“I am glad that you are happy,” I said; “and I am glad that there is no one here to-night—except only us two.”
And Eve said nothing, but I knew that she was glad as well as I.
“There are times,” I continued, “when I could wish that my friends were—less my friends. It is pleasant to have them—I am glad that they like to come—but they might give us more than one evening a week to spend together.”
Again Eve said nothing, but again she smiled; and, smiling, it chanced that her eyes fell upon the book that was lying where it had fallen, face downward, upon the floor.
“Oh, the poor book!” she cried; and stooped to pick it up. And I stooped, too, so that we were near bumping our heads; which somewhat delayed the rescue of the book. And, when it was done, it befell that Eve’s hair was a bit rumpled and she had a pretty flush.
“Now, Adam,” said she, “you must tell me the matter that bothered you. For I know well enough that it was not your friends.”
I looked at her in some amusement. “Why,” I answered, “that is true. I marvel that you should have guessed it, although my marveling is not so great as it was, for women have a way of getting at the meat of a matter without being at the trouble of cracking the shell. Oh, I am learning. And whom should I tell if not my wife?”
Eve laughed, a low laugh and sweet. “I am to be the sharer of your sorrows,” she said, “hereafter. Remember that, Adam. And now out with it.”
And I did out with it. “It is my neighbors that bother me,” I said. “For I see plainly that they are well like to become my visitors; and they like me not at all, nor ever did. I know no reason why they should have had a change of heart. Certainly it is none of my doing.”
Eve did not answer this directly, but sat looking at me with a queer smile, so that I grew restive under it.