She cast her eyes upon the ground and half turned away. "I do,"
she said, "yet I am happy here. I could be little happier there."
Bradley stood in silent thought. "`We have food and good water
and peace and each other!'" he repeated to himself. He turned
then and looked at the girl, and it was as though in the days
that they had been together this was the first time that he
had really seen her. The circumstances that had thrown them
together, the dangers through which they had passed, all the
weird and horrible surroundings that had formed the background of
his knowledge of her had had their effect--she had been but the
companion of an adventure; her self-reliance, her endurance, her
loyalty, had been only what one man might expect of another, and
he saw that he had unconsciously assumed an attitude toward her
that he might have assumed toward a man. Yet there had been a
difference--he recalled now the strange sensation of elation that
had thrilled him upon the occasions when the girl had pressed his
hand in hers, and the depression that had followed her announcement
of her love for An-Tak.
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