“He talks of driving in to Donisbro’ to thank the Dean for his kind enquiries.”
Bees hummed in and out among the flowers, with their peculiar sound of infinite contentment; along the sunny borders the yellow heads of the daffodils were nodding gently in the breeze. Katharine thought she had never known the garden look so lovely—never since that spring day nine long years ago, when her father brought Lord Lisle, as St. Quentin had been called then, into it for the first time.
Nine years—was it really nine years since that April afternoon when she had gone out to gather daffodils to fill the vases in the drawing-room?
She was eighteen then, and dressed in a gown of pale green, she remembered. Her father had a fancy for green and loved to see her in it.
She remembered how the tall young man at the Dean’s side had looked at that young Katharine of nine years ago, and how presently they were walking side by side along the straight flagged garden paths, he carrying her bunch of daffodils.
What had they said? Nothing very much, she fancied. They talked about the flowers, and he spoke of his mother’s famous orchids at St. Quentin Castle, and said how much he should like the Dean and Miss Morrell to see them.
Nine years ago; but she could recall every line of the tall young figure, with handsome head erect, and eyes that said so much. She could even bring back to her memory the very look of the strong, shapely hand that held the daffodils—her daffodils.
Had not daffodils been the flowers she loved best ever since—yes, ever since! though she had tried to think she hated them upon a certain day five years ago when she had burnt a little dried-up bunch of them which for four years had lain among her treasures.
Had a spring and daffodil time ever come and gone through all these nine years that she had not thought of the tall figure and the handsome face, and of the grey eyes that looked at her more often than the flowers he had come to see?