He looked away into the distance, and she began.
"Once there was a man who went into a garden. All around him were beautiful roses of all colours. But he chose a little white bud for his. He chose it because it was pure and white, but most of all because it was closed. No other person could see into its heart. While he was waiting for it to unfold he walked around to enjoy the other flowers. He studied their colouring and he breathed their perfume. For a long time he enjoyed this; then he wanted to get nearer to these roses, to handle them. Other travellers were handling them and they seemed to enjoy themselves more than he did. So he touched one rather timidly; others he was not so careful with. At last he grew tired and wandered back to his own rosebud and lo! it had opened. It stood the whitest and most fragrant rose in the garden, and its heart was the dewiest and most tender. But he remembered the crimson roses and it seemed too white. Then he could not detect its fragrance, for he had killed his sense of smell by its abuse with the other roses, some of which stood as high and beautiful as before, but others were left bruised and broken by his ruthless desire to please, yes, to indulge himself. As he plucked his own rose, he was aware of no sense of joy over it, except from pride, for many travellers cast him envious glances. But he could not see its unusual beauty; he could not get the fragrance from its heart, because his sense of sight had been dulled by the brilliancy of the other flowers and his sense of smell by their odour.
"Nor did he think of the little buds in the garden that he had touched and then left. They would perhaps open, but the petals he had touched would always be brown and torn. The passers-by might not see them when the flowers had opened and revealed their hearts, but the men who had plucked them would—not at once, but when they had become less entranced and were seeking for defects. Then perhaps they would throw the roses away. But the man who had the perfect rose—the one which was perfect because it had been well protected—did not know of the havoc he had wrought. He was too much interested in wondering why he did not enjoy his rose, why it seemed so commonplace and really tiresome. He did not know that it was he who had become unable to appreciate it, through his own indulgence begun in an idle moment, while he had waited for his flower to blossom."
She paused to look into his face. He was listening. Then she went on:
"You say you are a man; you have only thought of one side; you have only wanted the perfect rose. You may get one, but if you do it will be one which has been carefully guarded. You are not intending to break or bruise the other roses; you are just going to handle them because the other boys do. You will enjoy their fragrance, but you will leave wounded petals. Then after a time, if you travel far enough into the garden, you will grow indifferent to the havoc you are doing and will carelessly crush the flowers. You may grow so cruel that you will enjoy it. There are men who do, and they started out as free from intention to harm as you were to-night. You caressed Dorothy; John caressed her. The next boy who comes along will find it easier to be free with her, and unless there is some one who cares enough to guard her she will be torn from the stem before she has blossomed. If you had kissed Rose to-night it would have been easy for you to kiss her again. You haven't yet, have you?"
He shook his head.
"I am so glad," she continued. "It will be so much better for her. If she permits you these familiarities she will permit others the same ones. She may soon become as reckless as Dorothy, and then we dare not think of the future. You can see now what a wonderful flower she promises to make. She is a perfect little bud. Would you not hate to think that you were spoiling the promise of that bud?"
"Forgive me for being so cross," he begged.