A NARROW PATH
When Sanford, after dining, rang her bell, Mrs. Leroy was seated on
the veranda that overlooked the garden,—a wide and inviting veranda,
always carpeted in summer with mats and rugs, and made comfortable
with cane chairs and straw divans that were softened into luxurious
delights by silk cushions. During the day the sunshine filtered its
way between the thickly matted vines, lying in patterns on the floor,
or was held in check by thin Venetian blinds. At night the light of a
huge eight-sided lantern festooned with tassels shed its glow through
screens of colored gauze.
Mrs. Leroy was dressed in a simple gown of white crêpe, which clung
and wrinkled about her slight figure, leaving her neck and arms bare.
On a low table beside her rested a silver tray with a slender-shaped
coffee-pot and tiny egg-shell cups and saucers.
She looked up at him, smiling, as he pushed aside the curtains. “Two
lumps, Henry?” she called, holding the sugar-tongs in her hand. Then,
as the light of the lantern fell upon his face, she exclaimed, “Why,
what’s the matter? You are worried: is there fresh trouble at the
Ledge?” and she rose from her chair.
“No; only Carleton,” he replied, looking down at her. “He holds on to
that certificate, and I can get no money until he gives it up; yet I
have raised the concrete six inches to please him. I wired Captain Joe
yesterday to see him at once and to get his answer,—yes or no. What
do you suppose he replied? ‘Tell him he don’t own the earth. I’ll sign
it when I get to it.’ Not another word, nor would he give any reason
for not signing it.”
“Why don’t you appeal to the Board? General Barton would not see you
suffer an unjust delay. I’ll write him myself,” she said, sitting bolt
upright on the divan.
Sanford smiled. Her rising anger soothed him as flattery might have
done at another time. He felt in it a proof of how close to her heart
she really held his interests and his happiness.
“That would only prolong the agony, and might lose us the season’s
work. The Board is always fair and honest, only it takes so long for
it to move.” As he spoke he piled the cushions high behind her head,
and drew a low chair opposite to her. “It’s torture to a contractor
who is behind time,” he continued, flecking the ashes of his cigar
into his saucer. “It means getting all tangled up in the red tape of a
government bureau. I must give up my holiday and find Carleton; there
is nothing else to be done now. I leave on the early train to-morrow.
But what a rest this is!” he exclaimed, breaking into the strained
impetuosity of his own tones with a long-drawn sigh of relief, as he
looked about the dimly lighted veranda. “Nothing like it anywhere.”
As he spoke his eyes wandered over her dainty figure, half reclining
before him,—the delicately modeled waist, the shapely wrists, and the
tiny slippers peeping beneath the edge of her dress that fell in folds
to the floor. “Another new gown, I see?”
“Never mind about my gown. I want to hear more about this man
Carleton,” she said. Her face was alight with the pleasure of his
tribute, but she spoke as though she had hardly heard it. “What have
you done to him to make him hate you?”
“Nothing but try to keep him from ruining the work.”
“And you told him he was ruining it?”
“Certainly; there was nothing else to do. He’s got the concrete now
six inches out of level; you can see it plainly at low water.”
“No wonder he takes his revenge,” she said, cutting straight into the
heart of the matter with that marvelous power peculiar to some women.
“What else has gone wrong?” She meant him to tell her everything,
knowing that to let him completely unburden his mind would give him
the only real rest that he needed. She liked, too, to feel her
influence over him. That he always consulted her in such matters was
to Kate one of the keenest pleasures that his friendship brought.
“Everything, I sometimes think. We are very much behind. That concrete
base should have been finished two weeks ago. The equinoctial gale is
nearly due. If we can’t get the first two courses of masonry laid by
the middle of November, I may have to wait until spring for another
payment, and that about means bankruptcy.”
“What does Captain Joe think?”
“He says we shall pull through if we have no more setbacks. Dear old
Captain Joe! nothing upsets him. We certainly have had our share of
them this season: first it was the explosion, and now it is Carleton’s
spite.”
“Suppose you _do_ lose time, Henry, and _do_ have to wait
until spring to go on with the work. It will not be for the first
time.” There was a sympathetic yet hopeful tone in her voice. “When
you sunk the coffer-dam at Kingston, three years ago, and it lay all
winter in the ice, didn’t you worry yourself half sick? And yet it all
came out right. Oh, you needn’t raise your eyebrows; I saw it myself.
