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.
"Gussie and Gladys are back at work," she said at once, to explain the fact that none of his new connections were there to greet him, "and momma's lying down. She always lies down at this time of day, ever since daddy died." She dropped into one big shabby armchair, motioning him to another. "And there's something else I must tell you. Ever since—this thing happened to Teddy—she hasn't been—well, not right in her mind."
The stand he had taken became more imperative. A father's death, a mother's collapse, a brother's crime had put her at the head of her little troop of three, to bear everything alone. He had left behind him an inexperienced girl; he had come back to find a woman already accustomed to rising to emergencies. The change was perceptible in the clearer, slightly older cutting of her features, as well as in the greater authority with which she spoke. Where the contours of her profile had been soft and vague, there was now a delicate chiseling; where there had been hesitation in words, there was now the firmness of one obliged to know her mind.
As she sketched her mother's mental state, he sat on the extreme edge of his big chair, straining forward so as to be near her without touching her, his fingers clasped between his knees. She continued to speak nervously, with agitation, and yet lucidly.
"She isn't very bad. She's only what you'd call unsettled. It's not that she does anything, but rather that, after all the years when she's worked so hard, she just sits and does nothing. It's as if she was lost in thinking; and when she comes back she says such terribly strange things."
"What sort of things?"
"For one, that it's no use living any longer—that the world's so bad that the best thing left is to get out of it. She says you can't help the world, or hope to see it improve, because human beings will always reject the principles that would make it any better."
He smiled gently.