CHAPTER XXII
"WHAT ETERNAL CHILDREN WE ARE"
"So you are really going to condescend to know us again," said Hensham.
Dick moved his head irritably. He did not want to be disturbed. This warm peace which flowed through and over every part of him was not a thing which a man parts with lightly. He lay there in an absolute acceptance of contented inertia. Why not? Why not? Dimly he knew that long ago he had submitted body and soul to some great suffering—the fires of hell of the crushing bergs of the Pole. He did not remember which; and it did not matter. They had beaten and refined the evil out of him, and he had come through to some place of laughter and golden sunshine where Tempest was, young and bright-eyed and thrilling still with his ideals; and where Jennifer was, with sweet eyes, no longer red, but merry, and lips that kissed his eyelids until he saw all things new and beautiful, and that kissed his mouth until he laughed from sheer light-hearted gladness.
Something was disturbing him in that world now, and it made him angry. He set his teeth against the hard thing which continued to thrust into itself his mouth, and at last in suddenly roused wrath he spoke to it.
"Get out of my mouth," he said; and then the hot broth took its swift way down his throat, and his eyes flashed open.
"Ah!" he said, and Hensham laughed as he refilled the spoon.
"Guess that's the proper persuader," he said. "But you must go slow, Heriot. If there's any belief in the divine luck of occurrence you didn't come to our wood-camp to peter out now. But you're weak. Heavens, man, you are weak."
Dick did not care what Hensham thought. He went
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