Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/45

 While he sat thus, thinking, the girl awoke and with a merry laugh addressed him.

“Good morning,” said Waldo quite severely.

He wished that he could speak her language, so that he could convey to her a suggestion of the disapprobation which he felt for her attire.

He was on the point of attempting it by signs, when she rose, lithe and graceful as a tigress, and walked to the river’s brim. With a deft movement of her fingers she loosed the thong that held her single garment, and as it fell to the ground Waldo, with a horrified gasp, turned upon his face, burying his tightly closed eyes in his hands.

Then the girl dived into the cool waters for her matutinal bath.

She called to him several times to join her, but Waldo could not look at the spectacle presented; his soul was scandalized.

It was some time after she emerged from the river before he dared risk a hesitating glance. With a sigh of relief he saw that she had donned her single garment, and thereafter he could look at her unashamed when she was thus clothed. He felt that by comparison it constituted a most modest gown.

Together they strolled along the river’s edge, gathering such fruits and roots as the girl knew to be edible. Waldo Emerson gathered those she