“Do you sing, Mr. Forge?” asked this siren from Ohio.
Nathan countered by desiring to know if she played. And when she said a little, not much, Nathan affirmed he also sang a little, not much. And Miss Gardner “took his things” and hung them in the adjoining bedroom and came back into the sitting room, feeling of her belt in the back and primping and patting her hair. Likewise she produced a pair of tiny pince-nez spectacles and polished them with great care while Nathan kept his mutilated ear away from her and wished to high heaven he had given better attention lately to his nails.
Putting on the spectacles at last, Miss Gardner poked her lacy handkerchief away in her blouse and sank in an opposite chair. She remarked that it was fortunate Grandpa Cuttner had retired, because now they had the house all to themselves and Nathan agreed it was indeed fortunate Grandpa Cuttner had retired, because they had the house all to themselves, although what they were going to do with the house, now that they had it all to themselves, remained to be disclosed.
Seated beside the lamp, Nathan had his first satisfactory look at the girl who might possibly “be his consort and his comfort down all the future years.” Undoubtedly both would always look back to this night and cherish it as one of Life’s Great Moments! And to think he was living in it now—that very instant!
She was a well-built girl, rather small in stature, with soft chestnut hair and large hips. She had a kissable mouth and a slightly snubbed nose and pink, shell-like ears. Likewise she had a “You-don’t-dare” manner that was tantalizing. She pulled her heavy mohair skirt down quickly over her ankles as Nathan sat opposite her and thereby the boy appreciated she was very modest and chaste and altogether a worthy object for the bestowal of his connubial affections. He tried to imagine that she was his wife already, sitting so domestically beside the lamp, and came back to earth by realizing she held an open library book in her lap and had launched into a dissertation on the decline of current fiction.
Nathan clandestinely smoothed his hair, shot his cuffs, got his feet stored away under his chair with minimum display and agreed that there were no masters like the old masters. As for himself, give him Dickens. There was a certain style about Dickens. Then at the psychological moment he remarked contemptuously:
“I write a bit, myself!”
“You write! What?”
“Poetry!”
“No!”