“Eve,” I said, and I tried to be severe—but failed lamentably, for I smiled, too; and there is some excuse for me, for how could any one, meeting that smile of hers, remember such a purpose? “Eve,” I said, “I did not think it of you, that you would thus put your own husband to shame. For I do remember, and would you imply that I am void of wisdom? I have no doubt that I, myself, could write proverbs well enough”—
But Eve interrupted me. “Do you remember,” she asked, “the Welsh giant?”
Now what had the Welsh giant to do with it? “I was about to say,” I continued, “when you interrupted me, that I had no doubt that I, myself, could write proverbs,—quite passable proverbs,—if Solomon had not covered the field completely, some thousands of years ago.”
And I looked at Eve—but she was leaning back in her chair, looking at me and smiling still; and she made me no answer. So I resumed.
“Out of my own mouth,” I said, “have you convicted me. But there is yet more, Eve. Do you remember what it is?”
And, on a sudden, she had left her chair and was on the arm of mine; and when she had made an end of rumpling my hair, she spoke.
“So you think, Adam,” she said, “that you have proved yourself a man of understanding? Well, then, perhaps you have. But you may have these same neighbors to visit with you, for I find much good in them. And now,” she added, with a blush that well became her, “I must sew.”
So again she sat her in her chair and she took her basket from the table; and, with another glance at me—a glance half shy and wholly sweet—she drew forth, from some secret place, her sewing. And I sat watching her, a tender smile upon my face—or what passed for that—Eve seemed to like it—and I thought my thoughts. They were pleasant thoughts. And Eve’s sewing—it was as if she were dressing a doll. As I watched her fingers moving skillfully, but with no haste, I marveled that she sewed so well; and as I watched her face I marveled yet again. For her face was filled with love—a love that was not for me—filled with love and a great yearning. And all that love she seemed to sew into the little thing within her hands. But ever she had more, that each stitch was done with it and yet it grew with every stitch she took. And again Eve glanced up at me. I did but smile the more, until I grinned like any Cheshire cat.
“Eve,” I said, “how do you know that they will fit”—I considered, and saw nothing else for it—“how do you know that they will fit it?”
But I was wrong. “It!” she cried. “It! Adam, I take shame to myself that you would so call your first-born. Him, sir. I am sure of it.” She put her sewing down, tenderly, and came to me. And her arms were around my neck and her face was hidden on my shoulder. “Adam, Adam,” she whispered, “my love for him is become so big, it hurts. How can I bear to wait all the long months until I see him—my son? How can I, Adam?”