"Yes; it's true."
"How long, Bobs?"
"Uncertain. It isn't progressing as fast as I feared. But—not very long, Dee." He spoke with effort.
"A year?"
"Perhaps. If she's careful."
"But she isn't careful. You know Mona."
"No. She isn't. It isn't in her to be."
"Ought she to be running off on trips?"
"Of course not. But I can't stop her." A note of weariness, of defeat had come into his brusque voice.
"Poor old Bobs!" The girl went to him and set a hand on his shoulder, brushing his cheek with her fingers as she did so. There was nothing repellent to her sensitiveness in contact with him, nothing of the revulsion which she experienced under the eager touch of men, tentatively love-making. Bobs wasn't like a man to her so much as like a faithful and noble-spirited dog. "It's hard on you, isn't it?" she murmured.