It was strange that he should have selected that particular kind, he thought. That other night, after he had gone home, he had found a solitary pink petal clinging to his scarf-pin. He remembered with a flush of tenderness that it had come from one of the roses—his roses—on her breast. He had kissed it passionately and hidden it in a book—a little book which she had given him.
With memory came heartache, his empty life and her wounded love. The words shaped themselves under his pencil:
"You know what the roses mean. Will you wear one when you sing the second time? Forgive me and love me again—my sweetheart."
He tied the card himself into the centre of the bunch, so it was half hidden by the flowers. He gave them to the usher with a queer tremolo note in his voice. "After her first number, understand?"
There was a piano solo, and then she appeared. What she sang he did not know, but her deep contralto, holding heaven in its tones, he both knew and understood. She did not sing as well as usual. Her voice lacked warmth and sincerity and her intonation was faulty. The applause was loud but not spontaneous although many of her friends were there. His were the only flowers she received.
When she came out the second time, he looked at her anxiously, but there was never a sign of a rose. He sank down in his chair with a sigh and covered his face with his hand.
This time she sang as only she could sing. Oh, that glorious contralto! Suggestions of twilight and dawn, of suffering and joy, of love and its renunciation.
There was no mistaking her success and the great house rang with plaudits from basement to roof. He, only, was silent; praying in mute agony for a sign.
She willingly responded to the encore and a hush fell upon the audience with the first notes of Tosti's "Good-Bye."