Bob advanced slowly, examining the numbers of the houses, many of which were lacking. Seventeen, Fifteen, and Thirteen were, however, over their doors, so that he was duly prepared for Eleven. "I’ll know by the first look in his eyes," she kept saying to herself, "whether he’s sorry he married me or not." As he passed number Thirteen she got up from the arm of the big chair on which she had been perched, and found she could hardly stand. It was all she could do to creep into the entry and open the front door. When he turned into the little cement strip leading up to it, she shrank back into the shadow. He was abreast of the two hydrangea trees before he saw her. When he did so he stood still. It seemed to her that an unreckonable time went by before a smile stole to his lips, and when it did it was wavering, flickering, more poignant than no smile at all. Her inner comment was: "Yes; he’s sorry. Now I know." Pride, another new force in her character, made of her a woman with a will, as she added, "I must help him to get out of it—somehow." But Pansy, sensing a nimbus of good will as imperceptible to Jennie as the pervasive scent of the summer, lilted down the steps, raised her forepaws against his shin, and gazed up into his face adoringly. CHAPTER XXIII It was a help to Bob Collingham that his first glance at Jennie decided his attitude for the near future. Whatever his doubts and questionings, he could add nothing to the trials she had to face. Whatever she had done, whatever the net of circumstances in which she had been caught, he must act as if, as far as he himself was concerned, he was satisfied. Whether she loved him or whether she didn’t, or whether her duties as a model had or had not made her indifferent to considerations to which most people were sensitive, were questions that must be postponed. This conviction, which flashed on him as he saw her shrinking in the entry, was confirmed when he felt her crumpled in his arms, relieved by his presence and yet frightened by the new conditions which it wrought. It was the same dependent but rebellious little Jennie, clinging to him and yet trying to slip away from him. It was as if she begged for a love which the perversity of her tortured little heart wouldn’t allow her to accept. Very well then; he must measure it out to her a little at a time, as you fed a sick person or a starving man, till she got used to it. When she was stronger and he more at peace with himself, they could tackle the personal problems between them. So, when she struggled from his arms, he let her go, following her into the living-room.