"I thought as much. It's you she's askin' for. I've took 'er into the barman's parlor--'e won't be 'ome till tea."
Oscar went down-stairs slowly, but when he got to the bottom his breath was coming and going in gusts, and his heart was beating against his breast as with the blows of a hammer. The parlor door stood ajar and a perfume he knew was coming out to him. After a moment he pushed the door open and then she whom he expected to see was standing before him, she herself, more radiantly beautiful than ever, with something soft and white about her neck and a face shining with smiles.
How much he lived in that moment no one could say. A hundred emotions coursed through his soul like the flash of flame--joy, delight, pain, shame, the rapture of seeing her, the humiliation of being found in such a common place, the degradation of being ill-clad and obviously poor, but above all love--the uncontrollable love that leads men on to happiness and victory or to ruin and death. His face broke up, tears burst from his eyes and holding out both hands he cried--
"Helga! My God! Helga!"
V
Helga appeared to be not less excited than Oscar himself. She was genuinely moved to see how the joy he had in meeting her affected him, and when he had kissed both her hands she kissed one of his and tears which she could not keep back came to her eyes also. There was a shiny leather-covered sofa in the room and they sat on it side by side and hand in hand.
"I have never, never been so glad," he said.
"And I am glad too," she said. "Let me look at you again, Oscar. A little paler, and perhaps a little thinner, but otherwise not changed in the least."
"Yet you have changed a great deal, Helga."
"Grown older, have I?"