You know you are better equipped now, both in experience and in means,
than you were then. Make some allowance for your own temperament, and
please don’t forget the nights you have lain awake worrying over
nothing. It will all come out right.” She leaned toward him and laid
her hand on his, as an elder sister might have done, and in a gayer
tone added, “I’m going to Medford soon, myself, and I’ll invite this
dreadful Mr. Carleton to come over to luncheon, and you’ll get your
certificate next day. What does he look like?”
Sanford broke into a laugh. “You wouldn’t touch him with a pair of
tongs, and I wouldn’t let you,—even with them.”
“Then I’ll do it, anyway, just to show you how clever I am,” she
retorted, with a pretty, bridling toss of her head. She had taken her
hand away. Sanford still held his own extended.
Kate’s tact was having its effect. Under the magic of her sympathy his
cares had folded their tents. Carleton was fast becoming a dim speck
on the horizon, and his successive troubles were but a string of
camels edging the blue distance of his thoughts.
It was always like this. She never failed to comfort and inspire him.
Whenever his anxieties became unbearable it was to Kate that he
turned, as he had done to-night. The very touch of her soft hand, so
white and delicate, laid upon his arm, and the exquisite play of
melody in her voice, soothed and strengthened him. Things were never
half so bad as they seemed, when he could see her look at him
mischievously from under her lowered eyelids as she said, “Mercy,
Henry! is that all? I thought the whole lighthouse had been washed
away.” And he never missed the inspiration of the change that
followed,—the sudden quiet of her face, the very tensity of her
figure, as she added in earnest tones, instinct with courage and
sympathy, some word of hopeful interest that she of all women best
knew how to give.
With the anxieties dispelled which had brought him hurrying to-night
to Gramercy Park, they both relapsed into silence,—a silence such as
was common to their friendship, one which was born neither of ennui
nor of discontent, the boredom of friends nor the poverty of meagre
minds, but that restful silence which comes only to two minds and
hearts in entire accord, without the necessity of a single spoken word
to lead their thoughts; a close, noiseless fitting together of two
temperaments, with all the rough surfaces of their natures worn smooth
by long association each with the other. In such accord is found the
strongest proof of true and perfect friendship. It is only when this
estate no longer satisfies, and one or both crave the human touch,
that the danger-line is crossed. When stealthy fingers set the
currents of both hearts free, and the touch becomes electric,
discredited friendship escapes by the window, and triumphant love
enters by the door.
The lantern shed its rays over Kate’s white draperies, warming them
with a pink glow. The smoke of Sanford’s cigar curled upward in the
still air and drifted out into the garden, or was lost in the vines of
the jessamine trailing about the porch. Now and then the stillness was
broken by some irrelevant remark suggested by the perfume of the
flowers, the quiet of the night, the memory of Jack’s and Helen’s
happiness; but silence always fell again, except for an occasional
light tattoo of Kate’s dainty slipper on the floor. A restful
lassitude, the reaction from the constant hourly strain of his work,
came over Sanford; the world of perplexity seemed shut away, and he
was happier than he had been in weeks. Suddenly and without
preliminary question, Mrs. Leroy asked sharply, with a strange,
quivering break in her voice, “What about that poor girl Betty? Has
she patched it up yet with Caleb? She told me, the night she stayed
with me, that she loved him dearly. Poor girl! she has nothing but
misery ahead of her if she doesn’t.” She spoke with a certain tone in
her voice that showed but too plainly the new mood that had taken
possession of her.
“Pity she didn’t find it out before she left him!” exclaimed Sanford.
“Pity he didn’t do something to show his appreciation of her, you
mean!” she interrupted, with a quick toss of her head.
“You are all wrong, Kate. Caleb is the gentlest and kindest of men.
You don’t know that old diver, or you wouldn’t judge him harshly.”
“Oh, he didn’t beat her, I suppose. He only left her to get along by
herself. I wish such men would take it out in beating. Some women
could stand that better. It’s the cold indifference that kills.” She
had risen from her seat, and was pacing the floor of the veranda.
“Well, that was not his fault, Kate. While the working season lasts he
must be on the Ledge. He couldn’t come in every night.”
