Gloria looked about her curiously, though her heart was beating fast. The man was familiar to her, dear to her in many ways, and over much in her life. The place where he lived contained a part of him which she did not know. Her breath came quickly in the anticipation of an emotion greater even than what she had felt already, but her eyes wandered in curiosity from one object to another. Suddenly she heard the loud cracking of breaking wood. There was a blaze of paper from the fireplace, illuminating all the room, and some light pieces he was throwing on kindled quickly. He was breaking them—she looked—it was one of the rush-bottomed chairs.
"What are you doing?" she cried, leaning suddenly far forward.
"Making a good fire," he answered. "There happened to be only one bit of wood in my box, so I am taking these things."
He broke the legs and the rails of the chair in his hands, as a child would break twigs, and heaped them up upon the blaze.
"There are five more," he observed. "They will make a good fire."
He arranged the burning mass to suit him, looked at it, and then turned.
"You ought to be a little nearer," he said, and he lifted the chair with her in it and set her before the fireplace.
It had all looked and felt desperately desolate half a minute earlier. It was changed now. He went to a corner and filled a small glass with wine from a straw-covered flask and brought it to her. She thanked him with her eyes and drank half of it eagerly. He knelt down before the fire again, for as the paper burned away underneath, the light sticks fell inward and might go out. When he had arranged it all again, he looked round and met her eyes, still kneeling.
"Is that better?" he asked quietly.
"You are so good," said Gloria, letting her eyelids droop as she looked from him to the pleasant flame.