meaning of this figure by his side?
In his old part, she had not been there.

When at last they were seated side by side in the car and the train
began slowly to pull out, her presence there seemed even more unreal
than ever. But soon he gave himself up comfortably to the illusion.
She was within arm's length of him and they were steaming through the
green country. That was enough for him to know at present. She looked
very trim as compared to the other women who passed in and took their
places in the dusty, red-cushioned seats. She looked more alive--less
a type. She gave tone to the whole car.

Up to now, she had given her attention to scanning the faces of the
multitude they had passed in the faint hope that by some chance her
brother might be among them, but once the train started she surrendered
herself fully to the new hope which lay ahead of her in the bungalow.
This gave her an opportunity to study more closely this man who so
suddenly had become her chief reliance in this intimate detail of her
life. His kindly good nature furnished her a sharp contrast to the
sober seriousness of the older man with whom so much of her youth had
been lived. He had thrown open the doors and windows of the gloomy
house in which she had so long been pent up. And yet as he rambled on
in an evident attempt to lighten her burden, she caught a note that
piqued her curiosity. It was as though below the surface he was
fretted by some problem which lent a touch of sadness to his hearty
courageous outlook. She felt it, when once on the journey he broke out,

"Don't ever look below the surface of anything I say. Don't ever try
to look beyond the next step I take. I'm here to-day; gone to-morrow."

"Like the grass of the field?" she asked with a smile at his
earnestness, which was so at odds with his light eager comments upon
the bits of color which shot by them.

"Worse--because the grass is helpless."

"And we? We boast a little more, but are n't we at the mercy of
chance?"

"Not if we are worthy of our souls."

She frowned.

"There is Ben, surely he is not altogether to blame," she objected.

"Less to blame than some others, perhaps."

"Then there is the chance that helps us willy nilly," she urged. "You,
to me, are such a chance. Surely it was not within my power to bring
about this good fortune any more than it is within the power of some
others to ward off bad fortune."

"The mere episode does n't count.