CHAPTER XVIII
THE LAST ROOM
A man was sitting leaning forward over a table with his back to the three windows, his face toward the door. His arms were spread out on the table, his hands clasped. He leaned there waiting for something. It was Kate for whom he had been waiting, for he had heard every movement of hers almost since her first light step on the porch.
Kate stood now, smiling at him across the room. Her sudden smile following upon her amazed “Oh! Oh!” surprised him almost as much as his being there at all surprised her. He was prepared for her being startled, angry, accusing, anything except charmed. On the tip of his tongue there waited a reassuring word. That was why he had not risen when she entered; he wanted to avoid any movement that might frighten her. But all his careful precaution was wasted. Kate was not frightened. She was charmed, purely and simply charmed.
“Why, you are the boy,” she exclaimed, “the boy in the dragony, flowery picture frame!”
But even as she spoke she realized that although it was the boy indeed, it was the boy grown older. The crisp curly hair was clipped very short and was almost entirely gray. And there were deep lines about his eyes and nose and mouth. The light in the face had grown, too, that peculiar light betokening gaiety of the spirit and sympathy. Yes, it was truly the boy, only the boy more so, in spite of lines and gray hair.
“The dragony, flowery picture frame?” he repeated after her in the voice of the stranger in the garden.
He had spoken. He was real. Not just another one of her fancies.
“Yes, in the top drawer of Mother’s desk. That boy. Only excuse me, I thought I was talking to a dream. Are you real?”
The man laughed, a very jolly laugh, and nodded.
“Did Mother know you would be here? Is that why she insisted that I come into the orchard house the first minute I could?”