Other sounds from above indicated the plumber's
progress from floor to floor.
"Do you realize," she said impulsively, "how _very_ nice you have been to
me? What a perfectly horrid position I might have been in, with poor
Clarence on the back fence! And suppose I had dared follow him alone to
the cellar? I--I might have been there yet--up to my neck in coal?"
She gazed into space with considerable emotion.
"And now," she said, "I am safe here in my own home. I have lunched
divinely, a maid is on the way to me, Clarence remains somewhere safe
indoors, Mr. Quinn is flitting from faucet to faucet, the electric light
and the telephone will be in working order before very long--and it is
_all_ due to you!"
"I--I did a few things I almost w-wish I hadn't," stammered Brown,
"b-because I can't, somehow, decently t-tell you how tremendously
I--I--" He stuck fast.
"What?"
"It would look as though I were presuming on a t-trifling service
rendered, and--oh, I can't say it; I want to, but I can't."
"Say what? Please, I don't mind what you are--are going to say."
"It's--it's that I----"
"Y-es?" in soft encouragement.
"W-want to know you most tremendously now. I don't want to wait several
years for chance and hazard."
"O-h!" as though the information conveyed a gentle shock to her. Her low-
breathed exclamation nearly finished Brown.
"I knew you'd think it unpardonable for me--at such a time--to venture
to--to--ask--say--express--convey----"
"Why do you--how can I--where could we--" She recovered herself
resolutely.
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