c.

"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.
Samstag's ears and he could feel the plethoric red rushing in flashes
over his body.

"Marry me, Carrie," he said, as if to prove that his stiff lips could
repeat their incredible feat.

With a woman's talent for them, her tears sprang.

"Mr. Latz--"

"Louis," he interpolated, widely eloquent of posture.

"You're proposing--Louis!" She explained rather than asked, and placed
her hand to her heart so prettily that he wanted to crush it there with
his kisses.

"God bless you for knowing it so easy, Carrie. A young girl would make
it so hard. It's just what has kept me from asking you weeks ago, this
getting it said. Carrie, will you?"

"I'm a widow, Mr. Latz--Louis--"

"Loo--"

"L--Loo. With a grown daughter. Not one of those merry widows you read
about."

"That's me! A bachelor on top but a home-man underneath. Why, up to five
years ago, Carrie, while the best little mother a man ever had was
alive, I never had eyes for a woman or--"

"It's common talk what a grand son you were to her, Mr. La--Louis--"

"Loo!"

"Loo."

"I don't want to seem to brag, Carrie, but you saw the coat that just
walked out on Mrs. Gronauer? My little mother, she was a humpback,
Carrie, not a real one, but all stooped from the heavy years when she
was helping my father to get his start. Well, anyway, that little
stooped back was one of the reasons