"I may see many, but it won't alter my view of you."
"How can you tell?"
He shook his head impatiently.
"I shan't tell. I shall prove it."
"And when you have proved it where shall I be?—old and toothless?"
"May be—but still beautiful."
There was a glow in her face, but she did not reply. His eyes and the last, long ray of sunshine were upon her. He was revoking from an old October a dark-haired, clear-eyed girl amid the dahlias, and it seemed to him that Eugenia had shot up in a season like one of the stately flowers. As she stood in the grass-grown walk, her skirt half-filled with blossoms, her white hands lifting the thin folds above her ruffled petticoat, she appeared to be the vital apparition of the place—a harbinger of the vivid sunlight and the dark shadows of the passing of the year.
"See how many!" she exclaimed, holding her lapful towards him. "You may take your choice—only not that last pink papa loves."
He plunged his hands amid the confusion of colours and drew out a yellow chrysanthemum.
"I like this," he said simply.