"Did you come to see me or did you come to see my flowers?" she called out charmingly.
"I came to see the flowers, madam," he called back. "Most of all, the century plant: how is she?"
She laughed delightedly: "Still harping on my age, I see."
"Still harping, but harping your praises. Century plants are not necessarily old: they are all young at the beginning! I merely meant you'd be blooming at a hundred."
"You are a sly old fox," she retorted with a spirit. "You give a woman a dig on her age and then try to make her think it a compliment."
"I gave myself a dig that time: the remark had to be excavated," he said aloud but as though confidentially to himself. Open disrespect marked his speech and manner with her always; and sooner or later she exacted full punishment.
Meantime he had reached the steps. There he stopped and taking off his straw hat looked up and shook it reproachfully at the heavens.
"What a night, what a night!" he exclaimed. "And what an injustice to a man wading up to his knees in life's winters."
"How do you do," she said impatiently, always finding it hard to put up with his lingerings and delays. "Are you coming in?"
"Thank you, I believe I am. But no, wait. I'll not come in until I have made a speech. It never occurred to me before and it will never again. It's now or never.