He held her for a moment, not weeping anymore, but thinking. Eliza found that a bit tedious and so she left off stroking his hair and began going to work on his ears in a way he would not tolerate for long. Then, finally, Bob knew what to do. She could see that for Bob, knowing what to do was always the hard part, and the doing was easy. All those years Vagabonding with Jack, Bob had been the older and wiser brother preaching sternly into Jack's one ear while the Imp of the Perverse whispered into the other, and it had made him a stolid and deliberate sort. But having made up his mind, he was a launched cannonball. Eliza wondered what the two of them had been like, partnered together, and pitied the world for not allowing it.