The customer dropped her hands, and turning abruptly from the clerk, walked to the stair-case, where an elderly man stood waiting for her with the patient indifference of a person impressed into service he did not like.
“Herman! Herman Ross!” she exclaimed, in an eager voice, “come here this minute and see for yourself. Did you ever in your born days! Look there! Isn’t that the loveliest creature you ever set eyes on?”
Eva was standing at a far-off counter, looking thoughtfully into the distance, with that soft, happy smile brightening her whole face, as the full light from a neighboring window fell upon it.
The man paused as he saw the face, and drew back with a sudden recoil from the eager hand still pressing his arm.
“What is this? What does it mean?” he demanded, turning white, and looking forward with a wild stare. “It is twenty years. I cannot go back to that, but—but—be quiet! Leave me alone!”
The man walked forward unsteadily, and, like one impelled to an action against his own consciousness, until he came close to Eva, but with such noiseless action that she did not heed him.
“Will you tell me your name?”
Eva started. The voice that addressed her was so low and hoarse that surprise became almost terror in her.
“My name? My—my name? Did you ask that?”
“Yes—yes!”