For
which power some of us who have not the knack of turning a pretty
phrase or throwing off an appropriate pleasantry may well be
thankful.
Presently she returned, bringing the coffee on a rough tray, also a
box of matches and Oscard's tobacco pouch. Noting this gratuitous
attention to his comfort, he looked up with a little laugh.
"Er--thank you," he said. "Very kind."
He did not put his pipe back to his lips--keenly alive to the fact
that the exigency of the moment demanded a little polite exchange of
commonplace.
"Children gone to bed?" he asked anxiously.
She paused in her slow, deft arrangement of the little table.
"Yes," she answered.
He nodded as if the news were eminently satisfactory. "Nestorius,"
he said, adhering to Meredith's pleasantry, "is the jolliest little
chap I have met for a long time."
"Yes," she answered softly. "Yes--but listen!"
He raised his head, listening as she did--both looking down the
river into the gathering darkness.
"I hear the sound of paddles," she said. "And you?"
"Not yet. My ears are not so sharp as yours."
"I am accustomed to it," the woman said, with some emotion in her
voice which he did not understand then. "I am always listening."
Oscard seemed to be struck with this description of herself.
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