"Then why don't you go to work and nail it?"
He found the words he was in search of.
"Partly because I've other things to do; partly because I feel that, by giving it its time, it will nail itself; and, most of all, for the reason that neither she nor I want to take the—the great happiness which we feel is coming to us in the end while—while all this other thing is in the air. I wonder if you understand me."
"More or less."
"It's as if we'd accidentally put the cart of marriage before the horse of engagement. Do you see? Nominally we're married; but really we're only engaged. We can't be married—we don't want to be married—till other things are off our minds."
With this bit of explanation, the Collinghams began to live once more as if nothing had occurred. It was not easy; but by dint of skimming on the surface they were able to manage it. That is to say, Bob came and went, and they asked him no more questions, while on his part he continued to nerve Teddy and his sisters for another test.
If there was anyone noticeably different, it was Junia. Always quick to tack according to the wind, she seemed almost to have changed her course. In putting the best face on Edith's marriage and Bob's complications she had adopted the new ideals that kept her in the movement.
"It's the war," she explained to her intimates. "We're all different. Life as we used to live it begins to seem so empty. We weren't real; we people who spent our time entertaining and being entertained. It's all very well to say that we're much the same since the war as we were before, but it isn't so. I know I'm not. I'm quite a revolutionist. I may not have made much progress, but I'm certainly more in touch with reality."
With this transition, it became natural to speak of her son-in-law.
"Such a wonderful fellow—all mind, you know, but the type that helps so many of us to find our way through the mists of materialism and selfishness out to the great big ends. To me, it's like a new life just to hear him talk, and I can't help feeling it providential that he's found a wife like Edith. She's an extraordinary girl to be my child—intellectual and practical at once. She can keep her husband company in all his researches and yet cook him a good dinner if their little maid is out. Is there anything so astonishing in life as our own children and what they turn out to be?"