"A good old woman, then! a good old lady!—which is best? which is most respectful? Don't go!" (seeing that she is about to withdraw.)
"It is dressing-time!"
"Not for half an hour yet," pulling her gently in, and closing the door.
"See!" she says, half embarrassed by this tête-à-tête that she has herself invited, holding up a bunch of scarlet geraniums that she has lately reft from one of the garden's dazzling squares—"I have been stealing! I hope Sir Thomas won't prosecute me; but as a new dress is with me a biennial occurrence, these are the only contributions I can make to the evening's festivity."
"Red, of course!" he answers, smiling. "I never saw you that you had not something red or yellow about you. But why scarlet geraniums? Don't you know that the least imaginable shake (suiting the action to the word, and gently jogging the hand that holds the flowers)—there!" as a little scarlet shower confirms his prognostications.
She stoops to pick up the scattered blossoms.
"If I had some gum, I would drop a little into the centre of each flower; that keeps the petals quite firm; I have often done it at home," she says, kneeling on one knee, and looking up gravely for advice and assistance into his friendly, dark face: "but I have no gum."
"Haven't you? I have—somebody has" (ringing the bell). "Please sit down" (drawing an armchair forwards for her). "This is Constance's chair: and don't look as if you were racking your brains for a decent excuse to get away from the only comfortable room in the house."
She obeys, and her eyes wander curiously round. Pipes, whips, saloon pistols, prints of Derby winners; photographs of Nilsson tricked out in water-weeds as "Ophelia;" of Patti gazing up, as "Marguerite," into Mario's fortunate eyes; a table strewn with books—two or three yellow-paper backed, with enticing Gallic titles, similar to the one she has just so heroically foregone. Looking up from these latter, she involuntarily catches his eye.
"You are thinking that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," he says, laughing rather consciously; "but I assure you that it is not so. The gander is not nearly such a delicate bird, and takes much stronger seasoning."