“That’s what they all say! If it’s not one excuse, it’s another. I’m
tired to death of hearing about men who would rather make money than
make homes. Now that he has driven her out of her wits by his
brutality, he closes his door against her, even when she crawls back
on her knees. But don’t _you_ despise her.” She stood before him,
looking down into his face for a moment. “Be just as sweet and gentle
to her as you can. If she ever goes wrong again, it will be the
world’s fault or her husband’s,—not her own. Tell her from me that I
trust her and believe in her, and that I send her my love.”
Sanford listened to her with ill-concealed admiration. It was when she
was defending or helping some one that she appealed to him most. At
those times he recognized that her own wrongs had not imbittered her,
but had only made her the more considerate.
“There’s never a day you don’t teach me something,” he answered
quietly, his eyes fixed on her moving figure. “Perhaps I have been a
little hard on Betty, but it’s because I’ve seen how Caleb suffers.”
She stopped again in her walk and leaned over the rail of the veranda,
her chin on her hand. Sanford watched her, following the bend of her
exquisite head and the marvelous slope of her shoulders. He saw that
something unusual had stirred her, but he could not decide whether it
was caused by the thought of Betty’s misery or by some fresh sorrow of
her own. He threw away his cigar, rose from his chair, and joined her
at the railing. He could be unhappy himself and stand up under it,
but he could not bear to see a shade cross Kate’s face.
“You are not happy to-night,” he said.
She did not answer.
Sanford waited, looking down over the garden. He could see the shadowy
outlines of the narrow walks and the white faces of the roses drooping
over the gravel. When he spoke again there were hesitating, halting
tones in his voice, as if he were half afraid to follow the course he
had dared to venture on.
“Is Morgan coming home, Kate?”
“I don’t know,” she replied dreamily, after a pause.
“Didn’t he say in his last letter?”
“Oh yes; answered as he always does,—when he gets through.”
“Where is he now?”
“Paris, I believe.”
She had not moved nor lifted her chin from her hand.
Minutes went by without her speaking again. A strange hush fell about
them. Sanford could hear the click of the old clock in the hall, and
the monotonous song of the crickets in the grass below.
A sense of great remoteness from her came over him. It was as though
she had gone into a room alone with her griefs and her sobs, and had
locked the door behind her. He had not meant to wound her by his
questions, only to discover whether some new phase of the old grief
were hurting her. If it were anything else but the sorrow he never
touched, he stood ready to give her all his strength.
He looked at her intently. She had never appeared to him so beautiful,
so pathetic: there was a hopeless weariness in her pose that vibrated
through him as nothing had done in months. The change in her mood had
come suddenly, as all changes did in her, but to-night he seemed
unable to meet them. A great rush of feeling surged over him. He
stepped closer, lifting his hand to lay on her head. Then, with an
abrupt gesture, he turned and began pacing the veranda, his head
bowed, his hands clasped behind his back. Strange, unutterable
thoughts whirled through his brain; unbidden, unspeakable words
crowded in his throat. He made one great effort at self-control,
stopped once more, this time laying his hand upon her shoulder. He
felt in his heart that it was the same old sorrow which now racked
her, but an uncontrollable impulse swept him on. All the restraint of
years seemed slipping from him.
“Kate, what is it? You break my heart. Is there something else to
worry you,—something you haven’t told me?”
She shivered slightly as she felt the hand tighten on her shoulder.
Then a sudden, tingling thrill ran through her.
“I have never any right to be unhappy when I have you, Henry. You are
all the world to me,—all I have.”
It was not the answer he had expected. For an instant the blood left
his face, his heart stood still.
Kate raised her head, and their eyes met.
There are narrow paths in life where one fatal step sends a man
headlong. There are eyes in women’s heads as deep as the abyss below.
Hers were wide open, with the fearless confidence of an affection she
was big enough to give. He saw down into their depths, and read
there—as they flashed toward him in intermittent waves over the
barrier of the reserve she sometimes held—love, truth, and courage.
To disturb these, even by the sympathy she longed to receive and he to
give, might, he knew, endanger the ideal of that loyalty to another in
her which he venerated most. To go behind it and break down the wall
of that self-control of hers which held in check the unknown,
untouched springs of her heart might loosen a flood that would wreck
the only bark which could keep them both afloat on the troubled waters
of life,—their friendship.
Sanford bent his head, raised her hand to his lips, kissed it
reverently, and without a word walked slowly toward his chair.
