“I’ll smoke here after dinner!” said Victor.
“I’ll do ditto in every case!” said Jack, then caught himself up sharply—“when I come to visit the Chosen, that is to say! Of course, I’m out of the running. What are you smiling at, Miss Mollie?” For, turning towards her, he had seen the grey eyes light up with a merry twinkle. She shook her head, however, refusing to gratify his curiosity, and sped rapidly down the broad marble steps.
“He is beginning to have qualms! The very first morning, and for a moment his resolution wavered. The spell is working,” she told herself triumphantly; for, despite his lack of gallantry, both girls had already candidly admitted that upon Jack’s going or staying depended a great part of the pleasure of the next three months. “Don’t persuade him; don’t mention the subject at all. Let him think we don’t care how he decides. Men are contradictious creatures, and the less he is urged the more likely he is to give way,” argued Ruth the experienced. And Mollie dutifully agreed.
Chapter Twelve.
A Novel Experience.
Down the winding path, the visitors, as they walked together, came upon masses of daffodils, standing up erect and golden from the carpet of dead leaves which covered the ground. Not the ordinary common or garden daffodil, charming as it is, but named varieties of every description—white trumpeted Horsefieldi, stately yellow Emperors, Bari Conspicui with its dainty outline of orange; these, and a dozen others were growing in patches, not in dozens or scores, but in literal hundreds, beneath the budding trees. There were violets, too; and white and purple and golden saxifrages peeping out between the stones which bordered the trickling stream—a scene of enchantment, indeed, for City eyes accustomed to gaze only on bricks and mortar. The girls were wild with delight, and flitted about gathering specimens of the different flowers; while the two young men were content to watch them with an air of masculine superiority.
“What is the use of burdening yourselves with all those things at the very beginning of our walk?”
“They aren’t a burden, they are a joy. Hold them for me, please, while I get some more,” replied Mollie, laying a stack of long-stemmed beauties in Jack’s arms, regardless of his look of dismay. “Don’t crush them; I want them kept quite fresh.”