The instant paid them for all. For the last weeks' bitterness and the human doubt, the human misunderstandings that had made it. And even as it opened before them a path some corners and resting-places of which seemed almost too proud with living for them to dare to be alive on it--both knew that that fidelity which is intense and of the soul had ended between them forever an emptier arrogance that both had once delighted in like bright colors--a brittle pride that lives only by the falser things in being young. They had thought they were sure of each other in their first weeks together--they had said many words about it and some of them clever enough. But their surety now had no need of any words at all--it had been too well tempered by desolation to find any obligation for speech or the calling of itself secure. They kissed--not as a pleasant gesture, and no fear of looking publicly ridiculous stopped them. The screen door behind Nancy pushed open. Jane Ellen appeared, Jane Ellen, by the look of her, intent upon secret and doubtful business, a large moth-eaten bear dangling by its leg from one of her plump hands. She was too concerned with getting her charge through the door to notice what was happening at first but as soon as she was fairly out on the porch she looked about her. The bear dropped from her fingers--her eyes grew rounder than buttons and very large. “Why it's Oliver and he's kissing Aunt _Nancy_!” she squeaked in a small voice of reproachful surprise. XLIX Whatever the number was of the second-class stateroom on the _Citric_, it was rather too far down in the belly of that leviathan to have suited fashionable people. But Oliver and Nancy had stopped being fashionable some time before and they told each other that it was _much_ nicer than first-class on one of the small liners with apparent conviction and never got tired of rejoicing at their luck in its being an outside. It was true that the port-hole might most of the time have been wholly ornamental for all the good it did them, for it was generally splashed with grey October sea, but, at least, as Nancy lucently explained, you could see things--once there had actually been a porpoise--and that neither of them, in their present condition, would have worried very much about it if their cabin had been an aquarium was a fact beyond dispute. “Time to get up, dear!” This is Oliver a little sternly from the upper berth. “That was your bath that came in a minute ago and said something in Cockney. At least I _think_ it was--mine's voice is a good deal more like one of Peter's butlers--” “But, Ollie, I'm so _comfortable_!” “So am I. But think of breakfast.” “Well--breakfast is a point.” Then she chuckles, “Oh, Ollie, wouldn't it have been _awful_ if we'd either of us been bad sailors!” “We couldn't have been,” says Oliver placidly. “We have too much luck.”