“Oh, no. I wouldn’t deprive you for the world, Miss Trant,” murmured Miss Holt, stiffly drawing back.
I realized from her tone that she considered I had made a mistake.
Of course! Those flowers ought to have been thought “too precious” to share with anybody. Smithie would never think of giving one of her “boy’s” violets away. Dear me, I thought, what an added bore, having to remember to keep up the correctly sentimental attitude about every trifle of this kind.... Ah!
I broke off what I was thinking at that moment with quite a sudden start.
For, just as she turned away, I had caught Miss Smith’s glance at that cluster of fresh, crimson carnations. It might have been a bunch of withered wall-flowers that had been left too long in water, for the disgusted wrinkle that lifted the prettiest typist’s small, powdered nose.
“I wouldn’t touch them,” it seemed to say.
“Not those flowers.” ...
And at last I saw why.
The reason my three colleagues had forborne to question, or chaff, or even look at me when I came in from that expedition with the Governor was not because they were too considerate, too puzzled, or too wily.
It was merely because they were shocked—scandalized!