She curtseyed low, laughing up at me with roguish eyes and mouth.
"Now, surely, sir," she said, "you must be Simon Dale, of whom my host the gardener speaks?"
"It is my name, madame, at your service. But the gardener has played me a trick; for now I have nothing to give in exchange for your name."
"Nay, you have a very pretty nosegay in your hand," said she. "I might be persuaded to barter my name for it."
The nosegay that was in my hand I had gathered and brought for Barbara Quinton, and I still meant to use it as a peace-offering. But Barbara had treated me harshly, and the stranger looked longingly at the nosegay.
"The gardener is a niggard with his flowers," she said with a coaxing smile.
"To confess the truth," said I, wavering in my purpose, "the nosegay was plucked for another."
"It will smell the sweeter," she cried, with a laugh. "Nothing gives flowers such a perfume." And she held out a wonderfully small hand towards my nosegay.
"Is that a London lesson?" I asked, holding the flowers away from her grasp.