"Oh, I wish we could have supper," she fretted. "I'm so fed up with this place. Sard, have we got to stay here all night? It's getting dark. Oh! I wish the Bunch would come along. I'm tired of old people!" There was no doubt but that the Bunch were coming; the catcalls, the yelps of laughter and frantic strumming of instruments came nearer and nearer. Watts, sitting idly on the bank watching Sard and Colter set out the supper, winced once or twice. There was something blatant and raw in the voices of the girls that even at that distance suggested squalid things. The great lawyer had heard maudlin women under many circumstances. Watts, like many another professional man, knew that there was nothing more awful in its debauchery and spiritual nakedness than a civilized woman under drugs or loose emotion. "What are these girls like?" he inquired sharply of Sard. The girl for a moment did not answer; Minga giggled. "Like Paprika and Chutney," she burst into a half-laugh, looking meaningly at Sard. "Sounds a good deal like one of Cinny's jags; now where would she get anything----" "Hush." The other girl's worried look stopped Minga. But the rebuke in it seemed to nettle the restless little creature, who jumped to her feet stamping her foot. "Oh, I'm half dead with this old place," said Minga. "I'm cold, too. I'm going to explore the forest; want to come?" looking over her shoulder at Shipman. At his smiling negative, Minga pouted. "All right, then I'll go by myself." She made as if to burst through the wall of swamp-maples, looking tantalizingly back at the lawyer; but Colter, glancing up, interfered. "There are bogs around here," he warned, "quick-sands; one can't go very far without trouble." Minga, shaking her head, started forward, half laughing back at the two men who with concern watched her. "Catch me if you can, anybody," she called to them. "I'm the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I'm Marco Polo, I'm going to explore, I tell you. Who follows?" One of the most interesting things of the decade is that the coolest, most blasé girl of the time will under the right combination of circumstances play exactly the same game of sex that all her cave ancestors played before her. Minga, the emancipated, the independent and wilful, the haughty and undisciplined, was now courting a very special thrill, the old cave-woman thrill of expectancy to be captured and mastered. Modern women of maturer age realize that in asserting their superiority in general biological ascent they are losing this thrill. It is extremely edifying to study the devices by which they seek to experience while they theoretically disclaim it; a sort of eat-your-cake-and-have-it idea that must necessarily result in some very queer psychoses.