"Sara! Poor Sara! He wants no embraces from anyone! I'm no more married to Sara than a nurse to her patient. But I mean that as long as things are as they are, the honest thing, the safe thing, is for me not to—to—Oh, Jim, it's not square to any of us. We must keep on the straight, clear basis of friendship!"
But Jim had seen Pen's heart in her eyes and the call of it was almost more than his lonely heart could bear.
"Great heavens, Pen!" he cried. "Life is so short! We need each other so! What does it profit us or the world that all your wealth of tenderness should go untouched and all my hunger for it unsatisfied? If your touch on my hair will brace me for the fight of my life, why should you deny it to me?"
Pen tried to laugh. "Still, what's happened to your morals?"
Jim replied indignantly: "You can't apply a system of ethics to your cheek against mine except to say it's all wrong that I can't have you now, in my great need. And I warn you, Pen, I shall come to you thirsty until at last you give me what is mine. Only your cheek to mine is all I ask for, Penny."
Pen looked up at the pleading beauty of Jim's eyes. "Don't plead with me, Jim," she half whispered, "or I think my heart will break."
The two looked away from each other to the Elephant. The great beast seemed to sleep in the afternoon sun.
"Tell me about your plans, Still," said Pen, her voice not altogether steady.
"Murphy thinks I'm a fool," said Jim. "Perhaps I am. But Oscar Ames has been a good deal of a surprise to me: Just as soon as I took the trouble to explain the concrete matter to him, he got it instantly. And in a way he got my talk about the new social obligations you showed me."
Pen interrupted eagerly: "You don't know how much you did in that talk, Jim. Oscar has discovered you and he's as proud as Columbus. He has made me tell him everything I know about you. You see you have that rare capacity for making anyone you will take the trouble to talk to feel as if he was your only friend and confidant. Oscar has discovered that you are misunderstood, that he is the only person that really understands you and he's out now explaining to his neighbors how little they really know about concrete."