The little man shook his head. Mrs. Tilney was about to shut the door when abruptly he threw out both his hands. The gesture was as timid as a girl's.
"I am from the country," he appealed. "I've come a great ways. I am very tired."
Then he smiled up at her, and somehow, in the wan wistfulness of his look, the sharp, distrustful woman had been placated.
"Oh, well," she grumbled and, standing aside, she waved for him to enter.
It had taken Mrs. Tilney weeks, not to say months, to grasp the real nature of her queer, retiring guest. Summer went, the autumn drew on. A new flock of winter "steadies" replaced summer's birds of passage and she wondered when he, too, would be gone. But Mr. Mapleson showed no disposition to depart. There were, in fact, signs that he meant to remain indefinitely. At any rate, on entering his room one morning Mrs. Tilney found upon the wall three cheap little color prints, each neatly framed in fumed oak. Also in a cigar box and tomato can on the window sill Mr. Mapleson had laid out for himself the beginnings of a window garden. A geranium and a Chinese bulb composed the horticultural display.
However, it was not until Thanksgiving Day, some weeks later, that Mrs. Tilney's suspicions of her guest were effectively set at rest. The circumstance arose over the departure, somewhat abrupt, of one of the other boarders, a Mr. Agramonte. The gentleman, the manager of a vaudeville booking agency, having let his board bill run three weeks, decamped secretly in the middle of the night. This was the day before Thanksgiving. At noon then, the fête day in question, Mr. Mapleson appeared suddenly at Mrs. Tilney's kitchen door. In his arms he bore a small potted plant. The plant was in full bloom and Mr. Mapleson was beaming shyly.
"I have brought you a flower," he said.
"Me?" had gasped Mrs. Tilney.
"Yes, it's a begonia," Mr. Mapleson was saying, when to his wonder, his alarm as well, Mrs. Tilney emitted a laugh, or rather it was a croak, then burst abruptly into tears, the first in years.
Never, never before, as she protested, had one of her boarders shown her such consideration. At the thought Mrs. Tilney wept anew.