"Aren't you coming to the station with us, Mollie June?" Alicia was saying.
"No," said Mollie June, her eyes on a large bunch of violets which she was arranging in a bowl. "I must stay with my husband."
"But Aunt Mary will be here. I think she owes it to you to come with us, don't you, Mr. Merriam?"
"No," said Merriam, "I think she is right in staying."
Alicia looked from him to Mollie June, then shrugged her shoulders and turned to Rockwell, who was cautioning Aunt Mary--as if Aunt Mary ever needed cautioning!--about maintaining the closest possible guard on the Senator's rooms in their absence.
Merriam moved to Mollie June's side.
"I shan't see you again," he said.
"No," said Mollie June.
For a single moment she looked up from the flowers into his face. Her eyes held tears, and she blushed slightly. In her look he read unwilling love and shame.
He would have moved away, impotently miserable, but her hand, which had dropped to her side between them, suddenly touched his, closed in his for an instant, and was withdrawn, leaving something--something very small, cool, and fragile--a single violet.