“I dropped one, and Phil Carter wanted to keep it. He’s so silly!”
“Did you—did you let him keep it?”
“Lorne Murchison! Do you think I’d let any man keep a rose I’d been wearing?”
He looked at her, suddenly emboldened. “I don’t know about roses, Dora, but pansies—those are awfully nice ones in your dress. I’m very fond of pansies; couldn’t you spare me one? I wouldn’t ask for a rose, but a pansy—”
His eyes were more ardent than what he found to say. Beneath them Dora grew delicately pink. The pansies drooped a little; she put her slender fingers under one, and lifted its petals.
“It’s too faded for your buttonhole,” she said.
“It needn’t stay in my buttonhole. I know lots of other places!” he begged.
Dora considered the pansy again, then she pulled it slowly out, and the young man got up and went over to her, proffering the lapel of his coat.
“It spoils the bunch,” she said prettily. “If I give you this you will have to give me something to take its place.”
“I will,” said Lorne.