As he regained his seat the butler pushed aside the light curtains of
the veranda, and in his regulation monotone announced, “Miss Shirley,
Major Slocomb, and Mr. Hardy.”
“My dear madam,” broke out the major in his breeziest manner, before
Mrs. Leroy could turn to greet him, “what would life be in this
bake-oven of a city but for the joy of yo’r presence? And Henry! You
here, too? Do you know that that rascal Jack has kept me waiting for
two hours while he took Helen for a five minutes’ walk round the
square, or I would have been here long ago. Where are you, you young
dog?” he called to Jack, who had lingered in the darkened hall with
Helen.
“What’s the matter now, major?” inquired Jack, shaking hands with Mrs.
Leroy, and turning again toward the Pocomokian. “I asked your
permission. What would you have me do? Let Helen see nothing of New
York, because you”—
“Do hush up, cousin Tom,” said Helen, pursing her lips at the major.
“We stayed out because we wanted to, didn’t we, Jack? Don’t you think
he is a perfect ogre, Mrs. Leroy?”
“He forgets his own younger days, my dear Miss Shirley,” she answered.
“He shan’t scold you. Henry, make the major join you in a cigar, while
I give Miss Helen a cup of coffee.”
“They are both forgiven, my dear madam, when so lovely an advocate
pleads their cause,” said the Pocomokian grandiloquently, bowing low,
his hand on his chest. “Thank you; I will join you,” and leaned over
Sanford as he spoke, and lighted a cigar in the blue flame of the tiny
silver lamp.
[Illustration: “Sanford ... raised her hand to his lips”]
It was delightful to note how the coming alliance of the Hardy and
Slocomb families had developed the paternal, not to say patriarchal
attitude of the major toward his once boon companion. He already
regarded Jack as his own son,—somebody to lean upon in his declining
years, a prop and a staff for his old age. He had even sketched out in
his mind a certain stately mansion on the avenue, to say nothing of a
series of country-seats,—one on Crab Island in the Chesapeake,—all
with porticoes and an especial suite of rooms on the ground floor; and
he could hear Jack say, as he pointed them out to his visitors, “These
are for my dear old friend Major Slocomb of Pocomoke,—member of my
wife’s family.” He could see his old enemy, Jefferson, Jack’s servant,
cowed into respectful obedience by the new turn in his master’s
affairs, in which the Pocomokian had lent so helpful a hand.
“She is the child of my old age, so to speak, suh, and I, of co’se,
gave my consent after great hesitation,” he would frequently say,
fully persuading himself that Helen had really sought his approbation,
and never for one moment dreaming that, grateful as she was to him for
his chaperonage of her while in New York, he was the last person in
the world she would have consulted in any matter so vital to her
happiness.
Jack accepted the change in the major’s manner with the same good
humor that seasoned everything that came to him in life. He had known
the Pocomokian for too many years to misunderstand him now, and this
new departure, with its patronizing airs and fatherly oversight, only
amused him.
Mrs. Leroy had drawn the young girl toward the divan, and was already
discussing her plans for the summer.
“Of course you are both to come to me this fall, when the beautiful
Indian summer weather sets in. The Pines is never so lovely as then.
You shall sail to your heart’s content, for the yacht is in order; and
we will then see what this great engineer has been doing all summer,”
she added, glancing timidly from under her dark eyelashes at Sanford.
“Mr. Leroy’s last instructions were to keep the yacht in commission
until he came home. I am determined you shall have one more good time,
Miss Helen, before this young man ties you hand and foot. You will
come, major?”
“I cannot promise, madam. It will depend entirely on my arrangin’ some
very important matters of business. I hope to be able to come for
perhaps a day or so.”
Jack looked at Sanford and smiled. Evidently Mrs. Leroy did not know
the length of the major’s “day or so.” Nor that it was apt to depend
upon the date of the next invitation. He was still staying with Jack,
and had been there since the spring.
Buckles, the butler, had been bending over the major as that gentleman
delivered himself of this announcement of his hopes. When he had
filled to the brim the tiny liqueur glass, the major—perhaps in a
moment of forgetfulness—said, “Thank you, suh,” at which Buckles’s
face hardened. Such slips were not infrequent. The major was, in fact,
always a little uncomfortable in Buckles’s presence. Jack, who had
often noticed his attitude, thought that these conciliatory remarks
were intended as palliatives to the noiseless English flunky with the
immovable face and impenetrable manner. The Pocomokian never extended
such deference to Sam, Sanford’s own servant, or even to Jefferson.
