"I shouldn't see much of him, living 'way up in Pennsylvania."
Margaret, who had not yet given up craving wistfully her sister's affection, turned her eyes to her plate and stirred her coffee to hide the sensitive quiver of her lips.
"We'd see each other very seldom, certainly, if I lived in Pennsylvania," she found voice to say after a moment. "I'll go up to the baby, now, Harriet, and let Chloe come down."
When later that morning a delivery wagon left at Berkeley Hill two boxes, one containing violets, the other orchids, and a boy on a bicycle arrived with a five-pound box of Charleston's most famous confectionery, all from Mr. Leitzel to Miss Berkeley, Margaret was forced to take account of the situation.
Of course she could not know (fortunately for her admirer) that the lavishness of his offerings had been carefully calculated to impress upon her the fact which he suspected her relatives of concealing from her—the all-persuasive fact that he was rich.
A telephone call inviting her to go automobiling with him that afternoon was answered by Harriet, who at once accepted the invitation for her without consulting her.
"I'm perfectly willing, dear, to give up Mattie St. Clair's auction bridge this afternoon and chaperon you," Harriet graciously told her after informing her of the engagement she had made for her. "Chloe will have to keep the children."
Margaret made no reply. All these manifestations of Harriet's eager anxiety to be rid of her stabbed her miserably. She went away to her own room, just as soon as her regular domestic routine was accomplished, and shut herself in to think it all out.
The fact that she had, because of the secluded life she had led, reached the age of twenty-five without ever having had a lover, must account for her feelings this morning toward Daniel Leitzel, her sense of gratitude (under the soreness of her heart at her sister's attitude to her) that any human being should like her and be kind, to the extent of such munificence as this which filled her room with fragrance and beauty. No wonder that for the time being she lost sight of the little man's grotesqueness in her keen consciousness of his kindness, and of the novelty of being admired—by a man. Yes, her momentary blindness even saw him as a man. Not even the cards which came with his offerings—the one in the candy box marked "Sweets to the Sweet," and that with the flowers labelled,
Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face.—SHAKESPEARE.