"They all leave me.
All my life goes to pieces."
CHAPTER XXVIII
During the three years in which Jennie and Lester had been associated there had grown up between them a strong feeling of mutual sympathy and understanding.
Lester truly loved her in his own way.
It was a strong, self-satisfying, determined kind of way, based solidly on a big natural foundation, but rising to a plane of genuine spiritual affinity.
The yielding sweetness of her character both attracted and held him.
She was true, and good, and womanly to the very center of her being; he had learned to trust her, to depend upon her, and the feeling had but deepened with the passing of the years.
On her part Jennie had sincerely, deeply, truly learned to love this man.
At first when he had swept her off her feet, overawed her soul, and used her necessity as a chain wherewith to bind her to him, she was a little doubtful, a little afraid of him, although she had always liked him.
Now, however, by living with him, by knowing him better, by watching his moods, she had come to love him.
He was so big, so vocal, so handsome.
His point of view and opinions of anything and everything were so positive.
His pet motto,
"Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may," had clung in her brain as something immensely characteristic.
Apparently he was not afraid of anything—God, man, or devil.
He used to look at her, holding her chin between the thumb and fingers of his big brown hand, and say:
"You're sweet, all right, but you need courage and defiance.
You haven't enough of those things."
And her eyes would meet his in dumb appeal.
"Never mind," he would add, "you have other things." And then he would kiss her.
One of the most appealing things to Lester was the simple way in which she tried to avoid exposure of her various social and educational shortcomings.
She could not write very well, and once he found a list of words he had used written out on a piece of paper with the meanings opposite.
He smiled, but he liked her better for it.
Another time in the Southern hotel in St. Louis he watched her pretending a loss of appetite because she thought that her lack of table manners was being observed by nearby diners.
She could not always be sure of the right forks and knives, and the strange-looking dishes bothered her; how did one eat asparagus and artichokes?
"Why don't you eat something?" he asked good-naturedly.
"You're hungry, aren't you?"
"Not very."
"You must be.
Listen, Jennie. I know what it is.
You mustn't feel that way.
Your manners are all right.
I wouldn't bring you here if they weren't.
Your instincts are all right.
Don't be uneasy.
I'd tell you quick enough when there was anything wrong."
His brown eyes held a friendly gleam.
She smiled gratefully.
"I do feel a little nervous at times," she admitted.
"Don't," he repeated.
"You're all right.
Don't worry.
I'll show you."
And he did.
By degrees Jennie grew into an understanding of the usages and customs of comfortable existence.
All that the Gerhardt family had ever had were the bare necessities of life.
Now she was surrounded with whatever she wanted—trunks, clothes, toilet articles, the whole varied equipment of comfort—and while she liked it all, it did not upset her sense of proportion and her sense of the fitness of things.
There was no element of vanity in her, only a sense of joy in privilege and opportunity.
She was grateful to Lester for all that he had done and was doing for her.