“Here, Sam, you black scoundrel, bring me my hat,” he would say
whenever he was leaving Sanford’s apartments, at which Sam’s face
would relax quite as much as Buckles’s had hardened. But then the
major knew Sam’s kind, and Sam knew the major, and, strange to say,
believed in him.
When Buckles had retired, Sanford started the Pocomokian on a
discussion in which all the talking would fall to the latter’s share.
Mrs. Leroy turned to Helen and Jack again. There was no trace, in her
voice nor on her features, of the emotion that had so stirred her. All
that side of her nature had been shut away the moment her guests
appeared.
“Don’t mind a word Jack says to you, my dear, about hurrying up the
wedding-day,” she laughed, in a half-earnest and altogether charming
way,—not cynical, but with a certain undercurrent of genuine anxiety
in her voice, all the more keenly felt by Sanford, who waited on every
word that fell from her lips. “Put it off as long as possible. So many
troubles and disappointments come afterwards, and it is so hard to
keep everything as it should be. There is no happier time in life than
that just before marriage. Oh, you needn’t scowl at me, you young
Bluebeard; I know all about it, and you don’t know one little bit.”
Helen looked at Jack in some wonder. She was at a loss to know how
much of the talk was pure badinage, and how much, perhaps, the result
of some bitter worldly experience. The young girl shuddered, yet
without knowing what inspired the remark or what lay behind it. But
she laughed quite heartily, as she said, “It is all true, no doubt;
only I intend to begin by being something of a tyrant myself, don’t I,
Jack?”
Before Jack could reply, Smearly, who had hurried by Buckles, entered
unannounced, and with a general smile of recognition, and two fingers
to the major, settled himself noiselessly in an easy-chair, and
reached over the silver tray for a cup. It was a house where such
freedom was not commented on, and Smearly was one of those big
Newfoundland-dog kind of visitors who avail themselves of all
privileges.
“What is the subject under discussion?” the painter asked, as he
dropped a lump of sugar into his cup and turned to his hostess.
“I have just been telling Miss Shirley how happy she will make us when
she comes to The Pines this autumn.”
“And you have consented, of course?” he inquired carelessly, lifting
his bushy eyebrows.
“Oh yes,” answered Helen, a faint shadow settling for a moment on her
face. “It’s so kind of Mrs. Leroy to want me. You are coming, too, are
you not, Mr. Sanford?” and she moved toward Henry’s end of the divan,
where Jack followed her. She had never liked Smearly. She did not know
why, but he always affected her strangely. “He looks like a bear,” she
once told Jack, “with his thick neck and his restless movements.”
“Certainly, Miss Helen, I am going, too,” replied Sanford. “I tolerate
my work all summer in expectation of these few weeks in the autumn.”
The young girl raised her eyes quickly. Somehow it did not sound to
her like Sanford’s voice. There was an unaccustomed sense of strain in
it. She moved a little nearer to him, however, impelled by some subtle
sympathy for the man who was not only Jack’s friend, but one she
trusted as well.
“Lovely to be so young and hopeful, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Leroy to
Smearly, with a movement of her head toward Helen. “Look at those two.
Nothing but rainbows for her and Jack.”
“Rainbows come after the storm, my dear lady, not before,” rejoined
Smearly. “If they have any prismatics in theirs, they will appear in a
year or two from now.” He had lowered his voice so that Helen should
not hear.
“You never believe in anything. You hate women,” said Mrs. Leroy
impatiently in an undertone.
“True, but with some exceptions; you, for instance,” with a mock bow.
“But why fool ourselves, my dear lady? The first year is one of
sugar-plums, flowers, and canary-birds. We can’t keep our hands off
them; we love them so we want to eat them up.”
“Just like any other wild beast,” interrupted Mrs. Leroy, with a
gurgling laugh, her head bent coquettishly on one side.
“The second year both are pulling in opposite directions.” (He
affected not to have heard her thrust.) “Then comes a snap of the
matrimonial cord, and over they go. Of course neither of these two
turtle-doves has the slightest idea of anything of the kind. They
expect to go on and on and on, like the dear little babes in the wood;
but they won’t, all the same. Some day an old crow of an attorney will
come and cover them over with dried briefs, and that will be the last
of it.”
