The warm, perfumed air was agreeable after the fog, and Rosalind among the azaleas was divine. (There are few keener pleasures than taking out a nice woman, and spending money on her; and it is unnecessary that one should go out fond of the woman—it's so easy to get fond of her in the process.) "Oh no, really!" she protested—and she meant it, for Miss Lascelles was already laden—"No, none for me, really!"
"Just these," pleaded Conrad; "they're so pretty—it's a shame to leave them behind." He put them in her hands.
"I'd like you to see some roses I've got here, sir," said the proprietor; "it's not often you can see roses like those."
"Exquisite," assented Conrad.... "And just a few roses, won't you?"
"Well one, then," she said succumbing.
"We'll have some roses!" commanded Conrad magnificently. "And those look nice—those lilies-of-the-valley. You might give us some lilies-of-the-valley, will you?"
"I'll have nothing else," she told him in her first undertone. The woman's first undertone is so sweet.
"A few?" he entreated. "You ought to wear lilies-of-the-valley! I wish you were going to sing to-night."
"Do you?"
"I shall see you there, sha'n't I?"