Miss Leslie gazed at her shapely hands. Three days since she could not have conceived of their being so rough and scratched and dirty. Yet her disgust at their condition was not entirely unqualified.
"At least I have something to show for them," she murmured.
"Just look at my hands--like a servant's! And yet I am not nearly so ashamed of them as I would have fancied. It is very amusing, but do you know, I actually feel proud that I have done something--something useful, I mean."
"Useful?--I call it shocking, Miss Genevieve. It is simply vile that people of our breeding should be compelled to do such menial work. They write no end of romances about castaways; but I fail to see the romance in scraping skins Indian fashion, as this fellow Blake calls it."
"I suppose, though, we should remember how much Mr. Blake is doing for us, and should try to make the best of the situation."
"It has no best. It is all a beastly muddle," complained Winthrope, and he resumed his nervous scraping at the big leopard skin.
The girl studied his face for a moment, and turned away. She had been trying so hard to forget.
He heard her leave, and called after, without looking up: "Please remember. He said to cook some meat."
She did not answer. Having satisfied her thirst at the spring, she took one of the bamboo rods, with its haggled blackening pieces of flesh, and returned to the fire. After some little experimenting, she contrived a way to support the rod beside the fire so that all the meat would roast without burning.
At first, keen as was her hunger, she turned with disgust from the flabby sun-seared flesh; but as it began to roast, the odor restored her appetite to full vigor. Her mouth fairly watered. It seemed as though Winthrope and Blake would never come. She heard their voices, and took the bamboo spit from the fire for the meat to cool. Still they failed to appear, and unable to wait longer, she began to eat. The cub meat proved far more tender than that of the old leopard. She had helped herself to the second piece before the two men appeared.
"Hold on, Miss Jenny; fair play!" sang out Blake. "You've set to without tooting the dinner-horn. I don't blame you, though. That smells mighty good."