand. As he had
the habit, when he was very hungry, of stuffing his mouth far too
full for speech, she was free to carry out her little program of
encouraging talk and action. As she advanced from hesitating
compliment to flattery, to admiring glances, to lingering look,
she marveled at her facility. "I suppose ages and ages of dreadful
necessity have made it second nature to every woman, even the best
of us," reflected she. If he weren't a handsome, superior man she
might be finding it more difficult; also, no doubt the
surroundings, so romantic, so fitting as background for his
ruggedness, were helping her to dexterity and even enthusiasm.

It was amusing, how she deceived herself--for the harmless self-
deceptions of us chronic mummers are always amusing. The fact was,
this melting and inviting mood had far more of nature and
sincerity in it than there had been in her icy aloofness. Icy
aloofness, except in the heroines of aristocratic novels, is a
state of mind compatible only with extreme stupidity or with some
one of those organic diseases that sour the disposition. Never had
she been in such health as in that camp, never so buoyant, never
had merely being alive been so deliciously intoxicating; the
scratch he had made on her throat had healed in twenty-four hours,
had all but disappeared in seventy-two. Never had she known to
such a degree what a delight a body can be, the sense of its
eagerness to bring to the mind all the glorious pleasures of the
senses. Whatever disinclination she had toward him was altogether
a prompting of class education; now that she had let down the bars
and released feeling she was in heart glad he was there with her,
glad he was "such a MAN of a man."