Old Grannis still kept silence, still bending forward, with wide eyes, his hands gripping the arms of his chair.
Then with the tea-tray still held straight before her, the little dressmaker exclaimed tearfully:
"Oh, I didn't mean--I didn't mean--I didn't know it would seem like this. I only meant to be kind and bring you some tea; and now it seems SO improper. I--I--I'm SO ashamed! I don't know what you will think of me. I--" she caught her breath--"improper"--she managed to exclaim, "unlady-like--you can never think well of me--I'll go. I'll go." She turned about.
"Stop," cried Old Grannis, finding his voice at last. Miss Baker paused, looking at him over her shoulder, her eyes very wide open, blinking through her tears, for all the world like a frightened child.
"Stop," exclaimed the old Englishman, rising to his feet.
"I didn't know it was you at first. I hadn't dreamed--I couldn't believe you would be so good, so kind to me. Oh," he cried, with a sudden sharp breath, "oh, you ARE kind.
I--I--you have--have made me very happy."
"No, no," exclaimed Miss Baker, ready to sob. "It was unlady-like. You will--you must think ill of me." She stood in the hall. The tears were running down her cheeks, and she had no free hand to dry them.
"Let me--I'll take the tray from you," cried Old Grannis, coming forward. A tremulous joy came upon him. Never in his life had he been so happy. At last it had come--come when he had least expected it. That which he had longed for and hoped for through so many years, behold, it was come to- night. He felt his awkwardness leaving him. He was almost certain that the little dressmaker loved him, and the thought gave him boldness. He came toward her and took the tray from her hands, and, turning back into the room with it, made as if to set it upon his table. But the piles of his pamphlets were in the way. Both of his hands were occupied with the tray; he could not make a place for it on the table. He stood for a moment uncertain, his embarrassment returning.
"Oh, won't you--won't you please--" He turned his head, looking appealingly at the little old dressmaker.
"Wait, I'll help you," she said. She came into the room, up to the table, and moved the pamphlets to one side.
"Thanks, thanks," murmured Old Grannis, setting down the tray.
"Now--now--now I will go back," she exclaimed, hurriedly.
"No--no," returned the old Englishman. "Don't go, don't go.
I've been so lonely to-night--and last night too--all this year--all my life," he suddenly cried.
"I--I--I've forgotten the sugar."
"But I never take sugar in my tea."
"But it's rather cold, and I've spilled it--almost all of it."
"I'll drink it from the saucer." Old Grannis had drawn up his armchair for her.
"Oh, I shouldn't. This is--this is SO--You must think ill of me." Suddenly she sat down, and resting her elbows on the table, hid her face in her hands.
"Think ILL of you?" cried Old Grannis, "think ILL of you? Why, you don't know--you have no idea--all these years--living so close to you, I--I--" he paused suddenly.
It seemed to him as if the beating of his heart was choking him.
"I thought you were binding your books to-night," said Miss Baker, suddenly, "and you looked tired. I thought you looked tired when I last saw you, and a cup of tea, you know, it--that--that does you so much good when you're tired. But you weren't binding books."
"No, no," returned Old Grannis, drawing up a chair and sitting down. "No, I--the fact is, I've sold my apparatus; a firm of booksellers has bought the rights of it."
"And aren't you going to bind books any more?" exclaimed the little dressmaker, a shade of disappointment in her manner.
"I thought you always did about four o'clock. I used to hear you when I was making tea."
It hardly seemed possible to Miss Baker that she was actually talking to Old Grannis, that the two were really chatting together, face to face, and without the dreadful embarrassment that used to overwhelm them both when they met on the stairs. She had often dreamed of this, but had always put it off to some far-distant day. It was to come gradually, little by little, instead of, as now, abruptly and with no preparation. That she should permit herself the indiscretion of actually intruding herself into his room had never so much as occurred to her. Yet here she was, IN HIS ROOM, and they were talking together, and little by little her embarrassment was wearing away.
"Yes, yes, I always heard you when you were making tea," returned the old Englishman; "I heard the tea things. Then I used to draw my chair and my work-table close to the wall on my side, and sit there and work while you drank your tea just on the other side; and I used to feel very near to you then. I used to pass the whole evening that way."
"And, yes--yes--I did too," she answered. "I used to make tea just at that time and sit there for a whole hour."
"And didn't you sit close to the partition on your side?
Sometimes I was sure of it. I could even fancy that I could hear your dress brushing against the wall-paper close beside me. Didn't you sit close to the partition?"
"I--I don't know where I sat."
Old Grannis shyly put out his hand and took hers as it lay upon her lap.
"Didn't you sit close to the partition on your side?" he insisted.
"No--I don't know--perhaps--sometimes. Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with a little gasp, "Oh, yes, I often did."
Then Old Grannis put his arm about her, and kissed her faded cheek, that flushed to pink upon the instant.
After that they spoke but little. The day lapsed slowly into twilight, and the two old people sat there in the gray evening, quietly, quietly, their hands in each other's hands, "keeping company," but now with nothing to separate them. It had come at last. After all these years they were together; they understood each other. They stood at length in a little Elysium of their own creating. They walked hand in hand in a delicious garden where it was always autumn. Far from the world and together they entered upon the long retarded romance of their commonplace and uneventful lives.
