At the house we were joined by the doctor's son, Georg. My best friend, I should say; certainly, for my part, I treasured his friendship very highly. He and Elza were twins--twenty-three years old at this time. I am two years older; and I had been a room-mate with Georg at the Common University of the Potomac.
Our friendship had, if anything, grown closer since my promotion into the business world. Yet we were as unlike as two individuals could possibly be. I am dark-haired, slim, and of comparatively slight muscular strength. Restless--full of nervous energy--and, they tell me, somewhat short of temper. Georg was a blond, powerful young giant. A head taller than I--blue-eyed, from his mother, now dead--square-jawed, and a complexion pink and white. He was slow to anger. He seldom spoke impulsively; and usually with a slow, quiet drawl. Always he seemed looking at life and people with a half-humorous smile--looking at the human pageant with its foibles, follies and frailties--tolerantly. Yet there was nothing conceited about him. Quite the reverse. He was generally wholly deprecating in manner, as though he himself were of least importance. Until aroused. In our days of learning, I saw Georg once--just once--thoroughly angered.
"... Came up promptly, didn't you?" Georg was saying. He was leading me to the house doorway, but I stopped him.
"Let's go to the grove," I suggested. We turned down from the small viaduct, passed the house, and went into the heavy grove of trees nearby.
"He's hungry," Elza declared. "Jac, did you eat at the office tonight?"
"Some," I admitted. In truth the run up here had brought me a thoroughly hearty appetite, which I just realized.
"I was pretty busy, you know," I added. "Such a night--but don't you bother."
But she had already scurried away toward the house. Dear little Elza! I wished then, for the hundredth time, that I was a man of wealth--or at least, not as poor as a tower timekeeper. True, I made fair money--but the urge to spend it recklessly dominated me. I decided in that moment, to reform for good; and lay by enough to justify asking a woman to be my wife.
We reclined on a mossy bank in the grove of trees, so thick a grove that it hid the house from our sight.