At intervals they met on the stairway; he on his way to his little dog hospital, she returning from a bit of marketing in the street.

At such times they passed each other with averted eyes, pretending a certain preoccupation, suddenly seized with a great embarrassment, the timidity of a second childhood.

He went on about his business, disturbed and thoughtful.

She hurried up to her tiny room, her curious little false curls shaking with her agitation, the faintest suggestion of a flush coming and going in her withered cheeks.

The emotion of one of these chance meetings remained with them during all the rest of the day.
Was it the first romance in the lives of each?
Did Old Grannis ever remember a certain face amongst those that he had known when he was young Grannis--the face of some pale-haired girl, such as one sees in the old cathedral towns of England?
Did Miss Baker still treasure up in a seldom opened drawer or box some faded daguerreotype, some strange old-fashioned likeness, with its curling hair and high stock?
It was impossible to say.
Maria Macapa, the Mexican woman who took care of the lodgers' rooms, had been the first to call the flat's attention to the affair, spreading the news of it from room to room, from floor to floor.