fire must have been the first dissipater of loneliness in the days when a timorous humanity struggled with the beginnings of things, that the desire to dance must first have been stirred in the heart of man by the leaping of lambent flames, and that love as an art must have been begun by the warmth of glowing coals. Anyway, the sight of his fire and of Valerie sitting on a stump engrossed in it made him feel happier than he had done for some time.
He left her when the water began to hum and went in to set out the meal, leaving her to make the tea and bring it in. She saw the tent lit up with a lamp and his shadow moving like a grotesque on the wall. She felt very gay and alive.
He made no apology for the plainness of his food, for as he was going home the next day he had but remnants left. But Valerie never knew what she ate that evening. It was sufficient to eat with a man who had the air of presiding at a great feast.
“Ah, give me this any day before your satin couch civilization,” she said, looking round soon after they began.
“You think you despise the satin couches, don’t you? But what you really despise is the fact that they have been over-emphasized.”
“But I do despise them. I love the primitive for its own sake. The satin couch world is cluttered up with a lot of unessentials, such a lot of meaningless stuff.”
“There is meaning back of it. But the meaning has been obscured or perverted. You are the product of satin couches, even if you are a reaction against them. You would not appreciate this tent if you had not been brought up on satin. The primitive is fine for the nerves, but it is not stimulating to the modern mind. The caveman had a strong stomach but a poor imagination. It takes su-
