Mr. Josh Spence, a fat man rounding out a corner of the room with his retiring flesh, was called upon for a song. He was modest, and he declined, but yielded upon persuasion, and in strained tenor sang "Marguerite."
"Do you like his voice?" Gunhild asked.
"It's not big enough to fit him," Milford answered. "But let him sing. It keeps the boy quiet."
"Oh, are you not ashamed? He is a nice little man, and his mother loves him so."
"And only seven years old," said Milford.
"You must not make fun. The boy is her heart. You must not laugh at a heart."
Milford flinched. He had not said the right thing. "Mitchell, the man who works with me, called me down for saying something that I oughtn't to have said, and I apologized, and we shook hands. I apologize to you. Shall we shake hands?"
She shook her head. "No, it will not be necessary. You do not mean to be cruel."
This touched him. He tried to hide himself with a laugh. She looked at him earnestly, and his face sobered. He thought of the night before, his kneeling to her on the floor of the haunted house, and felt that it would be a comfort to drop upon his knees again, not to talk of the wind rising among the trees, but to tell her that she had clasped her hands about his heart.
"Shall we go out on the veranda?" he asked, eating her with his glutton eyes.