“As I said—anything. She might jump off a bridge.”
“Or fall into your arms, eh?”
“They are waiting.”
For a moment or two Clementine paced the floor of the bedroom, his brows creased and his chin down.
“Where’s it all going to lead? How are we going to pull ’em out?”
“Them?”
“Yes. For the boy’s worth saving when he comes to life. I’m sorry for him—damn sorry.”
“Think he’s worth it?”
“Worth it? Of course he’s worth it. One can see—you can’t, perhaps, but I can—why this has happened. She knows too. One gets a true perspective right down the aisle of all those straining, striving years through which he struggled. A boy of no physique, whose mind was a great question-mark, and a mighty desire to find the answer. That was all that mattered—Nature could go hang. He’s dragooned that body of his to carry the mind to the places where the answers might be found—worked, toiled, sweated, starved for that ideal, asking no help, accepting no charity, driving, driving forward on the fuel of his own brain. Then she came—the all-understanding she—and took half the burden from his shoulders, and built up his neglected body to the likeness of a man. Nature was coming back! She knew his ideals, and wanted him to realize them—gave up herself that he might realize them, for there was a promise in his eyes that she and the ideals might be one.”
“Will it come true?”