The magic bouquet was placed on the Uncle’s plate.
He came in, pale and shadowy as ever, and yet looking, the children thought, somewhat different, and took up the bouquet. It was rather an odd one. The eschscholtzias were drooping miserably among the strong rhododendrons; so was the heliotrope. And the calceolarias seemed shrivelled and unhappy; and the straw, of which in his enthusiasm Charles had brought a large double handful, showed much more than Caroline had meant it to.
‘What’s all this, eh?’ the Uncle asked.
‘It’s a sym-what’s-its-name bouquet.’
‘Simple?’ asked the Uncle; ‘it’s anything but that. Sympathetic?’
‘No,’ said Charlotte, ‘sym- —what Mr. Penfold was saying to you yesterday about magic.’
‘Symbolic. I see. And what does it symbolise?’ he asked kindly, but without smiling.
‘We’ll tell you when you’ve had your tea,’ they all agreed in saying.
The Uncle sniffed the bouquet, and that was perhaps why he did not sniff the tea. They wondered how he could possibly not smell it, for as Caroline poured it out it seemed to fill the room with its strange mixed scent. However, he just stirred it and talked about the weather, not at all amusingly, and presently he lifted the cup to his lips.