She looked up—far up, it seemed to her—into his brilliant black eyes, and understood how much in earnest he was, before he said anything more. Vaguely, as in a dream, she remembered how, several months earlier, in that very room and almost at that very hour, John Ralston had come to her and she had persuaded him to make her his wife.
“Thank you so much for the flowers,” she said, sitting down in her favourite little arm-chair on one side of the empty fireplace.
He murmured in a pleased but incoherent fashion as he pushed a chair into a convenient position and sat down—not too near her—setting his hat upon the floor beside him. He rested his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his folded hands, and looked at her with unblushing, boyish admiration.
“But please don’t send me any more flowers, Mr. Wingfield,” said Katharine, going straight to the point by an effort of will.
A puzzled look came into his face instantly. His hands dropped upon his knees, and he sat upright in his chair.
“Why not?” he asked, simply. “I mean,” he added, fancying he had put the question roughly, “is it rude to ask why not? It gives me so much pleasure—if you like them a little, you know.”
It hurt Katharine to see the simplicity of the man, and it made her face burn to think that he had been played upon.
“Because I’d rather not,” she answered, very gently.
“I—I don’t think I quite understand,” said Wingfield, with some hesitation. “I know—you often say that I mustn’t send them so much—but then, you know, one always says that, doesn’t one? It doesn’t seem to mean anything except a sort of second ‘thank you’—”
“I mean more than that,” said Katharine, smiling faintly, in spite of herself.