"And he's crazy after the spoil out yonder." "The Highlander again. It is, as you say, perhaps just as well you do not care for it, or you might have quarrelled." "He is welcome to it all as far as I am concerned." "I am of his country. I can understand how he feels. It is the old riever spirit in him finding its opportunity." XXVIII He was vitally conscious of her proximity to him as they paced through the soft sand towards the raft. The sight of her pink toes popping in and out from under her blanket-skirt quickened his blood. He knew without looking when she glanced round at him now and again, as when he had asked her name. He had not thought that the feeling of a woman's eyes upon him could stir him to such an extent, no matter how wonderful they might be in their depths of eloquent darkness. He knew all about women,--physically, organically, professionally, and still held woman in reverence. Experience had taught him also that in reality he and his fellows knew very little about them beyond merest surface indications,--that there were in most women, perhaps in all, deeps beyond man's sounding, heights beyond his attainment,--a general elusiveness mysteriously comprehensive of feelings, instincts, passions, emotions, nerves, moods, humours, vapours, which a wise man accepted without expecting ever fully to understand. That this shapely girl in her swathed blankets should affect him to such an extent that he was actually conscious of a superb new joy in living, of an absolute rejuvenescence, of a vitalising of all his energies, was a very great surprise to him. He could feel the blood running redder in his veins. His heart beat more briskly than it had done since he landed on the island. But after three months of nothing but Macro and rabbits and screaming birds, it was not to be wondered at after all, he reasoned to himself. Life had been running on a low level. There had been nothing to lift them above the mere satisfaction of their bodily necessities. Eating, sleeping, getting through the days had sufficed them. And here, into that rough husk of a life, had suddenly come a soul, to animate them both to higher things, even though it were no more than the ministering to her more delicate necessities. Even Macro was feeling it, and was toiling out yonder, not for himself but for her. Without doubt life was immensely more worth living than it had been two days ago. It was a joy even to cook for her, though he had always detested the preparation of food. To know beforehand what one was going to eat was sufficient to reduce one's appetite. To superintend a meal through all its stages, from raw to ready, put anything beyond the mere filling of an internal void out of the question. But cooking for himself and cooking for her were matters of very different complexion, and he found himself considering culinary enterprises which surprised him greatly.