In the rose garden, and along that section of the wall included in it, the rich, dry, porous soil glimmered like gold under the sun; and here Selwyn discovered Nina and Eileen busily solicitous over the tender shoots of favourite bushes. A few long-stemmed early rosebuds lay in their baskets; Selwyn drew one through his buttonhole and sat down on a wheelbarrow, amiably disposed to look on and let the others work.
"Not much!" said Nina. "You can start in and 'pinch back' this prairie climber—do you hear, Phil? I won't let you dawdle around and yawn while I'm pricking my fingers every instant! Make him move, Eileen."
Eileen came over to him, fingers doubled into her palm and small thumb extended.
"Thorns and prickles, please," she said; and he took her hand in his and proceeded to extract them while she looked down at her almost invisible wounds, tenderly amused at his fear of hurting her.
"Do you know," she said, "that people are beginning to open their houses yonder?" She nodded toward the west: "The Minsters are on the way to Brookminster, the Orchils have already arrived at Hitherwood House, and the coachmen and horses were housed at Southlawn last night. I rather dread the dinners and country formality that always interfere with the jolly times we have; but it will be rather good fun at the bathing-beach. . . . Do you swim well? But of course you do."
"Pretty well; do you?"
"I'm a fish. Gladys Orchil and I would never leave the surf if they didn't literally drag us home. . . . You know Gladys Orchil? . . . She's very nice; so is Sheila Minster; you'll like her better in the country than you do in town. Kathleen Lawn is nice, too. Alas! I see many a morning where Drina and I twirl our respective thumbs while you and Boots are off with a gayer set. . . . Oh, don't interrupt! No mortal man is proof against Sheila and Gladys and Kathleen—and you're not a demi-god—are you? . . . Thank you for your surgery upon my thumb—" She naïvely placed the tip of it between her lips and looked at him, standing there like a schoolgirl in her fresh gown, burnished hair loosened and curling in riotous beauty across cheeks and ears.
He had seated himself on the wheelbarrow again; she stood looking down at him, hands now bracketed on her narrow hips—so close that the fresh fragrance of her grew faintly perceptible—a delicate atmosphere of youth mingling with the perfume of the young garden.
Nina, basket on her arm, snipping away with her garden shears, glanced over her shoulder—and went on, snipping. They did not notice how far away her agricultural ardour led her—did not notice when she stood a moment at the gate looking back at them, or when she passed out, pretty head bent thoughtfully, the shears swinging loose at her girdle.
The prairie rosebuds in Eileen's basket exhaled their wild, sweet odour; and Selwyn, breathing it, removed his hat like one who faces a cooling breeze, and looked up at the young girl standing before him as though she were the source of all things sweet and freshening in this opening of the youngest year of his life.