When he came downstairs the next morning, Mrs. Brown regarded his
strained and haggard face with profound interest, and she observed to
one of the old ladies that she believed Mr. Anderson was “coming down
with something.”
He made inquiries about Miss Selby’s health, and obtained very vague and
confused replies, which he interpreted as people jaded and despondent
from a bad night are apt to interpret things. He went into the dining
room, but he could eat no breakfast. Who could, sitting alone at a
little table, opposite an empty chair? Then he went out again.
It was a rainy day, but that was so fitting that he scarcely noticed it.
He remembered having seen a greenhouse not far away, and he went there.
It was not open on Sunday, but he made it be open. He banged so loud and
so long on the door that at last an old man came out of a near-by
cottage.
“It’s a case of pneumonia!” said the young man, fiercely. “I’ve got to
have some flowers.”
So he was admitted to the greenhouse, and he bought everything there
was, and then sat down at a little desk to write a card. He never forgot
the writing of that card, the rain drumming down on the glass roof, the
palms and rubber trees standing about him, and the hot, moist, steamy
smell like a jungle. He never forgot what he wrote, or how he felt while
he wrote it.
But there would be no use in repeating what he wrote, for nobody ever
read that card.
He put it with the flowers, and set off home. When he got there he gave
the bouquet, very sodden now, to Mrs. Brown’s servant, and said to her:
“Please give this to Miss Selby. Give it to her yourself; don’t send
it.”
Then he went up to his own room and locked the door. And the room was
all filled with the gray light of a rainy day.
The clang of the dinner bell startled him; he jumped up, scowling, and
muttered: “Oh, shut up!” But, just the same, he had to obey it. He had
to go downstairs, and had to sit at the little table.
Scarcely had he sat down when he saw Miss Selby enter the room--Miss
Selby in a new dark green linen dress, looking unusually pretty, and not
even pale.
He arose; he was pale enough. He couldn’t speak. She must have received
that card; she must have read it. As she glanced at him, he saw the
color deepen in her cheeks, and her smile was uncertain. She was so
lovely.
“I thought--” he began.
She sat down, and he did, too. Again their eyes met.
“It’s a miserable day,” she observed.
He didn’t think so. He thought it was the most beautiful day that had
ever dawned; and he might have said something of the sort if he had not
just at that moment seen an awful thing. He stared, appalled, almost
unbelieving.
The waitress was coming across the room, carrying his immense bouquet.
“No!” he cried, half rising.
But it was too late; she had come; she presented the bouquet to Miss
Selby with a pleased and kindly smile.
“For you!” she announced.
Every one in the room was watching with deep interest.
“See here!” said the young man, in a low and unsteady voice. “I--I only
got them because I thought--they--she told me--you had pneumonia. I
thought--Give them back to her. Throw them away! I--I’m sorry--”
“Sorry I haven’t got pneumonia?” asked Miss Selby. “It’s too bad, but
perhaps I can manage it some other time.”
Her tone and her smile hurt him terribly. He wished that he could snatch
the flowers away from her. She was laughing at him again; every one in
the room was laughing at him.
And it didn’t occur to him that Miss Selby couldn’t possibly know how he
felt, but was a very young and inexperienced creature who was also hurt
by his strange manner of giving bouquets. She thought he wanted her to
know that, unless she were very ill, he wouldn’t dream of giving her
flowers. She was even more hurt than he was.
“Will you bring a vase, please, Kate?” she asked.
Katie did bring a vase, and the hateful and offensive flowers were set
up between them, like a hedge. He leaned over, and with his penknife
deliberately cut off the card tied to the stems and put it into his
pocket.
And not one more word did they speak all through that dreadful meal.