“Yes. That’s what I make.”
“Won’t you show me around?”
Bob did, walking as in a dream among the dingy workmen who paused as the vision passed. For a long time they talked—just plain ordinary talk. Then he told her how he was inventing something else and Miss Gerald listened while all differences seemed magically to have dropped between them. Drinking deep of the joy of the moment, Bob yielded to the unadulterated happiness that went with being near her. He forgot all about the long future when he would see her no more.
Finally Miss Gerald got up to go. They had returned to Bob’s office and she had seated herself in a shabby old chair.
Bob’s face fell. His heart had been beating fast and the old light had come to his eyes.
“Going?” he said awkwardly.
“Yes.”
She put out her hand and Bob took it, looking into her eyes. Then—he never knew how it happened—he had her in his arms. Bang! bang! went Bob’s hammers below and they seemed to be competing with the beating of his heart. At length the girl stirred slightly. She was wonderful in her proud compliance to Bob’s somewhat chaotic and over-powering expression of his emotions. “I suffered, too, a little, perhaps,” she said.
That nearly completed Bob’s undoing. “You! you!” he said, holding her from him and regarding her face eagerly, devouringly.
“Yes,” the proud lips curled a little, “I haven’t really a heart of stone, you know.”