Millicent sat silent for a few moments. She knew, to her sorrow, one man who did not improve the more one saw of him, and that was the man she had tacitly agreed to marry. She could not tell why she had done so--she had somehow drifted into it. Interest, family associations, a feeling that could best be described as liking, even pity, had played their part in influencing her, and now she realized that she could not honorably draw back when he formally claimed her. She laughed as one of the packers who had a good voice broke into a song. "That's the climax; it needs only the cockney accent to make the thing complete," she said. "When I was last in London, one heard that silly jingle everywhere. I suppose it's a triumph of the music-halls." "Or of modern civilization--a rendering of distance of no account," suggested Carew. "There's a good deal to be said for the latter achievement, as we are discovering." "Distance," declared Bella, "still counts for something here. I've been thinking about Jim all day; imagining him dragging his canoe through the timber beyond those hills, and wondering whether he'd find us when he got to the other side." "She has been doing more," her husband broke in. "Though she hasn't confessed it, she has been looking out for him ever since this morning. In fact, I discovered that our cook is keeping a supper ready that would satisfy four or five men." Bella turned to Millicent with a smile. "Do you think the meal will be wasted?" she asked. "No; I can hardly believe it." "Mark the assurance of that answer," commented Carew. "A man couldn't feel it; it's irrational. Miss Gladwyne speaks with a certainty that our guide will come, though she has nothing to base her calculations on--she doesn't know the distance or the difficulties of the way." "What does that matter?" Bella retorted. "She knows the man." Carew made a grimace. "A woman's reasoning. As we've nothing better to do, I'll try to show the absurdity of it. A man, so far as he concerns this discussion, consists of a certain quantity of bones, with muscles and tendons capable of setting them in motion--" "Be careful," Bella warned him. "It's safer to avoid these details. Besides, you're leaving something out; I don't mean the nerve-cells, but the inner personality, whatever it is, that commands them." "I'm trying to show that, as a mechanical structure, he is capable of moving his own weight and so much extra a limited distance in a given time, so long as he can secure the necessary food and sleep. Neither the weight nor the distance can be increased except by an effort which, if continued, will soon reduce them below their former level." Bella laughed. "Yes," she said, "that's how you reason--mechanically. We're different."