you have anywhere to go to
get dry, you do.

Of course the storm blew itself away when it had accomplished its
purpose of driving them from their island paradise, but they didn't go
back to it. Two weeks of camp-fires, hemlock boughs and blankets, had
given them an appreciation for sleeping between smooth sheets, and
coming down to a breakfast that was prepared for them. And one morning
Rose came into the big living-room to find Rodney lounging there, in
front of the fire, with a book.

It wasn't the first time he had done that. But always before, on seeing
her come in, he had chucked the book away and come to meet her. This
time, he went on reading.

She moved over toward him, meaning to sit down on the arm of his chair,
cuddle her arm around his neck, and at the same time, discover what it
was that so absorbed him. But half-way across the room, she changed her
mind. He hadn't even reached out an unconscious hand toward her. He went
on reading as if, actually, he were alone in the room. Evidently, too,
it was a book he'd brought with him--a formidable-looking volume printed
in German--she got near enough to see that. So she picked up an old
magazine from the table, and found a chair of her own, smiling a little
in anticipation of the effect this maneuver would have.

She opened the magazine at random, and, presently, for the sake of
verisimilitude, turned a page. Rodney was turning pages as regularly as
clockwork. It was a silly magazine! She wished she'd found something
that really could interest her. It was getting harder and harder to sit
still. He couldn't be angry about anything, could he? No, that was
absurd. There hadn't been the slightest trace of a disagreement between
them. She wouldn't go on pretending to read, anyhow, and she tossed the
magazine away.

She had meant it to fall back on the table. But she put more nervous
force than she realized into the toss, so that it skittered across the
table and fell on the floor with a slap.

That roused him. He closed his book--on his finger, though--looked
around at her, stretched his arms and smiled. "Isn't this great?" he
said.

It wasn't a sentiment she could echo quite whole-heartedly just then,
so she asked him what he meant--wasn't what great.

"Oh, this," he told her. "Being like this."

"Sitting half a mile apart this way," she asked, "each of us reading our
own book?"

She didn't realize how completely provocative her meaning was, until, to
he