"Well, selfishness in its etymological sense is only another word for self-preservation, or, at any rate, an extension of that principle. Were you to sit down and weep over the loss of your friends until some obliging barbarian should come up and put an end to you? I think the pluck you showed throughout was wonderful, and not less so the soundness of judgment. When you found poor Hollingworth's youngster so badly hurt, didn't you sit there and look after him at momentary risk of your life until he died, poor little chap? Selfish? I call it by another name, and so will other people when we get safely out of this." Nidia smiled, rather sadly, and shook her head. "Leave _you_ alone for trying to flatter me," she said softly. "You have been doing nothing else ever since we have been together. But--you don't really think me unfeeling and hard-hearted, Mr Ames?" He turned quickly, for he had been looking out over the surrounding waste. "That isn't what you called me the first time in Shiminya's kraal," he said. "What? Unfeeling and hard-hearted. No. Why should I?" she rejoined demurely, but brimming with mischief. Then, as he looked hurt, "Don't be angry. I'm only teasing, as usual. Really, though, I ought to apologise for that slip. But the name came out without my knowing it. You see, Susie and I used always to call you by it between ourselves. We saw it in the book at Cogill's the day we arrived, written in a hand that seemed somehow to stand out differently from among all the others. At first, when we were trying to locate the people there, we used to wonder which was `John Ames,' and so we got into the habit of calling you that way by ourselves. And in my mingled scare and surprise the other day, out it came." "We have been through a good deal together during the last four days," he said, "including one of the narrowest shaves for our lives we can ever possibly again experience. Heaven knows how long we are destined to roam the wilds together, but why not keep the conventional until our return to conventionality?" "Very well," she answered.