The Lady, shaking her head: "Tea-roses are ghastly. I hate yellow roses. I would rather have black, and black is simply impossible. I shall have to tell you just what I want to do. I don't want to work up to my rooms with the flowers; I want to work up to the young lady who is going to pour tea for me. I don't care if there isn't a flower anywhere but on the table before her. I want a color scheme that shall not have a false note in it, from her face to the tiniest bud. I want them to all come together. Do you understand?"
The Florist, doubtfully: "Yes." After a moment: "What kindt looking yo'ng laty iss she?"
The Lady: "The most ethereal creature in the world."
The Florist: "Yes; but what sdyle—fair or tark?"
The Lady: "Oh, fair! Very, very fair, and very, very fragile-looking; a sort of moonlight blonde, with those remote, starry-looking eyes, don't you know, and that pale saffron hair; not the least ashen; and just the faintest, faintest tinge of color in her face. I suppose you have nothing like the old-fashioned blush-rose? That would be the very thing."
The Florist, shaking his head: "Oh, no; there noding like that in a chreen-house rhoce."
The Lady: "Well, that is exactly what I want. It ought to be something very tall and ethereal; something very, very pale, and yet with a sort of suffusion of color." She walks up and down the shop, looking at all the plants and flowers.
The Florist, waiting patiently: "Somet'ing beside rhoces, then?"
The Lady, coming back to him: "No; it must be roses, after all. I see that nothing else will do. What do you call those?" She nods at a vase of roses on a shelf behind him.
The Florist, turning and taking them down for her: "Ah, those whidte ones! That is the Pridte. You sait you woultn't haf whidte ones."