After a moment he smiled sadly and got to his feet.
"I mustn't have any more tea," he said, as if that beverage was too intoxicating, as indeed under the circumstances it was.
Fortunately--since of all things what they needed was a diversion,--Merriam at that moment became conscious of a portentous knocking on a distant door. He realised that it was on the door to "Mr. Wilson's" room and remembered. The flowers--for the floor clerk!
He hurried to the hall and called the boy from the second door down the corridor, where he was about to pound again.
In a moment he reëntered the room, bearing a lovely great bunch of fragrant English violets--and thinking hard. But he was equal to the emergency.
He advanced to Mollie June, who stood now with her back to the window, her slender form outlined against the light, her face in shadow.
"I've never given you anything, Mollie June," he said. "These are for you--and the sick room." He held them for her to smell.
She took them from him, barely touching his hand as she did so, and buried her face in them for a long minute. Then she raised her eyes to him over them.
"Thank you, Mr. John," she said with a sad smile.
And just then Aunt Mary entered from the Senator's bedroom.