the door, waiting, waiting, oh
so patiently! And I often bring him back something nice, don't I,
Grimmy? You should see how delighted he is as soon as I enter the door."

Ida was changed, and in many ways. She seemed to have grown younger; in
her voice and manner there was a girlishness which was quite new to
Waymark. Her motions were lighter and nimbler; there was no longer that
slow grace of step and carriage which had expressed absolute leisure,
and with it had gone, perhaps, something of dignity, which used to sit
so well upon her. She laughed from time to time in a free, careless
way; formerly she seldom did more than smile. In the old days, there
was nothing about her suggestive of what are called the domestic
virtues; now she seemed perfectly at home amid these simple
surroundings, and, almost as soon as her visitor had sat down, she
busied herself in laying the table in a quick, ready way, which came of
the habit of waiting upon herself.

"You'll have a cup of tea with me?" she said, looking at Waymark with
the curiosity which seemed to show that she also found something
changed in him. "I only get home about eight o'clock, and this is the
quietest and pleasantest meal in the day for me."

"What do you do all day, then?" Waymark asked, softening the bluntness
of his question with a smile.

She stepped near to him, and held out her hands for him to look at;
then, as he met her eyes again, laughed merrily.

"Do you guess?" she asked.

"I believe I can. You have gone back to the laundry again?"

"Yes."

"And how long is it since you did so?"

"How long is it since we last saw each other?"

"Did you begin at once when you returned to London?"

"Yes."

Waymark kept silence, whilst Ida poured out a cup of tea for him, and
then took her seat at the table.

"Don't you think I'm comfortable here?" Ida said. "It's like having a
house of my own. I see nothing of the other people in the building, and
feel independent."

"Did you buy the furniture yourself?"

"Yes; just the things I couldn't do without. I pay only
three-and-sixpence a week, and so long as I can earn that, I'm sure at
all events of a home, where I can be happy or miserable, as I please."

Waymark wondered. There was no mistaking the genuineness of her tone.
What, then, had been the reason for this astonishing change, a change
extending, it would seem, almost to temperament? What intermediate
phases had led up to this result? He wished to