They were sitting in deep chairs in the living room now, a tall-stemmed
reading lamp glowing softly between them, hardly speaking. The tiredness
that had been in the man's face like the writing in a 'crossed' letter
began to leave it softly. He reached over, took the woman's hand and held
it--not closely or with greediness but with a firm clasp that had
something weary like appeal in it and something strong like a knowledge of
rest.
"Always like this, at home," he said slowly.
"It _is_ rather sweet." Her voice had the gentleness of water running into
water. Her eyes looked at him once and left him deliberately but not as if
they didn't care. It must have been a love-match in the beginning then--
her eyes seemed so infirm.
"You'll read a little?"
"Yes."
"Home," he said. He seemed queerly satisfied to say the word, queerly
moved as if even after so much reality had been lived through together, he
couldn't quite believe that it was reality.
"And I've been waiting for it--five days, six days, this time?"
She must have been at the seashore after all--tan or lack of it meant
little these days, especially to a woman who lived in this kind of an
apartment.
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