"He thanks God for the light! Lives! Lives! Sees things in life he never saw before. She has thrown a searchlight on the barrenness of his solitude: shown him its poverty. He realizes that it is not good for man to live alone."
An onlooker just then would have imagined her sole object in life to be the boring of a hole in the tarred path. She was watching her toe at work with an engrossment of the most, apparently, intense kind.
"And all this—these ideas—were born of my—our—chance meetings?"
"Yes! My work became easier; there was no labour. Your face was as a book to me; an open book. I just seemed to copy from it what was written there. But as for chance—who can say? Chance is but unseen direction."
The caress in his voice made itself felt. Ignoring the latter part of his speech she made hurried reply:
"And you read all this in my face? My face which contradicts my hand so?"
So earnest was he, that he grew almost petulant over the wilful misunderstanding, her changing of the subject; said:
"Let the reading of the hand go. I am content with the face."
Looking up, she realized that his eager eyes were fixed earnestly on her. Saw in them the smouldering fire waiting for the smallest draught to lick it into flame.
"Are you reading it now? Don't you know"—with a nervous little laugh—"that it is very rude to stare so?"