“That's exactly what I've been trying to impress on you all these years,” I declared. “I've laid the laurels at your feet, in vain.”
She sat with her head back on the cushions, surveying me.
“Your dress is very becoming,” I said irrelevantly.
“I hoped it would meet your approval,” she mocked.
“I've been trying to identify the shade. It's elusive—like you.”
“Don't be banal.... What is the colour?”
“Poinsetta!”
“Pretty nearly,” she agreed, critically.
I took the soft crepe between my fingers.
“Poet!” she smiled. “No, it isn't quite poinsetta. It's nearer the red-orange of a tree I remember one autumn, in the White Mountains, with the setting sun on it. But that wasn't what we were talking about. Laurels! Your laurels.”