“No, I’m never civil.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Morgan; you can’t help it, if you’re civil in your heart. It comes kindly, to folk who laugh as much as you do.”
“You laugh too; I’ve heard you laughing downstairs, in the workroom. You and I laugh more than Silas and Gregory.”
“Gregory can’t laugh,” she said gravely.
For a moment their chatter stopped quite short. Then she began again,—
“I must go now, Mr. Morgan.”
“No, stay; you shall look at some of my things,” he cried, making a movement to detain her. “These are the alembics where the scent is distilled,” he went on; “of course, these are only the small ones that I use for my own experiments; I expect you’ve seen the big ones in the shed downstairs.
“The shed all littered with sandal-wood shavings? I like it; it smells good.”
“It smells good here in my room too, don’t you think? That’s because of the scent dripping from the alembics. You see it drips into these pannikins that are put there to catch it. They are all new scents—new combinations of scents, that is—that I’m trying.” He was eager, both for the sake of his work and in his anxiety to hold her interest. “Now I’ll show you some of the raw material; it doesn’t always smell good before we’ve been to work upon it.”
He wondered whether he might take her arm, whether he might venture. She was like the little bird to which he always compared her, and as easily scared! He turned the question over and over in his mind while he was talking, now bracing himself to be bold, now shrinking back; almost moving towards her; but while hesitation still swirled within his mind he found that his hand had, quite simply, taken hers. “It’s so natural, so fitting, for me to take her hand, that she hasn’t even noticed,” he thought with joy.