"I don’t say I know what to make of it. I’m not at all sure that we’re obliged to explain that sort of thing unless we’re scientists or psychologists. It seems to me that when beauty and comfort flash on us at a time of great need, we’re at liberty to take them for what they seem to be, even if we don’t understand them." As his hand lay on the arm of the chair, Jennie kissed it again and again. It was the first spontaneous affection she had ever shown him, and, though it moved him with a stirring strange and fundamental, he felt that with the awesome things so fresh in their minds, the time had not yet come to respond to it. It was one more impulse to gather force by being restrained a little longer. "It isn’t as if this thing stood alone. A great many people have had experiences like it. They may be no more than fancy, just as some people say; but I do know this: that by what he saw Teddy was helped to do what he had to do, and that for me—" "Yes, Bob," Gladys pleaded. "What was it for you?" "Something real—and assuring—and beautiful—and comforting—and glorious." He uttered the words slowly, as if selecting his terms. "More than that," he went on, "it was something that’s given me a happiness I can’t describe but which I should like to share with you—which perhaps I shall be able to share with you—as we get to know one another better—and time goes on." The little snub-nosed face, something like Pansy’s, was lifted to him adoringly. "Are we going to be your very own, Bob?" "Yes, Gladys, my very own." CHAPTER XXIX "How can we be your very own when—you don’t know anything about _me_?" Gussie and Gladys had gone up to get some sleep. Jennie was crouched, not against the arm of the chair, as before, but against Bob’s knee. Still pressing back the instincts of his passion, he did no more than let his hand rest lightly on her hair. "I know this much about you, Jennie—that after all we’ve gone through we’re welded together. Nothing can separate us now—no past—nor anything you could tell me." "Is that why you don’t want to know?" "I don’t want to know _now_. That’s all I’m saying. Things are settled for us. They’re settled and sealed. It’s what we get out of so much that’s terrible, that we don’t have to debate that point any more. We may have to adapt ourselves to conditions we don’t know anything about as yet—but it will be a matter of adapting, not of cutting loose. What should I be if I were to cut loose from you and the girls now, Jennie? What should you be if you were to cut loose from me?" She pressed her cheek against his knee. "We’d die," she said, simply. "So there you are! I know what you mean. I’d die, too. That is, we mightn’t die outwardly; but something would be so killed in us that we’d never be really alive again. So why try to pull apart what life has soldered into one?" "But you don’t _know_!"