"What are you thinking of it?"
"Same as you, I s'pose."
"It mustn't part us, old Jim."
Jim snorted. Under extreme urgency he was at times slow of expression in words.
"Gracie has become a woman, the most beautiful woman in all the world"--with rapture, as though the mere proclamation of the fact afforded him mighty joy, which it did.
"And we are men . . . and--and we've got to face it like men."
And Jim grunted again. He was surging with emotions, but he couldn't put them into words like Jack.
"I would give my life for her," said Jack.
"I'd give ten lives if I had 'em."
"She can only have one of us, and only one of us can have her." Which was obvious enough.