His eyebrows lifted to little gothic arches
of anxiety, a rash of tiny perspiration broke out over his blue shaved
face and as he sat on the edge of his chair, it seemed that inevitably
the tight sausage-like knees must push their way through mere fabric.
"That's about the way of it, ain't it?" he said again into the growing
silence.
"I--when a woman cares for--a man like--I did--Mr. Latz, she'll never be
happy until--she cares again--like that. I always say, once an
affectionate nature, always an affectionate nature."
"You mean," he said, leaning forward the imperceptible half-inch that
was left of chair, "you mean--me?"
The smell of bay rum came out greenly then as the moisture sprang out on
his scalp.
"I--I'm a home woman, Mr. Latz. You can put a fish in water but you
cannot make him swim. That's me and hotel life."
At this somewhat cryptic apothegm Mr. Latz's knee touched Mrs.
Samstag's, so that he sprang back full of nerves at what he had not
intended.
"Marry me, Carrie," he said more abruptly than he might have, without
the act of that knee to immediately justify.
She spread the lace out on her lap.
Ostensibly to the hotel lobby, they were casual as, "My mulligatawny
soup was cold tonight" or "Have you heard the new one that Al Jolson
pulls at the Winter Garden?" But actually, the roar was high in Mrs.
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