Una dashed wildly to the bedroom for a last nose-powdering, a last glance at her hair and nails, and slowly paraded to the door to let him in, while Mrs. Golden stood primly, with folded hands, like a cabinet photograph of 1885. So the irregular Walter came into a decidedly regular atmosphere and had to act like a pure-minded young editor. They conversed--Lord! how they conversed! Mrs. Golden respectably desired to know Mr. Babson's opinions on the weather, New-Yorkers, her little girl Una's work, fashionable city ministers, the practical value of motor-cars, and the dietetic value of beans--the large, white beans, not the small, brown ones--she had grown both varieties in her garden at home (Panama, Pennsylvania, when Mr. Golden, Captain Golden he was usually called, was alive)--and had Mr. Babson ever had a garden, or seen Panama? And was Una _really_ attending to her duties? All the while Mrs. Golden's canary trilled approval of the conversation. Una listened, numbed, while Walter kept doing absurd things with his face--pinched his lips and tapped his teeth and rubbed his jaw as though he needed a shave. He took off his eye-glasses to wipe them and tied his thin legs in a knot, and all the while said, "Yes, there's certainly a great deal to that." At a quarter to ten Mrs. Golden rose, indulged in a little kitten yawn behind her silvery hand, and said: "Well, I think I must be off to bed.... I find these May days so languid. Don't you, Mr. Babson? Spring fever. I just can't seem to get enough sleep.... Now you mustn't stay up _too_ late, Una dear." The bedroom door had not closed before Walter had darted from his chair, picked Una up, his hands pressing tight about her knees and shoulders, kissed her, and set her down beside him on the couch. "Wasn't I good, huh? Wasn't I good, huh? Wasn't I? Now who says Wally Babson ain't a good parlor-pup, huh? Oh, you old darling, you were twice as agonized as me!" And that was all he said--in words. Between them was a secret, a greater feeling of unfettered intimacy, because together they had been polite to mother--tragic, pitiful mother, who had been enjoying herself so much without knowing that she was in the way. That intimacy needed no words to express it; hands and cheeks and lips spoke more truly. They were children of emotion, young and crude and ignorant, groping for life and love, all the world new to them, despite their sorrows and waiting. They were clerklings, not lords of love and life, but all the more easily did they yield to longing for happiness. Between them was the battle of desire and timidity--and not all the desire was his, not hers all the timidity. She fancied sometimes that he was as much afraid as was she of debasing their shy seeking into unveiled passion. Yet his was the initiative; always she panted and wondered what he would do next, feared and wondered and rebuked--and desired.