“You shall wear it in your buttonhole. It matches your eyes.”
He stood while she pinned it in for him, and found some difficulty in keeping the amusement out of the eyes which matched with her flower. She stepped back to admire the effect of her handiwork and flashed a coquettish glance at him, and then returned to admiring the effect.
“That’s awfully kind of you,” he said. “I feel tremendously smart.”
“You look festive,” she admitted. “Blue suits you. I’m glad I happened to be in the garden when you arrived.”
There was only one obvious reply to this obvious speech. Matheson made it perfunctorily.
“It is I who have the greater reason to be glad,” he said. “I don’t think any one has ever given me a flower before—certainly no one else has been kind enough to pin one in my coat.”
“I’m glad I’m the first,” she said, and flashed another look at him, and walked on by his side. “I am not considered generous with my favours,” she added mendaciously... “but the colour of the flower suggested you. I like blue eyes.”
Matheson laughed at that.
“I prefer brown eyes,” he said, and was amused at the smiling satisfaction of the brunette face close to his shoulder.
“Well, of course,” she returned, “one usually admires opposite colouring. That’s only natural.”