“His liver’s all right—it’s mine that won’t work nowadays,” answered the old man at random, for he was trying his door to see if the lock really held; then when he found it did, he called more valiantly, “Good-night. Sleep well, my dear.”
“Good-night, uncle,” said the niece, but it did not seem to mean that; then she flung open the cottage door and the window where the geraniums flowered, and thought with pious resignation of the time when the apples would be inevitably hers.
Meanwhile, Sam tramped between wet, scented hedges underneath the stars with the big basket of apples on his arm, but he stopped still every now and then and muttered something that was obviously not in tune with the soft quiet of the September night. He put the apples in a safe place in the hayloft, and then went straight to Andy’s study door without the usual preliminaries.
“Come in,” said Andy.
He looked white and fagged as he sat over his papers, as if he were keeping some wearing thought at bay, which yet made the writing a great mental strain. It is not easy for a man to be in love, body and soul, at twenty-six, and yet to remain away and wait. And Andy had more to bear than mere waiting, for he began to be torn by those fears and agonies which seem trivial to other people but are more real and poignant to those most concerned than any of the tremendous things of life which can come afterwards.
“Well, Sam?” he said, seeing the man through a haze of ideas that he was forging amid the fire of his emotions, and only half aware of him. “What is it now?”
“I’ve got the apples. Old Bateson’s given me them.”
“Oh, all right,” said Andy, turning back to his work.
“There’s something else,” said Sam. “I told you I wouldn’t touch drink again without giving you notice. Well—this is notice. I’d have a glass of beer this night if I knew the devil was waiting to get me when I’d drunk the last drop.”
The mist of thought cleared out of Andy’s eyes and they became very kind and bright. He rang the bell without speaking, while Sam watched him uneasily. And when the little maid appeared he ordered her to bring in tea in ten minutes.