"You must think me a most adaptable woman, Cyrus, to fall in love, at a minute's notice, with a voice and a memory."
"If you are a toothless, hairless, wrinkled, one-eyed hag you ought to be grateful."
"A toothless hag, even with no pride—may have a little caution."
"Anyway," said Cyrus, and he spoke more seriously—and with more decision—"I am in earnest. I may be talking like a fool—I don't know how to express myself. Meeting you again is like a new life. As a little girl, Ruthy, you were everything to me. You don't know what a difference, what a void it made when you vanished and left me adrift. Now that we are again together, and I am older, I realize what I lost. After you left Longfields—and your leaving was awfully sudden, if you remember—not even a chance to say good-by—I used to sit on your doorstep and try to think you would come out."
"Is that true?"
"On my honor. And one moonlight night when father and Joanna thought I was in bed I stood at my window and tried to get a message to you, in the old way—hoping a thought would reach you. Then I stole out of the house, ran to yours and threw little stones against the closed shutters of your empty chamber. Of course no answer came. But I waited and waited. The moonlight seemed to encourage me. And when I had waited in vain—a very long time,—it seemed a year—I pretended you came to the window and we had a long talk."
She laughed. "And what did I say?"
"You said just what I wanted you to say: the nicest things; the things I was yearning for. Quite different from what you are saying to-night."