“How kind of you,” said Lola. “Those, then,” and she pointed to a bunch of proud red roses that were standing in a vase.
“Is that all?”
“I want to carry them,” she said.
Chalfont was almost boyishly disappointed. He would like to have pictured her among a riot of color. He had not brought her there with a Machiavelian desire to hear her give her address. He was not that kind of man. “Won’t you have some more?”
But somehow—what was it in her that did these things to men—Lola could see the inn at Wargrave, its orchard and its smooth lawn with little tables under the trees and the silver stream near by, and hear the words, “I love you, Lola; am I good enough——” And she shook her head. “No more,” she said. “They’re lovely,” took them from the man and put them to her lips.
Chalfont gave his name and followed her to the street. “Now where?” he asked.
Lola held out her hand. “Nowhere else. I’m walking. A thousand thanks. Seven-thirty, the Carlton then.”
And once more Chalfont saluted, not as though to a company of boy scouts but to a queen.
And when he had gone, Lola heaved a great big sigh and put the roses to her heart. If they had come from Chilton Park—if Fallaray had cut them for her—If.