After tea Michael Fenger showed Fanny his pictures, not boastfully, but as one who loves them reveals his treasures to an appreciative friend. He showed her his library, too, and it was the library of a reader. Fanny nibbled at it, hungrily. She pulled out a book here, a book there, read a paragraph, skimmed a page. There was no attempt at classification. Lever rubbed elbows with Spinoza; Mark Twain dug a facetious thumb into Haeckel's ribs. Fanny wanted to sit down on the floor, legs crossed, before the open shelves, and read, and read, and read. Fenger, watching the light in her face, seemed himself to take on a certain glow, as people generally did who found this girl in sympathy with them.
They were deep in book talk when Fascinating Facts strolled in, looking aggrieved, and spoiled it with the thoroughness of one who never reads, and is not ashamed of it.
“My word, I'm having a rotten time, Fenger,” he said, plaintively. “They've got a tape-measure out of your wife's sewing basket, those two in there, and they're down on their hands and knees, measuring something. It has to do with their rug, over your rug, or some such rot. And then you take Miss Brandeis and go off into the library.”
“Then stay here,” said Fanny, “and talk books.”
“My book's a blue-print,” admitted Fascinating Facts, cheerfully. “I never get time to read. There's enough fiction, and romance, and adventure in my job to give me all the thrill I want. Why, just last Tuesday—no, Thursday it was—down at the works——”
Between Fanny and Fenger there flashed a look made up of dismay, and amusement, and secret sympathy. It was a look that said, “We both see the humor of this. Most people wouldn't. Our angle is the same.” Such a glance jumps the gap between acquaintance and friendship that whole days of spoken conversation cannot cover.
“Cigar?” asked Fenger, hoping to stay the flood.
“No, thanks. Say, Fenger, would there be a row if I smoked my pipe?”
“That black one? With the smell?”
“The black one, yes.”