And the Senator’s daughter said chokingly, “You lucky, lucky girl!”
Ivy regarded them gravely. “I think it rather an insult,” she said smoothly.
“Oh!” both the other girls cried. And Lucille Smith added, “Say, Ivy Gilbert, are you insane? Sên King-lo never sent flowers before! Violets from Sên King-lo! And you—” words failed.
Miss Gilbert smiled superiorly. “You are very much mistaken, Lucille. He often sends flowers to Miss Julia. He sent her a huge armful yesterday morning. I was there when they came. Mine are just a handful.”
“Miss Julia!” Molly retorted. “Of course he does. We knew that. She always tells you when she has flowers he’s sent in the parlor, and everybody knows he adores Miss Julia, and that she thinks no end of him. Why, she discovered him, and mothered him too, a year or more before he became the rage. Miss Julia don’t count. And I think he often sends flowers to married women after he’s been to dinner or a dance—he is no end polite—Sên King-lo. But he never, never sent any to a girl before! Ivy, you are the very first. My—don’t I wish it was me!”
“There isn’t a girl in Washington who wouldn’t,” Lucille added.
Ivy Gilbert snapped off her thread, and laid down her needlework for a moment. “Lucille,” she asked quietly, “would you marry Mr. Sên?”
Lucille giggled. “I’d like to—just to see Papa’s face. But I don’t say as I would, not exactly. You don’t have to marry every man that sends you marrons glacés, or orchids, or I’d have as many husbands as the late Brigham Young had wives.”
“Lucille Smith!” Miss Wheeler assumed a shockedness she did not feel.
“Well—isn’t it true? And wouldn’t most of us!”