The boy in the meantime produced unleavened loaves from the carry-all of sheepskin that hung over his shoulders, and without explanation disappeared among his flock.
Presently he returned with a small skin of milk.
"We have goats in the flock," he said.

"A shepherd can not live without a goat.

You do not know about shepherds," he added.
Laodice thought that she detected tactful inquiry in his last remark and roused herself painfully to make due explanations to her host.

But he waved his hands at her, with the desert-man's courtesy which covers fine points better than the greater ones.
"Eat my fare; I do not purchase thy history with salt and shelter," he said, with a certain sublimity of honor.
Momus ate, and looked with growing grace at his young host.

But Laodice succeeded only in drinking the goat's milk and lapsed into benumbed gazing at the red glow of fire that cast its warmth about her.