“Explain it so, then,” he said. “The daisy is a perfect little democracy, so it’s the highest of flowers, hence its charm.”
“No,” she cried, “no—never. It isn’t democratic.”
“No,” he admitted. “It’s the golden mob of the proletariat, surrounded by a showy white fence of the idle rich.”
“How hateful—your hateful social orders!” she cried.
“Quite! It’s a daisy—we’ll leave it alone.”
“Do. Let it be a dark horse for once,” she said: “if anything can be a dark horse to you,” she added satirically.
They stood aside, forgetful. As if a little stunned, they both were motionless, barely conscious. The little conflict into which they had fallen had torn their consciousness and left them like two impersonal forces, there in contact.
He became aware of the lapse. He wanted to say something, to get on to a new more ordinary footing.
“You know,” he said, “that I am having rooms here at the mill? Don’t you think we can have some good times?”
“Oh are you?” she said, ignoring all his implication of admitted intimacy.