Accompanying her consciousness of escape came a new lightness of spirit.

There seemed to come over her, too, a new sense of gratitude for the nearness of this sentient and mysterious life, of this living and breathing man, that could both command and satisfy some even more mysterious emotional hunger in her own heart.
"Yes," she answered, as she laughed a little, almost contentedly; "we're like the glass snake.

We seem to break off at the point where we're caught, and escape, and go on again as before.

I was only wondering how many times a glass snake can leave its tail in its enemy's teeth, and still grow another one!" And although she laughed again Durkin knew how thinly that covering of facetiousness spread over her actual sobriety of character.

It was like a solitary drop of oil on quiet water--there was not much of it, but what there was must always be on the surface.
In fact, her mood changed even as he looked down at her, troubled by the shadow of utter weariness that rested on her colorless face.
"What would we do, Jim," she asked, after a second long and unbroken silence, "what would we do if this thing ever brought us face to face with MacNutt again ?" "But why should we cross that bridge before we come to it ?" was Durkin's answer.
She seemed unable, however, to bar back from her mind some disturbing and unwelcome vision of that meeting.