He sighed, and reverted. "I don't like your throwing up that good job. I don't reelly."
He meant to go, leaving it there, all that she had done, unacknowledged, unexplained between them, as she would have it left. And instead of going he stood rooted to that doorstep, and to his amazement he heard himself saying, "I wish I could do something for you, Winny."
And then (he took his own breath away with the abruptness of it). "Look here—why not come and make your home with us, when Maudie's married?"
She smiled dimly, as if she hardly saw him, as if, instead of standing beside him on the doorstep, she were saying good-by to him from somewhere a long way off.
"Oh no, Ranny, that would never do."
"Why not? There's that back room there doing nothing. We don't want it. You'd be welcome to it if it was any good."
She shook her head slowly. "It's very kind of you, but it wouldn't do. It really wouldn't. I don't mean the room, Ranny—it's a dear little room—I mean—I mean, you know——"
Now at last she was embarrassed, helpless, shaken from her defenses by the suddenness of his proposal.
"All right, Winky," he said, gently.
Then she broke down, but without self-pity, tearless, in her own fashion.