VII
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.[Pg 379]
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.