Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/74

 Ezra” was unfortunately known to her lodger before she could with any verisimilitude produce the book, and he was wary of committing himself. The exquisite effrontery with which she finally brought out her gray-green volume was only equalled by the forbearing courtesy with which he welcomed both it and her.

Nor did he offer any other comment on her opening the book at a well-worn page than an apologetic removal to the only chair in the room more comfortable than the one he was at the time occupying. He listened in silence to her intelligent if somewhat sonorous rendering of selected portions of “Saul,” thanking her politely at the close, and only stipulating that he should be allowed to return the favor by a reading from one of his own favorite poets. With a shocked remembrance of certain yellow-covered volumes she had often cleared away from the piazza, Miss Gould inquired if the poet in question were English. On his