T. A. Buck was regarding the head of his if walking-stick with a gaze as intent as that which he previously had bestowed upon the chandelier. For that matter it was a handsome enough stick—a choice thing in malacca. But it was scarcely more deserving than the chandelier had been.
Mrs. McChesney had wandered into the dining-room. She peered out of windows. She poked into butler's pantry. She inspected wall-lights. And still T. A. Buck stared at his stick.
“It's really robbery,” came Emma McChesney's voice from the next room. “Only a New York agent could have the nerve to do it. I've a friend who lives in Chicago—Mary Cutting. You've heard me speak of her. Has a flat on the north side there, just next door to the lake. The rent is ridiculous; and—would you believe it?—the flat is equipped with bookcases, and gorgeous mantel shelves, and buffet, and bathroom fixtures, and china-closets, and hall-tree—”
Her voice trailed into nothingness as she disappeared into the kitchen. When she emerged again she was still enumerating the charms of the absurdly low-priced Chicago flat, thus:
“—and full-length mirrors, and wonderful folding table-shelf gimcracks in the kitchen, and—”
T. A. Buck did not look up. But, “Oh, Chicago!” he might have been heard to murmur, as only a New-Yorker can breathe those two words.
“Don't 'Oh, Chicago!' like that,” mimicked Emma McChesney. “I've lain awake nights dreaming of a home I once saw there, with the lake in the back yard, and a couple of miles of veranda, and a darling vegetable-garden, and the whole place simply honeycombed with bathrooms, and sleeping-porches, and sun-parlors, and linen-closets, and—gracious, I wonder what's keeping Jock!”
T. A. Buck wrenched his eyes from his stick. All previous remarks descriptive of his eyes under excitement paled at the glow which lighted them now. They glowed straight into Emma McChesney's eyes and held them, startled.
“Emma,” said T. A. Buck quite calmly, “will you marry me? I want to give you all those things, beginning with the lake in the back yard and ending with the linen-closets and the sun-parlor.”
And Emma McChesney, standing there in the middle of the dining-room floor, stared long at T. A. Buck, standing there in the center of the living-room floor. And if any human face, in the space of seventeen seconds, could be capable of expressing relief, and regret, and alarm, and dismay, and tenderness, and wonder, and a great womanly sympathy, Emma McChesney's countenance might be said to have expressed all those emotions—and more. The last two were uppermost as she slowly came toward him.