“For me?”
Before he could answer, Mr Purchase was at his side, with his flowers extended.
“May I hope, Miss Norah, that you will do me the honour to accept mine. They are not so pretty, perhaps, as others, and are far from being worthy your acceptance, yet I hope that, of your kindness, you will not refuse.”
I had never had such a speech addressed to me in all my life by anyone; and now that it should come from Jack Purchase, of all people in the world. Small wonder that for the moment the only thing I was fit for was to gasp. I looked from one to the other like a sort of gaping idiot, and I certainly had abundant excuse for looking nothing better. There, within six inches of me on one side was Basil Carter, holding out the pink roses which, I was convinced, he had brought for Audrey; and within five-and-a-half inches of me on the other side was Mr Purchase, protruding, in a most suggestive style, the red roses I was perfectly sure he had brought for Doris.
“It isn’t fair of you to laugh at me,” I managed to get out at last.
“Laugh!” cried Mr Carter, with an air of the most innocent surprise. “How laugh? I hope you do not think that I am laughing at you? I should not dare.”
Should not dare! That was awfully good, considering how he had laughed at me times without number, as he knew as well as I did.
“I don’t know what you call it then, pretending to offer me those flowers.”
“Pretending! Miss Norah, I beg you will not call it pretence, when it is my earnest hope that you will receive them from my hands.”
“You know perfectly well that you brought them for Audrey.”