Stooping down he instantly recovered his crushed treasures and lifted them reverently in his hand with a sigh.
“I can not say that I admire your taste, Rex,” she said, with a short, hard laugh, that somehow grated harshly on her lover’s ears. “The conservatories are blooming with rare and odorous flowers, yet you choose these obnoxious plants; they are no more or less than a species of weeds. Never wear them again, Rex––I despise them––throw them away, and I will gather you a rare bouquet of white hyacinths and starry jasmine and golden-rod bells.”
The intense quiver in her voice pained him, and he saw her face wore the pallor of death, and her eyes were gleaming like restless fire.
“I will not wear them certainly if you dislike them, Pluma,” he said, gravely, “but I do not care to replace them by any other; daisies are the sweetest flowers on earth for me.”
He did not fasten them on his coat again, but transferred them to his breast-pocket. She bit her scarlet lips in impotent rage.
In the very moment of her supreme triumph and happiness 144 he had unclasped his arms from about her to pick up the daisies she had crushed with her tiny heel––those daisies which reminded him of that other love that still reigned in his heart a barrier between them.
CHAPTER XXIX.
“I do think it is a perfect shame those horrid Glenn girls are to be invited up here to Rex’s wedding,” cried little Birdie Lyon, hobbling into the room where Mrs. Corliss sat, busily engaged in hemming some new table-linen, and throwing herself down on a low hassock at her feet, and laying down her crutch beside her––“it is perfectly awful.”