"When I can get off the couch, I'll cook for you," I promised.
"I don't suppose you know anything about cooking."
"I can warm up things out of tins as well as you can," I retorted, pointing to a row of tins on the mantelpiece.
"Touché," he said, and laughed.
His whole face changed when he laughed. It became boyish, happy—a different personality.
I enjoyed my soup. As I ate it I reminded him that he had not, after all, tendered me his advice.
"Ah, yes, what I was going to say was this. If I were you I would stay quietly perdu here until you are quite strong again. Your enemies will believe you dead. They will hardly be surprised at not finding the body. It would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks and carried down with the torrent."
I shivered.
"Once you are completely restored to health, you can journey quietly on to Beira and get a boat to take you back to England."
"That would be very tame," I objected scornfully.
"There speaks a foolish schoolgirl."
"I'm not a foolish schoolgirl," I cried indignantly. "I'm a woman."
He looked at me with an expression I could not fathom as I sat up flushed and excited.
"God help me, so you are," he muttered, and went abruptly out.
My recovery was rapid. The two injuries I had sustained were a knock on the head and a badly wrenched arm. The latter was the most serious and, to begin with, my rescuer had believed it to be actually broken. A careful examination, however, convinced him that it was not so, and although it was very painful I was recovering the use of it quite quickly.
