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Show The Chimney 106 "How long have you been married?" He set his hat with his gloves in the crown on the bowled cane seat of the rocker, the only chair, as all the tables were covered with vases, paper flowers, and figurines. "Anna is my bride. No one else can have Anna. No one. Only me." "Sir," Langley cleared his throat. "I certainly have no intention of making any advances toward your bride. I have, or I mean, I had my own love, though we've broken our engagement." "You would break a love?" The pale eyes effervesced with white sparks, almost anger. "We couldn't agree about something." "You love her and not marry?" He pressed his large hands into his cheeks, pursed his lips into a tight line and slanted his scant eyebrows in disbelief. "Love is too complicated, my friend." Mr. Langley looked wistfully at his hat, just out of reach. "Love is not what you say. Love is this." The Swede thumped the middle of his chest with the f l a t of his hand and moved toward the stranger, a wide-eyed stare on his pocked face. He grabbed flowers from one of the vases as he stepped. "Here," he said, his arm outstretched, "for you." The flowers trembled in his hand. The s t i f f edges of paper rustled against each other. Langley half put out his hand, but checked himself, awed by the threaded red veins that had surfaced on the Swede's cheeks and forehead and by the intensity of the man thrusting paper flowers at him. "You are sad," the Swede said, his face a study in unvarnished sympathy. "Don't bother me with your flowers." He pushed them away. "Nor your Pity." |