The White Flag

by Gene Stratton-Porter

As the ushers came nearer, Mahlon found, absurd as it might seem, that it was going to be impossible for him to release that tissue covering without at least the usher and Elizabeth seeing that his hands were shaking. He kept them tightly gripped, one over each knee, to steady himself. He had ordered that bouquet. It was the emanation of his taste. He meant that nothing on the stage should approach it in elegance. His hand should be the one to burst it forth, a wave of artistic beauty for the eyes of the watching audience. In his heart, Mahlon never was quite so thankful as when Elizabeth leaned across and with a little twitch loosened the wrappings and lifted them, leaving the basket ready for his hand. After all, Elizabeth was to be depended on; she was his complement, she was the best thing in life that he had ever done for himself. He was distinctly sorry that he had not taken her hand during its clutching appeal but a few moments before.

He did manage to swing his left knee out of the way and with the right foot slide the basket across to the attention of the approaching flower girl. Her arms were already filled but she smiled on him, gave the basket an appraising glance, and whispered: “I’ll come for that specially, when I’ve delivered these.”

Mahlon approved, because it was not suitable that his wonderful gift should be overshadowed or in any way brought in contact with anything else. So he sat waiting while the flower girl laid her offering at the feet of his smiling daughter and came back to bear aloft his triumph alone.

Then Mahlon’s heart played him another queer trick. He had forgotten that young upstart of a Moreland. Why hadn’t it occurred to him what the fellow would do? Mahlon’s sick eyes saw Mrs. Moreland arise and step into the aisle in order that there might be lifted from before her a long, tray-shaped basket with an ornate handle that was outlined with purple violets, while the basket was heaped with pale roses of peach-blow pink, and walled in with the purple of a great roll of Parma violets, and silver tulle and pink satin ribbons were showering down from one side of the handle. Mahlon heard Elizabeth’s little gasp beside him. They had seen the great armload of red roses that the Morelands had sent up to their son; they were not prepared for this exquisite demonstration that they were sending before the eyes of the assembled town, to Mahala. Elizabeth’s hand was digging into Mahlon’s side in spite and vexation until it hurt him, and this time he reached for it and clung to it hard.

It was abominable luck. He would have given anything to be in the secrecy of his bedchamber where he might have said all he thought to sympathetic ears. But ill luck for the Spellmans was only beginning. Down the opposite aisle came another flower girl, and those immediately concerned had not seen who had delivered to her a great, upstanding sheaf of enormous crinkly white roses with hearts of gold. Here and there through the sheaf were big waxen lilies with hearts of gold, and sharply etched leaves of tall fern, while through and around them there was a mist of lacy maidenhair, so fine that no one ever had seen its like. The sheaf was bound around the middle like a sheaf of wheat with a great broad ribbon of gold. Thrust through the knot there was a mass of the delicate fern leaves and daringly there glowed and flamed one smashing big, blood-red rose.

Under the eyes of Junior and Martin and Mrs. Moreland, and before the faces of the quivering Elizabeth and Mahlon Spellman, this triumph of the florist’s art had been borne down the aisle and stood at the knees of the valedictorian.

“My land!” gasped Elizabeth Spellman, for Mahlon’s private ear. “Who do you suppose?”

Mahlon’s whole body was a tense note of protest. He did not suppose. He was too stunned to suppose. He was too outraged to suppose. Where had the damned thing come from? Elizabeth’s hand was cutting into his. It required the reinforcement of Mahlon’s left hand to keep his mouth shut.

Spontaneous as always, Mahala had picked up the pièce de résistance of the evening, an offering beside which all else paled into insignificance. She lifted it lightly, smiled on it, turned it a bit that she might see its full beauty, her head cocked on one side in a bird-like gesture habitual with her, lifted it level with her breast, buried her face among its waxen satin petals and gracefully ran her delicate finger-tips through the clinging maidenhair. Then the audience caught the fact that she was searching for a card. She was looking, and her fingers were feeling—and her search was not being rewarded. The handsomest floral tribute that the Ashwater Commencement knew that night had either been sent anonymously, or the card had been lost.

Mahala’s curiosity was making her look over the length and breadth of the heap in front of her and at the two gorgeous baskets set before it. Then she gently set down the lilies and roses at her knees and lifting her head, she searched the audience with a long and deliberate look. There was only one person in the audience who knew when that look found its resting place. There was only one person, high up, far back, in the gallery who read to the depths of Mahala’s eyes in that instant and through whose heart flowed the cool acquiescence of peace when he saw her fingers slip out and deliberately break from its stem the bud of a white rose that she thrust among the laces covering her bosom.