She put off lunch nearly an hour; but he did not come, did not reappear until dinner was waiting.  “I’ve been over to town,” he explained, “doing a lot of telegraphing that was necessary.”  He was in vast spirits, delighted with himself, volubly boastful, so full of animal health and life and of joy in the prospect of food and sleep that mental worries were as foreign to him as to the wild geese flying overhead.

He snuffed the air in which the odor of cooking was mingled deliciously with the odor of the pines.  “If they don’t hurry up dinner,” said he, “I’ll rush in and eat off the stove.  We used to at home sometimes.  It’s great fun.”

She smiled tolerantly.  “I’ve missed you,” said she, and she was telling herself that this statement of a literal truth was the quintessence of hypocritical cajolery.  “You might have taken me along.”

He gave her a puzzled look.  “Oh,” said he finally, “you’ve been thinking over what I said.”

This was disconcerting; but she contrived to smile with winning frankness.  “Yes,” replied she.  “I’ve been very wrong, I see.”  She felt proud of the adroitness of this—­an exact truth, yet wholly misleading.

His expression told her that he was congratulating himself on his wisdom and success in having given her a sharp talking to; that he was thinking it had brought her to her senses, had restored her respect for him, had opened the way for her love for him to begin to show itself—­that love which he so firmly believed in, egotist that he was!  Could anything be more infuriating?  Yet—­after all, what difference did it make, so long as he yielded?  And once she had him enthralled, then—­ah, yes—­then!  Meanwhile she must remember that the first principle of successful deception is self-deception, and must try to convince herself that she was what she was pretending to be.

Dinner was served, and he fell to like a harvest hand.  As he had the habit, when he was very hungry, of stuffing his mouth far too full for speech, she was free to carry out her little program of encouraging talk and action.  As she advanced from hesitating compliment to flattery, to admiring glances, to lingering look, she marveled at her facility.  “I suppose ages and ages of dreadful necessity have made it second nature to every woman, even the best of us,” reflected she.  If he weren’t a handsome, superior man she might be finding it more difficult; also, no doubt the surroundings, so romantic, so fitting as background for his ruggedness, were helping her to dexterity and even enthusiasm.

It was amusing, how she deceived herself—­for the harmless self-deceptions of us chronic mummers are always amusing.  The fact was, this melting and inviting mood had far more of nature and sincerity in it than there had been in her icy aloofness.  Icy aloofness, except in the heroines of aristocratic novels, is a state of mind compatible only with extreme stupidity or with some one of those organic diseases