"Couldn't I begin with you?"
I shook my head. "You don't know yourself well enough to suit me, at
the moment. And--anyway--I'm booked."
"A date!"
"A wife."
She considered that at length, too. "Gwen said last night she knew from
the minute she saw you that you wanted company, but not particularly
a pretty girl. Just a person. She said she told you all those things
about herself, hoping--"
"They had their little effect," I reminded Yvonne.
"Your Ricky," she answered, "must be some gal."
"She's my gal--which makes her some gal to me."
The door knocked again--the front door, this time.
It was a box of flowers--yellow roses, again.
For a minute I thought the manager had slipped up.
There wasn't any card.
Then I knew.
That, I thought, was what it meant: a perception of the nature of other
people.
Flowers are for the living, and I'm fond of yellow roses.
They'd be no use to me, dead. So I had these now. To remind me that
the idea of flowers for the living, though seldom put in practice,
describes the immortal essence.
Except for taking Paul off my back awhile, there wasn't anything else
that Dave could do or say. But this, he did and said.