Pen did not answer for a long moment. A to-hee trilled from the cedar:
"O yahee! O yahai!
Sweet as arrow weed in spring!"
The Elephant lay motionless. The flag rippled and fluttered, a faint red spot far below on the mountainside. Pen's youth was fighting with her bitterly won philosophy. Then she summoned all her fortitude.
"Jim, dear, it would be a cowardly thing for me to leave Sara."
"It would be greater cowardice to stay. Pen, shall you and I die as Iron Skull did? I can marry no other woman feeling as I do about you. Sara's life is useless. Let the world say what it will. Marry me, Penelope."
"Jim, I can't."
"Why not, Penelope?"
"I love you very dearly, but I've had enough of marriage. I've done my duty. I don't see how I could keep on loving a man after I married him, even if he weren't a cripple. The process of adjustment is simply frightful. Marriage is just a contract binding one to do the impossible!"
Jim scowled. More and more he was realizing how Sara had hurt Pen.
"You don't care a rap about me, Pen. Why don't you admit it?"