He took a car down town, leaving it near Grace Church, on Broadway, to go to a certain club-house, where he was to meet his friend Vanderwater.
On his way thither he passed a flower-stand behind which there sat a woman who appeared to be about fifty years of age.
She was an unusually tidy and respectable looking person to be a street vender of flowers, and she had a rare and choice collection for that season of the year, and they were arranged in a really artistic manner.
It was this arrangement which attracted Everet Mapleson’s attention, for he was a great admirer of flowers, and was rarely seen anywhere without some bud or spray in his button-hole.
He had worn heliotrope to-day during his call, but it was wilted and discolored, and he paused now before the stand to replace it with something else.
He selected one exquisite rosebud nestling between its dark green leaves, and taking out a piece of silver, he tossed it over the vases into the woman’s lap, and then would have passed on without waiting for his change, but that she had put out her hand to detain him.
She had given a start of surprise and uttered a low cry the moment he had stopped before her, but he had not noticed it, and she had not taken her eyes from his face during all the time that he was making his selection.
As she looked she began to tremble, her lips quivered, her eyes filled with tears, and she breathed with difficulty, as if overcome with some powerful emotion.
Her face was wrinkled and sad, showing that she must have passed through some terrible grief. Her hair was very gray, and there was a white seam or scar above her right temple, the mark of an injury received years before.
“Oh,” she cried, putting out her hand to detain him as he was turning away. “Oh, Geoffrey, have you forgotten Margery?”