“Excuse me, Larry,” said a man's voice.
“Sure. What is it, Joe?”
Before her Maggie saw the tall, thin man in overalls, his removed broad-brimmed hat revealing his white hair, whom she had noticed a little earlier working among the flowers. He held a bunch of the choicest pickings from the abundant rose gardens, their stems bound in maple leaves as temporary protection against their thorns. He was gazing at Maggie, respectful, hungry admiration in his somber eyes.
“I thought perhaps the young lady might care for these.” He held out the roses to her. And then quickly, to forestall refusal: “I cut out more than we can use for the house. And I'd like to have you have them.”
“Thank you,” and Maggie took the flowers.
For an instant their eyes held. In every outward circumstance the event was a commonplace—this meeting of father and daughter, not knowing each other. It was hardly more than a commonplace to Maggie: just a tall, white-haired gardener respectfully offering her roses. And it was hardly more to Joe Ellison: just a tribute evoked by his hungry interest in every well-seeming girl of the approximate age of his daughter.
At the moment's end Joe Ellison had bowed and started back for his flower beds. “Who is that man?” asked Maggie, gazing after him. “I never saw such eyes.”
“We used to be pals in Sing Sing,” Larry replied. He went on to give briefly some of the details of Joe Ellison's story, never dreaming how he and Maggie were entangled in that story, nor how they were to be involved in its untanglement. Perhaps they were fortunate in this ignorance. Within the boundaries of what they did know life already held enough of problems and complications.
Larry had just finished his condensed history when Dick Sherwood appeared and ordered them to the veranda for tea. There were just the five of them, Miss Sherwood, Maggie, Hunt, Dick, and Larry. Miss Sherwood was as gracious as before, and she seemingly took Maggie's strained manner and occasional confusions as further proof of her genuineness. Dick beamed at the impression she was making upon his sister.
As for Maggie, she was living through the climax of that afternoon's strain. And she dared not show it. She forced herself to do her best acting, sipping her tea with a steady hand. And what made her situation harder was that two of the party, Larry and Hunt, were treating her with the charmed deference they might accord a charming stranger, when a word from either of them might destroy the fragile edifice of her deception.