He did not try to make Jean understand what it meant to be in camp with the company of a woman for the first time in two years.

Long after the tents were up and the birch-fire was crackling cheerfully in the darkness Josephine still remained in her tent.

But the mere fact that she was there lifted Philip's soul to the skies.
And Josephine, with a blanket drawn about her shoulders, lay in the thick gloom of her tent and listened to him.

His far-reaching, exuberant whistling seemed to warm her.

She heard him laughing and talking with Jean, whose voice never came to her; farther back, where he was cutting down another birch, she heard him shout out the words of a song between blows; and once, sotto voce, and close to her tent, she quite distinctly heard him say "Damn!" She knew that he had stumbled with an armful of wood, and for the first time in that darkness and her misery she smiled.