They held on to each other. They were firmly decided that whatever happened they would not let go again. Whatever happened, it would in no wise affect the essential fact: "I am I. You are you. We accept each other. Agreed! There's no going back." It was a mutual gift, a tacit contract, a kind of soul marriage, much more efficacious than any external bond; neither written engagement, nor religious or civil sanction could outweigh it. And what did it matter that they were so different? It is a mistake to think that the best unions are founded on affinities,--or even on contrasts. They are founded on neither one nor the other, but on an inner act, on an "I have chosen, I wish, I vow," of good metal and solidly stamped with the mark of an inflexible dual decision, as in the case of these two girls with rounded foreheads. "I have you, and I am no more able to give you back than to take myself back. . . . Besides you are free to love whom you choose, to do what you please . . . you may commit any folly, even a little crime if you have to (I know that you won't! but just the same!)--it will not affect our pact in any way. . . ." Explain it who will! Scrupulous Annette, if she had dared to follow her thought to its conclusion, would have been forced to confess that she was not quite sure of Sylvie's moral worth or of her future actions. And clear-sighted Sylvie would not have staked her hand that Annette would not, some day, be capable of disconcerting acts. But this had to do with others, it did not concern them, the two of them. As for themselves, they were sure, they had an absolute confidence in each other. The rest of the world could manage its affairs as it pleased! No matter what either might do--since it could not affect their mutual love--they forgave everything in advance, with closed eyes. Perhaps it was not very moral, but what of that! They would have time to be moral on some other occasion. Annette who was a bit of a pedant, who knew life through books--which did not however keep her from discovering it later (for life has not quite the same ring when it is heard outside of books)--Annette remembered those beautiful verses of Schillers: "_Oh, my sons, the world is full of lies and of hatred; everyone loves himself alone; all bonds formed by a fragile happiness are insecure. . . . That which caprice has joined together, that will caprice put asunder. Nature alone is sincere, it alone rests upon unshakable anchors. All else floats at the will of stormy waves. . . . Inclination gives you a friend, interest a companion; happy is he to whom birth has given a brother. . . . Against this world of war and treachery, they are two to stand together_. . . ."