“I'd like to give them to the girl who ought to have flowers more than any girl I know. I'd like to give them to you!”
He smiled at her daringly.
“Oh!” breathed Missy. How poetical he was!
“But,” he stipulated, “on one condition. I demand one rose for myself. And you must put it in my buttonhole for me.”
With trembling fingers Missy fixed the rose in place.
They walked on up to the gate. Jim said: “In our school town the girls are all crazy for brass buttons. They make hatpins and things. If you'd like a button, I'd like to give you one—off my sleeve.”
“Wouldn't it spoil your sleeve?” she asked tremulously.
“Oh, I can get more”—somewhat airily. “Of course we have to do extra guard mount and things for punishment. But that's part of the game, and no fellow minds if he's giving buttons to somebody he likes.”
Missy wasn't exactly sure she knew what “subtle” meant, but she felt that Jim was being subtle. Oh, the romance of it! To give her a brass button he was willing to suffer punishment. He was like a knight of old!
As Jim was severing the button with his penknife, Missy, chancing to glance upward, noted that the curtain of an upstairs window was being held back by an invisible hand. That was her mother's window.