"I suppose they are; but that's no reason for you to encourage yourself in all those queer ideas about them."
"Queer ideas?"
"You know the sort of thing I mean."
"I don't. What sort?"
He thought then that her voice had a hurt sound drifting through it.
"Loving them. For one thing."
"But what can I do? What else have I to love? I've just told you how much alone I am. All the time, really. The flowers are the only things I have. I've just told you that."
He waited a second.
"You have me," he said.
"You? But you hardly ever come. I'm so lonesome. You can't know what that means. I am lonely. And you—Why, sometimes I think you're not real. Not—even—real—"