PHOEBE (timidly). Mr. Brown, I wonder why you have been so kind to my sister and me?
VALENTINE. The kindness was yours. If at first Miss Susan amused me— (Chuckling.) To see her on her knees decorating the little legs of the couch with frills as if it were a child! But it was her sterling qualities that impressed me presently.
PHOEBE. And did—did I amuse you also?
VALENTINE. Prodigiously, Miss Phoebe. Those other ladies, they were always scolding you, your youthfulness shocked them. I believe they thought you dashing.
PHOEBE (nervously). I have sometimes feared that I was perhaps too dashing.
VALENTINE (laughing at this). You delicious Miss Phoebe. You were too quiet. I felt sorry that one so sweet and young should live so grey a life. I wondered whether I could put any little pleasures into it.
PHOEBE. The picnics? It was very good of you.
VALENTINE. That was only how it began, for soon I knew that it was I who got the pleasures and you who gave them. You have been to me, Miss Phoebe, like a quiet, old-fashioned garden full of the flowers that Englishmen love best because they have known them longest: the daisy, that stands for innocence, and the hyacinth for constancy, and the modest violet and the rose. When I am far away, ma'am, I shall often think of Miss Phoebe's pretty soul, which is her garden, and shut my eyes and walk in it.
(She is smiling gallantly through her pain when MISS SUSAN returns.)
MISS SUSAN. Have you—is it—you seem so calm, Phoebe.