"Are you a judge of roses, Mr. Carleton?"
"So far as to know a rose when I see it," he answered smiling, and with an imperturbable coolness that it quieted Fleda to hear.
"I am sure Mr. Thorn will excuse me."
"Ay, but the thing is," said Constance, "do you know twenty roses when you see them?"
"Miss Ringgan, Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, "has received a most beautiful supply this morning; but like a true woman she is not satisfied to enjoy unless she can enjoy intelligently--they are strangers to us all, and she would like to know what name to give them--Mr. Thorn suggested that perhaps you might help us out of our difficulty."
"With great pleasure, so far as I am able,--if my judgment may be exercised by daylight. I cannot answer for shades of green in the night time."
But he spoke with an ease and simplicity that left no mortal able to guess whether he had ever heard of a particular bunch of roses in his life before.
"You give me more of Eve in my character, Mrs. Evelyn, than I think belongs to me," said Fleda from her work at the far centre-table, which certainly did not get its name from its place in the room. "My enjoyment to-day has not been in the least troubled by curiosity."
Which none of the rest of the family could have affirmed.