“It is so hot and stupid here, a fellow can have no comfort.” (Shutting the stove door.) “I am coming into your cool room. May I?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I disturb you?”—coming.
“No, sir.”
“‘No, sir!’ so I see. You can write, and talk, and have me about—it isn’t so much as if Ponto had come into the room instead of me. I have a good mind to try whether there is a way of disturbing you a little. I shall sit here close by you, and keep scolding. Yes, I see. You only smile quietly at this, and go on writing. I am provoked! I want you to talk with me; want you to care more about me than about this old ‘commercial pen’ of yours. Will you?”
“I can’t,” laughing.
“Then I will steal your pen. I will hold your hand—thus—”
Evening.
He stole my pen, and threw it to the other side of the table. He held my hand, and called me “an obstinate thing! but a dear good girl—a dear good girl, for all that.” He would keep my hand; and soon I ceased trying to regain it—for he was telling me, in the dearest voice, what he had been reading and thinking; so that I forgot every thing but that I was happy enough to go straight away to Heaven. And I wish at this moment, Edith, that I might die—for I cannot believe that such happiness as this can last; and I would rather die than have it broken.