Sanford took no part in the general talk. He was listless, absorbed.
He felt an irresistible desire to be alone, and stayed on only because
Helen’s many little confidences, told to him in her girlish way, as
she sat beside him on the divan, required but an acquiescing nod now
and then, or a random reply, which he could give without betraying
himself.
He was first of all the guests to rise. In response to Mrs. Leroy’s
anxious glance, as he bade her good-night between the veranda
curtains, he explained, in tones loud enough to be heard by everybody,
that it was necessary to make an early start in the morning for the
Ledge, and that he had some important letters to write that night.
“Don’t forget to telegraph me if you get the certificate,” was all she
said.
Helen and Jack followed Sanford. They too wanted to be alone; that is,
together,—in their case the same thing.
Once outside and under the trees of the park, Helen stopped in a
secluded spot, their shadows under the electric light flecking the
pavement, took the lapels of Jack’s coat in her hands, and said,
“Jack, dear, I wasn’t happy there to-night. She never could have loved
anybody.”
“Who, darling?”
“Why, Mrs. Leroy. Did you hear what she said?”
“Yes, but it was only Kate. That’s her way, Helen. She never means
half she says.”
“Yes, but the _way_ she said it, Jack. She doesn’t know what love
means. Loving is not being angry all the time. Loving is
helping,—helping everywhere and in everything. Whatever either needs
the other gives. I can’t say it just as I want to, but you know what I
mean. And that Mr. Smearly; he didn’t think I heard, but I did.”
“Dear heart,” said Jack, smoothing her cheek with his hand, “don’t
believe everything you hear. You are not accustomed to the ways of
these people. Down in your own home in Maryland people mean what they
say; here they don’t. Smearly is all right. He was ‘talking through
his hat,’ as the boys say at the club,—that’s all. You’d think, to
hear him go on, that he was a sour, crabbed old curmudgeon, now,
wouldn’t you? Well, you never were more mistaken in your life. Every
penny he can save he gives to an old sister of his, who hasn’t seen a
well day for years. That’s only his talk.”
“But why does he speak that way, then? When people love as they ought
to love, every time a disappointment in the other comes, it is just
one more opportunity to help,—not a cause for ridicule. I love you
that way, Jack; don’t you love me so?” and she looked up into his
eyes.
“I love you a million ways, you sweet girl,” and, with a rapid glance
about him to see that no one was near, he slipped his arm about her
and held her close to his breast.
He felt himself lifted out of the atmosphere of romance in which he
had lived for months. This gentle, shrinking Southern child whom he
had loved and petted and smothered with roses, this tender, clinging
girl who trusted him so implicitly, was no longer his sweetheart, but
his helpmate. She had all at once become a woman,—strong, courageous,
clear-minded, helpful, ready to lead him if need be.
A new feeling rose in his heart and spread itself through every fibre
of his being,—a feeling without which love is a plaything. It was
reverence.
* * * * *
When Sanford reached his apartments Sam was waiting for him, as usual.
The candles were lighted instead of the lamp. The windows of the
balcony were wide open.
“You need not wait, Sam; I’ll close the blinds,” he said, as he
stepped out and sank into a chair.
Long after Sam had gone he sat there without moving, his head bent,
his forehead resting on his hand. He was trying to pick up the threads
of his life again, to find the old pattern which had once guided him
in his course, and to clear it from the tangle of lines that had
suddenly twisted and confused him.
For a long time he saw nothing but Kate’s eyes as they had met his
own, with the possibilities which he had read in their depths. He
tried to drive the picture from him; then baffled by its persistence
he resolutely faced it; held it as it were in his hands, and, looking
long and unflinchingly at it, summoned all his courage.
He had read Kate’s heart in her face. He knew that he had revealed his
own. But he meant that the future should be unaffected by the
revelations made. The world must never share her confidence nor his,
as it would surely do at their first false step. It should not have
the right to turn and look, and to wonder at the woman whom he was
proud to love. That open fearlessness which all who knew her gloried
in should still be hers. He realized the value of it to her, and what
its loss would entail should a spoken word of his rob her of it, or
any momentary weakness of theirs deprive her of the strength and
comfort which his open companionship could give.
No! God willing, he would stand firm, and so should she.
An hour later he was still there, his unlighted cigar between his
lips, his head on his hands.