“Don’t tell,” she whispered, looking dismayed at the idea of letting him know what she had said of him.
But Mr. Power answered tranquilly:
“We were talking about coins, and Christie was expressing her opinion of one I showed her. The face and date she understands; but the motto puzzles her, and she has not seen the reverse side yet, so does not know its value. She will some day; and then she will agree with me, I think, that it is sterling gold.”
The emphasis on the last words enlightened David: his sunburnt cheek reddened, but he only shook his head, saying: “She will find a brass farthing I’m afraid, sir,” and began to crumble a handful of loam about the roots of a carnation that seemed to have sprung up by chance at the foot of the apple-tree.
“How did that get there?” asked Christie, with sudden interest in the flower.
“It dropped when I was setting out the others, took root, and looked so pretty and comfortable that I left it. These waifs sometimes do better than the most carefully tended ones: I only dig round them a bit and leave them to sun and air.”
Mr. Power looked at Christie with so much meaning in his face that it was her turn to color now. But with feminine perversity she would not own herself mistaken, and answered with eyes as full of meaning as his own:
“I like the single ones best: double-carnations are so untidy, all bursting out of the calyx as if the petals had quarrelled and could not live together.”
“The single ones are seldom perfect, and look poor and incomplete with little scent or beauty,” said unconscious David propping up the thin-leaved flower, that looked like a pale solitary maiden, beside the great crimson and white carnations near by, filling the air with spicy odor.
“I suspect you will change your mind by and by, Christie, as your taste improves, and you will learn to think the double ones the handsomest,” added Mr. Power, wondering in his benevolent heart if he would ever be the gardener to mix the colors of the two human plants before him.