Then the girl in love dragged herself back to that polished comfortable room, that tea-table, that woman who had stuck a hat-pin into a guide-book to decide where to go.
"Oh, you know, I often used to wonder if I should be an old woman before I'd ever made friends with anybody. I used to sit winding wool for my cousin and looking out of the morning-room window at the rhododendrons. Such rhododendrons! Every spring they came out ... a wall of pink! Then they dropped their blossoms on the lawn ... a carpet of pink! Every spring they came again. Not the same flowers; fresh flowers every spring. Fresh flowers.... But the springs went by, and of course I knew that I should never come young again——Oh, what is that?"
For Miss Walsh, taking up the tea-pot, had caught sight of something that Olwen had laid down on the tray while she spread the cherry jam on her biscuits. Hastily Olwen picked it up again. It was the sachet into which she had sewn the Disturbing Charm.
In a flash she thought to herself: "Yes! she is the one! This poor dear, who's never had anything! Before she's quite too old! Something ought to be done!"
"... Fifteen—sixteen of those springs," Miss Walsh was murmuring again, "and such appleblossom. But looking at things alone makes spring so much sadder than winter.... Of course, you'll never have to understand that—my dear."
Olwen was thinking definitely and finally, "I must try the Charm upon her. I will. It's probably rubbish.... But if it isn't——! Now how do I set about getting her to wear it? I can't say, 'Tuck this inside your blouse and you needn't be lonely any more, you'll begin to have people falling in Love with you!' How shall I——?"
The method seemed to dart ready-made into her head as she held out on her pink palm the tiny square of mauve satin, scarcely larger than a postage-stamp.
She turned upon the Spinster the appealing smile that had made "little Miss Howel-Jones" such a successful worker on the last Welsh Flag Day, in Liverpool.
"Will you buy one? I'm selling these," announced the inventive Olwen. "They"—(then to herself, "Quick, what shall I say?") "It—it's for the Croix Rouge."
"Oh, is it? Oh, yes. What's it supposed to be? A scent sachet? How pretty," exclaimed Miss Walsh, taking the thing in her hand. "Yes; of course I'll buy one. Where is my little bag?" (Bag, of crocodile and purple satin, produced.) "I'll give you something at once."