"Ah, yes, sadness," he said; "but gladness too, and the gladness is more than the sadness. Would you not sooner know the fine even though you cannot attain to it, than be content with the little all your life? I would, and it is that which you have given me. It is I who give nothing—"
He hesitated as if for a moment at a loss, and she had no words to fill in the pause.
"Will you take this?" he said, half thrusting something forward. "It is, perhaps, not much to some, but I would like you to have it; it seems fitting; I think I owe it to you, and you to it."
"Oh, yes, yes," she murmured, hardly hearing and not grasping the last words; there was something choking in her throat; it was this strange, humble, disinterested love, so new to her, which brought it there and prevented her from understanding.
She stretched out her hands, and he put something into them; then he stepped back, and the carriage drove on. It was not till the gateway was passed that she realised what it was she held—a small bag made of the greyish-brown paper used on a bulb farm; inside, a single bulb; and outside, written, according to the invariable custom of growers—
"Narcissus Triandrus Azureum Vrouw Van Heigen."