"She won"t have to hear about Teddy," Gussie wept. "That"s a comfort, anyhow."
Gladys laid her head against Bob"s breast.
"No; but Teddy"ll have to hear about her."
Bob saw the opportunity. "No, Gladys; Teddy will not have to hear about her." He let this sink in. "Teddy-_knows_."
It was some seconds before Jennie and Gussie released his hands and Gladys let go his lapel. When they did they moved away silently. Gussie dropped on her knees at the arm of a big chair, bowing her head, and crying quietly. Jennie, a slim figure with hands behind her back, walked down the length of the room, staring at the curtained window toward Indiana Avenue. Gladys stood off, looking at Bob, nodding her head sagely, as she said:
"I thought that"s what it meant when he didn"t want us to come. He liked it better without saying good-by. So we all do." She gave a big, sudden sob, controlling herself as suddenly. "We"re going to carry on, Bob.
We"re not going to show the white feather"-there was another big sob, with another successful effort to keep it back-"we"re not going to show the white feather-any of us-just to please you."
"Thank you, Gladys. It will please me. But there"s something that pleases me more. I"d like to tell all three of you about it."
Jennie turned round from the window, coming back down the room. She was pale, but she didn"t cry. Gussie dried her eyes and was struggling to her feet when Bob laid his hand on her shoulder.
"No, Gussie; stay where you are. I"ll sit down here." He dropped into the chair. "You come on this side, Jennie. Gladys-"
But Gladys had already crouched at his feet, while Jennie, balancing Gussie, sank beside the other arm of the chair. Pansy sprang up to her place on his knee.
He told them about Teddy and his mother-about Teddy"s vision and his own.
"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 a.s.suring-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 pa.s.sion, 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_!"
"Yes, I do. I know more than you think. I know that the things that trouble you are dreams and that our life together is reality. You"ll tell me the dreams as we go on-a little at a time-and I"ll show you that you"ve waked from them. I know there are things to explain; but I know, too, that there"s an explanation. But I don"t want the explanation yet.
I"m-I"m too tired, Jennie. I want to rest. And I can"t rest unless we all rest together-you with me-and the girls with us-in a kind of quiet acceptance of the things that have happened-and in the-I hardly know how to express it-but in the tranquillity of love. I wonder if you understand me?"
She murmured:
"I don"t know that I understand you, Bob-quite-but I do-I do love you.
It"s-it"s different from love-it"s-it"s more. It"s like-like melting into you-"
"That"s love, Jennie. It isn"t anything different. It"s just-_love_."
"But you"re so big-"
"And you"re so little-so wee. Don"t you see?-that"s it! That"s the compensating thing in nature. It"s because we"re different that we need each other and complete each other. I can"t explain it as you"d explain a sum in arithmetic. I only _know_. You complete me, Jennie. As I"ve said so often, you"re the other half of me-"
"And you"re all of me-and more."
"Then since we know that, why not do as I said-just rest awhile? We"ve come up to our next ledge, as I was trying to explain to you a few months ago; I know we can camp here a bit; and if we"ve had some scratches in the climb we can talk of them by and by. We"ve learned the one big thing we needed to know-that we belong together, that we can"t be torn apart. Just for now, why can"t that be enough for us?"
"It will be enough if you will let me tell you that-that what I"ve said about Hubert wasn"t-wasn"t as bad as perhaps you think. I don"t say it mightn"t have been; it was as bad as that in-in intention; but the magic cloak of your love which you used to write about seemed to hang round me-that"s the only way I can put it-"
"That"ll do, Jennie. Don"t try to say any more now. It"s only what-in some way-I can"t tell you how-I know already."
He knew she was crying, but he let her cry. He would have cried himself, only that, since the vision at Bond"s Corner, he felt this extraordinary happiness. While his reason would have striven to accept the psychologist"s explanation his inner self was convinced of Teddy"s delight in beginning his next experiment. He himself was tired, but at peace-tired, but no longer with a need of sleep-only with the need of being quiet with a sense of fulfillment.
There were tears in her voice as she whispered, brokenly:
"Is it wrong, Bob, to feel so-so comforted-when momma is lying upstairs-and darling Teddy is-"
"We can"t choose the way by which comfort comes to us, Jennie darling.
Things happen which we don"t want to have happen, and yet they _can_ work together for good if we only give them half a chance-"
He was interrupted by the loud, sweet thrilling of a thrush. Jennie raised her head in surprise, looking at the pallid shimmer through the curtained window.