Walker Jamieson laughed at her. “You like them?” he asked. “Didn’t know, did you, that they grew any place outside of a hothouse?”
Bess shook her head. It was the first time in her life that she had ever really been moved by nature in any form. The others felt the same. The air seemed quiet and heavy and yet full of all sorts of strange noises too. Grace was timid in the face of all the strangeness and held on to Nan’s hand.
Nan’s eyes were big and wondrous. It was like tropical jungles that she had read about. It was like something she had never even dared hope to see. She was quiet. Silently Adair MacKenzie watched her, and felt pleased with himself that he had shown it to her. In regarding her, he felt almost as though he himself had created it for her special benefit.
She caught his glance, looked up at him and grinned. “Wish I could take a piece of it home with me,” she said.
“You can.” Walker Jamieson sounded as though that would be the simplest thing in the world.
“How?” Nan asked in the tone of one who didn’t believe a word of what she heard.
“Easy.” Jamieson’s eyes twinkled, for he knew that she thought that this was only another bit of his foolishness. “All you’ve got to do is get a camera and take a picture. Then you’ll have it for life.”
“But I can’t,” Nan was serious too now.
“Why?”
“First, I’ve no camera and secondly, I don’t know how to take pictures.”