"A little of that kind of thing would do you no end of good," he replied—"a little concentrated sunshine and bright colors and the smell of the fresh earth, you know. If you were my patient, I would make you take a course of it. I'd say you wanted more vegetable tissue, and prescribe a green-house for six months. I've no doubt this man here would take you. A young-lady apprentice would be quite an attractive feature. You could pull off dead leaves and strike graceful attitudes, training up vines, like the gardener's daughter in Tennyson."
"What are those gorgeous things?" she asked, pointing to a row of orchids hung on nails along the wall.
"Those are epiphytic orchids—air-plants, you know: they require no earth for their roots: they live on the air."
"Like a chameleon?"
"Like a chameleon."
He took down from its nail one of the little wooden slabs, and showed her the roots coiled about it, with the cluster of bulbs. The flower was snow-white and shaped like a butterfly. The fringe of the lip was of a delicate rose-pink, and at the base of it were two spots of rich maroon, each with a central spot of the most vivid orange. Every color was as pronounced as though it were the only one.
"What a daring combination!" she cried. "If a lady should dress in all those colors she'd be thought vulgar, but somehow it doesn't seem vulgar in a flower."
She turned the blossom over and looked at the under side of the petals. "Those orange spots show right through the leaf," she went on, "as if they were painted and the paint laid on thick."
"Do you know," said Putnam, "that what you've just said gives me a good deal of encouragement?"
"Encouragement? How?"