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 passion, 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.