“Heart drorin’-rooms?” queried Silas. “My word, what are they?”
“I don’t know, but they are all the rage. Heart drorin’-rooms and heart dresses. You hears of ’em iverywhere.”
“Well, there’s a heart baskit,” said Silas, with a harsh laugh, which was partly caused by a sudden embarrassment which came over him. “You take it, and go.”
“But I can’t, really. I could never pay it back.”
“You’re not meant to—it’s a gift.”
“A gift, Mr Lynn?”
Jill raised her eyes, looked him full in the face, read a meaning in his awkward glance, and pushed the basket of lovely flowers away.
“I can’t take it,” she said, “not as a gift; no, that worn’t my thought. Thank yer all the same.” She began, with hands that shook, to replace the masses of flowers on the flower merchant’s stall.
In a moment she found her two hands imprisoned. “Don’t do it,” said Silas, in a voice of low thunder. “Ef you touch ’em I’ll fling ’em on the refuse heap out there. Pay me, ef you will, but take the basket and go. And listen first: Jill Robinson! What do you think them flowers are worth to me? I’d give every flower on this stall for one kiss from your red lips. So now you know the mind of Silas Lynn. I’ve a rough voice, and a rough look, but my heart’s leal. Now you know my mind, so you can go, lass.”
