III
Miss Shirley St. George lived with her aunt in Audley Square, Tarlyon saying that he was no fit person for a young girl to live with, and the aunt agreeing. They adored each other, George and Shirley.
Towards Audley Square walked Major Cypress, very thoughtfully. Piccadilly had to be crossed, from the new Wolsely building to Mr. Solomon’s, the florist. Piccadilly was crossed, miraculously, for the traffic was thick, though genial. A newsboy yelled, “Execution of Erskine Childers” into his ear.
“Boy,” said Major Cypress, “you must not do that. You must not gloat on death like that, and before perfect strangers, too. And, besides, though you may not have shared Mr. Childers’s political opinions, you must admit that he did not die meanly. Here’s a shilling for you, and don’t let me hear you talking so much about executions in future.”
Major Cypress then walked away a pace or two, and stood before the flower-laden windows of Mr. Solomon. The boy watched him.
“Balmy,” said the boy.
“Mysterious disappearance of Child!” yelled the boy.
“Damn it,” thought Major Cypress. “I am in love. Oh, damn it!”
And he stared into the flower-laden windows of Mr. Solomon. Orchids there were therein, yellow and mauve and speckled. Roses, little, tight autumn roses. Pink and white anemones, hyacinths and jonquils, white Dutch lilacs and fat chrysanthemums in white and bronze. And there were carnations—right in the middle of that pageant was a splash of purple carnations.
“Carnations,” thought Major Cypress. “And, in particular, purple carnations. But that is not a proper way for an Englishman to win a wife. A little tender brutality is the way. But how to be tenderly brutal? Hell, I wish I was a Frenchman! A gardenia, on the other hand, may not come amiss. I will wear a gardenia. It will give me an air of high-minded depravity, which, they say, is attractive to young women.”
Major Cypress entered within, and in due course was served with a gardenia.
“For your button-hole, sir?”
“I suppose so,” said Major Cypress. “But not so much vegetable matter with it, please. I want a gardenia, not a garden. Thank you.”
“Thank you, sir. Nice morning, sir.”
“I doubt it,” said Major Cypress.
He wandered westwards, past the Berkeley. The commissionaire at the restaurant doors saluted him. Hugo liked that, and always rather sought it. Tarlyon was of opinion that the commissionaire probably mistook him for some one who had once tipped him, but Hugo said that that was not the point, while to be saluted by commissionaires on Piccadilly was a thing that happened only to very few people.