"Will you give me one?" he asked, his eyes fixed upon her lovely face. "Just one!—--"
"Why did you not keep one?" she said, bending over her nosegay as if absorbed in its arrangement. "They are so rare that I hardly know how to spare any." Which was a bit of innocent coquetry on Margaret's part.
"Just one," he pleaded. "As a reward. As a memento."
"A memento of what?" she asked, separating one or two flowers from the bunch as she spoke.
"Of this occasion."
"It is such an important occasion, is it not?" she said, with a sweet, mocking little laugh.
"A very important occasion to me. Have I not met you?"
"That is a most charming compliment," said Margaret, who was not unused to hearing words of this kind in London drawing-rooms, and was quite in her native element. "In reward for it I will give you a flower—which of course you will throw away as soon as I am out of sight."
"No, not when you are out of sight: when you are out of mind," he said, significantly.
"The two are synonymous," said Margaret.