So soundly had he slept that his senses returned but slowly. At last he guessed what had happened. She had risen with the dawn, and, conquering her natural feeling of repulsion, selected from the store he accumulated yesterday some more suitable garments than those in which she escaped from the wreck.
He quietly took stock of his own tattered condition, and passed a reflective hand over the stubble on his chin. In a few days his face would resemble a scrubbing-brush. In that mournful moment he would have exchanged even his pipe and tobacco-box--worth untold gold--for shaving tackle. Who can say why his thoughts took such trend? Twenty-four hours can effect great changes in the human mind if controlling influences are active.
Then came a sharp revulsion of feeling. His name was Robert--a menial. He reached for his boots, and Iris heard him.
"Good morning," she cried, smiling sweetly. "I thought you would never awake. I suppose you were very, very tired. You were lying so still that I ventured to peep at you a long time ago."
"Thus might Titania peep at an ogre," he said.
"You didn't look a bit like an ogre. You never do. You only try to talk like one--sometimes."
"I claim a truce until after breakfast. If my rough compliment offends you, let me depend upon a more gentle tongue than my own--
"'Her Angel's face As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place.'
"Those lines are surely appropriate. They come from the _Faerie Queene_."
"They are very nice, but please wash quickly. The eggs will be hard."
"Yes; I made a collection among the trees. I tasted one of a lot that looked good. It was first-rate."
He had not the moral courage to begin the day with a rebuke. She was irrepressible, but she really must not do these things. He smothered a sigh in the improvised basin which was placed ready for him.
Miss Deane had prepared a capital meal. Of course the ham and biscuits still bulked large in the bill of fare, but there were boiled eggs, fried bananas and an elderly cocoanut. These things, supplemented by clear cold water, were not so bad for a couple of castaways, hundreds of miles from everywhere.
For the life of him the man could not refrain from displaying the conversational art in which he excelled. Their talk dealt with Italy, Egypt, India. He spoke with the ease of culture and enthusiasm. Once he slipped into anecdote _à propos_ of the helplessness of British soldiers in any matter outside the scope of the King's Regulations.