At last M. Loigny noticed his nephew and his face assumed at once an expression of contrition and timidity.
“Here is every one of my roses,” was all that he said.
The young man was thinking: “He is not even interested in my engagement.” But happiness made him tolerant and he even wished to flatter his uncle’s innocent whim.
“Why did you gather them this evening?” he asked.
The agitated old man pursued the line of his own thoughts.
“Not one was spared, and my whole garden is there. The finest have women’s names, but the Chinese gardeners show the most poetical imaginations in naming the many colored beauties of the earth.”
“I heard you a few moments ago,” went on Jean pleasantly, “and I supposed you were talking to a crowd of charming shadows.”
“About a hundred and fifty,” said his uncle.
“It is a goodly number.”
“What is it compared with the incessantly increasing number of the various kinds of roses? There are several thousands of them. And one forgets all those that our grandfathers cultivated, of which one can find only in old books and among some rare specimens in old gardens. In our day too, Jean, new roses make their appearance every year from the hands of their clever growers. Look on the ground and you will see represented by choice specimens the roses of Bengal and China, the Miss Lawrence varieties, the many-flowered roses, whose trails are suited to borders and baskets, the roses of Provence, the moss-rose, the tea rose, the noisette, in whose delicate coloring the note of yellow is predominant. Cold-hating plants these Tea and Noisette roses! We have to protect them against the severities of winter, but they reward us for our trouble by flowering abundantly.”