But Bessie had ordained
that the meal should go on without them. It was not right that a man, at
work all day, should be kept waiting for his food at night. And so it
often happened that he and she would sit, _tete-a-tete_, over the cold
meat and pickles, of which, with the addition of bottled beer for the
boarder, the meal consisted.
Many intimate items of her own heart history did Bessie confide to the
politely attentive ear of Mr. Charles Gibbon. She did not receive
confidences in return, or ask for them. What could the young shopman have
to relate to compare with the interest attending Bessie's revelations?
He was no prince in disguise as it would have been so pleasant to discover
him to be--this short, thickly-made, middle-aged man, with the prominent,
bright, dark eyes, the large dark head, the knobbly red forehead, whose
parents had kept a small draper's shop in a small market-town in the
county.
What could a man so born and nurtured have to give Bessie in return for
the stories of the high life to which she had been accustomed? But he must
consider himself flattered by Bessie's condescension, he must see how
attractive she looked seated beneath the three-branched bronze gas-burner
to preside at his supper.
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