He shut the door, and drew her across to a chair by the fire, and looked long at her. He stirred the fire, simply to have some occupation for his hands; looked up at her with a half smile. She, for her part, found that a new hesitation had come upon her—a new reluctance into her speech. For though this was no genius of a Jimmy, to be held in reverence and awe and worship, still, this was a Jimmy grown up, with a deeper voice, and with the responsibilities of life upon him. The only blessed thought in her mind, as it had been a blessed thought in his, was that he, too, was poor and shabby—perhaps even a little in trouble.
They laughed at each other softly—a little sentimentally and foolishly, if the truth be told, because there was so much to be said that each was looking for a beginning. The years had gone by for each of them, and had given each of them, in a sense, a new experience of the world, and yet a small experience at the best. So that, although it was the old Jimmy and the old Moira who looked into each other's eyes in this poor room, it was yet a new Jimmy and a new Moira, with much to be learned and much to be forgotten. The child who had romped and wandered with him through sunny days was left far behind; this woman who smiled with the eyes of the old Moira was a something different, with which he had to get acquainted.
"Everyone's been trying to find you," she said at last, laughing nervously. "Now that you're such an important person, we've all been anxious to hear about you—to know what you were doing. Jimmy"—she leaned down towards him where he knelt before the refractory fire—"why didn't you try to find us?"
He got up from his knees, and stood a little shamefacedly beside his desk, turning over papers on it. "Well, you see," he began at last, "I had a notion I wanted to do something in the world—to be great—and all that sort of thing; then I think I meant to spring in upon you all—and surprise you."
He finished rather lamely, but the eyes into which he looked were tender, and he laughed more easily. "You see, I've had a bit of a struggle," he said. "Before a man does anything in this sort of profession, he's got to be prepared to live on dry bread almost——"
"But not now, Jimmy," she broke in hurriedly. "All that is done with."
"Practically," said Jimmy, jingling some coppers in his pockets, and swallowing with some difficulty. "Still, it's a good thing to look back upon; to remember the days when you didn't have all you wanted—and—and so forth."
"You must have been very brave, Jimmy," she said in wonderment.
"I had to be," he retorted.
At that moment a curious bumping sound was audible from the landing; then the door was thrust open without ceremony. In the doorway was framed, as a picture of Bohemia for the eyes of Moira, the figure of the landlady—a supercilious landlady, and no respecter of persons. She struck an attitude as she came into the room, and looked about her contemptuously; had a particular eye for Moira.