In telling about himself Burnamy touched only upon the points which he believed would take his listener’s intelligent fancy, and he stopped so long before he had tired him that March said he would like to introduce him to his wife.  He saw in the agreeable young fellow an image of his own youth, with some differences which, he was willing to own, were to the young fellow’s advantage.  But they were both from the middle West; in their native accent and their local tradition they were the same; they were the same in their aspirations; they were of one blood in their literary impulse to externate their thoughts and emotions.

Burnamy answered, with a glance at his enamelled shoes, that he would be delighted, and when her husband brought him up to her, Mrs. March said she was always glad to meet the contributors to the magazine, and asked him whether he knew Mr. Kendricks, who was her favorite.  Without giving him time to reply to a question that seemed to depress him, she said that she had a son who must be nearly his own age, and whom his father had left in charge of ‘Every Other Week’ for the few months they were to be gone; that they had a daughter married and living in Chicago.  She made him sit down by her in March’s chair, and before he left them March heard him magnanimously asking whether Mr. Kendricks was going to do something more for the magazine soon.  He sauntered away and did not know how quickly Burnamy left this question to say, with the laugh and blush which became him in her eyes: 

“Mrs. March, there is something I should like to tell you about, if you will let me.”

“Why, certainly, Mr. Burnamy,” she began, but she saw that he did not wish her to continue.

“Because,” he went on, “it’s a little matter that I shouldn’t like to go wrong in.”

He told her of his having overheard what Miss Triscoe had said to her father, and his belief that she was talking about the lower berth.  He said he would have wished to offer it, of course, but now he was afraid they might think he had overheard them and felt obliged to do it.

“I see,” said Mrs. March, and she added, thoughtfully, “She looks like rather a proud girl.”

“Yes,” the young fellow sighed.

“She is very charming,” she continued, thoughtfully, but not so judicially.

“Well,” Burnamy owned, “that is certainly one of the complications,” and they laughed together.

She stopped herself after saying, “I see what you mean,” and suggested, “I think I should be guided by circumstances.  It needn’t be done at once, I suppose.”

“Well,” Burnamy began, and then he broke out, with a laugh of embarrassment, “I’ve done it already.”

“Oh!  Then it wasn’t my advice, exactly, that you wanted.”

“No!”

“And how did he take it?”

“He said he should be glad to make the exchange if I really didn’t mind.”  Burnamy had risen restlessly, and she did not ask him to stay.  She merely said: