nervous fumbling of his fingers, the increasing droop that was coming to his hard jaws, and the little trick of lifting his head, sideways. Seeing with his ears, this was. Meta began to hear vague boomings of happiness. Songs at times leaped to her lips.
A small cat came to the house, lingered, grew into Meta's affections, was carefully hidden in the kitchen. By little and little, as her boldness increased, she would carry the cat into the living-room, letting it sleep in her lap as she read to David.
One day, humming at her work in the kitchen, she peeked in to David and saw him tapping out the time of her song with his fingers on the arm of the chair. A sudden catch came to her breath. . . . The song leaped forth, full-toned, vibrant. David tapped and nodded, tapped and nodded, tapped and nodded.
Yet, with the repression of more than twenty-one years to fight against, Meta held herself back. In more than nineteen years David had never kissed her, willingly; in all that time no term of endearment had passed his lips, graciously. So she fought the coming of new thoughts, new hopes. They were too wide and deep; too likely to be misunderstood . . . As she once had misunderstood things.
One night David awoke in a great terror, and was as a small boy, frightened, alone in a strange room. The fear of the dark, the night-dark, was heavy upon him. He could feel it, pulling at him, crushing him, threatening him. A terrific dream had shaken him, and he couldn't open his eyes against it. That was the Hell of it! Before, when dreams had come, he could open his eyes, look about the familiar room, and know it was merely a dream. Now, the film of terror continued.
Instantly Meta's arms were about him, the soothing mother-touch. Meta's head was close to his shoulder, she whispered. Her voice reassured him. Out of a sound sleep—and this is the marvel that the mother-germ in every woman makes possible—she had arisen, prepared, unshaken, calm, David relaxed.
"Something. . ." he muttered, almost whimpered. "Something. . ." Then, after a long silence: "Oh, God—blind!"
It was his first complaint in words. Before that he had always been the hard, truculent old man, blinded yet truculent. Now he was softening.
Meta's arms pressed him back to the pillow. Her fingers crept to his hair, smoothing, smoothing. David drew close as though for protection, and his heavy right arm lay across her body. His lips were against her thin hair. Once, in his sleep, he murmured, "I'm sorry, old woman." Softly. In the tones that another man would have used with, "My dearest."
Meta understood, fully understood. Her body thrilled to it.
"I know," she whispered. "I know. Go to sleep—go to sleep—go to sleep."
Crooning to him, holding him close, gently she rocked him in her arms, as one would rock a babe, until he slept.
BUT Meta didn't sleep that night, which was the awakening to her Heaven. Her hand kept up its soft stroking of his hair, her voice kept up its whispered crooning. Even long after he slept, hand and voice went on. She felt him relax, breathe deeply, yet still she rocked gently, whispering her lullaby. . . the one she had learned in years gone past, and had used such a little while.
"Dear God in Heaven!" she whispered, once. "After these years—all these years." And again took up her lullaby.
After hours she rose, went into the bathroom, turned on the electricity so that it lighted into her sleeping room, and stood again above David. It was years since she had seen him like this. Calm in sleep. So quiet, so good. Dear David!
Fearing the beating of her heart would awaken him, she crept back to the bathroom door and watched from there. David tossed. His hand went out, seeking over the pillow. Instantly she was at his side, slipping into the bed.
"Where?" he muttered. "Where are—"
"Here. . . dear." Meta whispered. It was the first time in nearly twenty years, that "dear." Her thoughts often had held it, but her lips had never framed it.
"Here, my dear," she repeated, growing bolder.
David sighed. The lids slipped back over his blank eyes. He breathed evenly, content in her keeping, and his hard hand snuggled against her cheek.
IN THE weeks that followed Meta expanded like a flower that has been kept in a darkened cellar and is suddenly lifted to sunlight. Ten years dropped from her eyes, her breasts grew rounder, higher, her body straighter. She became alert.
Smiling through the hours of the day she hurried about her tasks—singing, laughing through the doorway to David, who sat in his chair and tapped out the time to her songs.
At night, his head pillowed on her shoulder, she would close her eyes tight, forcing herself to sleep that the day might come more quickly. She was as a new bride. Every hour held a hundred new wonders.
The little cat grew into a larger cat, and grew more largely into Meta's affections. David, at times, held the purring animal on his knees, stroked it, seemed content in the touch of companionship it brought to him.
Haltingly, David had come to say "My dear," and "sweetheart." When one of these had first dropped from his lips, Meta stopped in her work, tensed. Then she hurried to him, crept to him almost on her knees. Great sobs shook her.
Six months wore on, after the coming of the blindness, and one day Mrs. Jobbins, who kept the drug store at the corner of the block, came hurrying into the yard of the Hansen place. Meta and David sat on the porch, Mrs. Jobbins motioned mysteriously to Meta, who went down to the gate to talk with the woman.
"There's a—Doctor Dulayne," Mrs. Jobbins began breathlessly. "He's a great specialist, eye specialist. He's here, in town—a friend of our family, used to visit us when he was a little feller," (she had recovered her breath and was running on at her usual speed, "and I told him about your man, and he thinks he may do something for him. Thinks mebbe he can op'rate."
Importantly and smilingly, after the whispers, Mrs. Jobbins waited. She was an eager fat woman who garbed with importance each action and movement, exactly as she importantly weighed out the poisons and medicines in her shop. This was the highest moment in her life, she felt, this carrying of the great news to Meta.
"Let's tell David." Meta said at last, turning back to the porch.
David heard, without speaking, but the tightening of his body was perceptible. At the end he nodded.
"We'll have him up tomorrow," Meta suggested. David was deep in thought. Mrs. Jobbins was hurrying back to her neglected shop. "We'll go to see—"
"Tell him to come up right away," David cut in. "Today. Right away!"
"But, dear," Meta objected, "perhaps he—"
"At once! Tell him to hurry." Finality was in his command.
Dr. Dulayne came on the third day, and during the hours intervening between Mrs. Jobbins' breathless announcement and the specialist's visit, Meta lived with shrieking nerves, hers and David's. Nothing that she attempted pleased the man. Her fingers on his
