"Sure you are tired out and need a little rest."
He held the door open so persuasively that she yielded. It was a snug little room, somewhat retired from the bustle, with two or three chintz-covered chairs scattered round it, and a sofa of the same material at one side. The widow sat down at one end of this sofa, and the major perched himself at the other, looking even redder than usual, and puffing out his chest and frowning, as was his custom upon critical occasions.
"Do light a cigarette?" said Mrs. Scully.
"But the smell?"
"I like it."
The major extracted one from his flat silver case. His companion rolled a spill and lit it at the gas.
"To one who is as lonely as I am," she remarked, "it is a pleasure to feel that one has friends near one, and to serve them even in trifles."
"Lonely!" said the major, shuffling along the sofa, "I might talk with authority on that point. If I were to turn me toes up to-morrow there's not a human being would care a thraneen about the mather, unless it were old Von Baumser."
"Oh, don't talk so," cried Mrs. Scully, with emotion.
"It is a fact. I've kicked against me fate at times, though. I've had fancies of late of something happier and cheerier. They have come on me as I sat over yonder at the window, and, do what I will, I have not been able to git them from me heart. Yit I know how rash I have been to treasure them, for if they fail me I shall feel me loneliness as I niver did before."