“I have not fear—no. Then I cried because I was not certain.... I was making up my mind. I have made up my mind, and so I have no fear.... Oh, I was ver’ solitaire.... But we mus’ not theenk of that now—only of ourselves. Is it not?... And be happy. We must be ver’ happy—every little second we must be happy ... while it lasts.”
“While it lasts? What do you mean?”
“Nothing. We mus’ speak of that—not at all. We mus’ speak only of love and happiness—and of how sweet is the world and to be alive—together.”
“It is sweet,” he said, unevenly, moved as he had never been moved before. “You are sweet ... and good.”
Doubt, self-accusations, uneasiness, inhibitions, were swept from him by a flood of tenderness. The world was right; Andree was right; love was right. Nothing mattered but Andree and himself. It was their universe, of which they were masters, with none to forbid. Happiness was their right; it might not be denied them. The future was the future, but to-night was to-night, and little moments of happiness were the gift of Heaven....
“You love me?” he demanded.
“I am here,” she said, simply.
His arms were about her, her lips were upon his lips; he knew his own moment of happiness. “You are here ...” he whispered. “You are here....”
CHAPTER XIII
Kendall Ware had set foot on the French liner bound for France early in May; he had landed at Bordeaux, May 19th. It was now the last of June. Less than two months had passed over his head, but the Kendall Ware who paced the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne this evening was years removed from the boy who walked the decks of the Rochambeau with Maude Knox. He was altered as only years of experience could have altered him in the times when men went about their business after the manner of rational human beings, when death was not a profession which engaged the world, when the dollar was the measure of success, when one day was like another, and meat could be eaten seven days in the week. The great modification in him was that he had learned it to be true that man is a thinking animal and that the brain may be used for something besides adding a column of figures or as a storage-house for the thoughts of a past generation. He had perceived that different theories of life existed in the world. He had been seized by events and forcibly fed with something which might crystallize into knowledge, and he had arrived at that unpleasant junction in the railroad system of life where he must choose between trains—whether he would board the one which went ahead swiftly through the Country of Responsible Individual Thought or the one which lagged backward through the Land of Swallowed Dogmas.... He was not happy.