[30]

The car stopped and she mounted the steps. “Good-bye, and thank you so much.” He stood back and she waved to him while he watched her out of sight.

His work at the office that morning had dreams for an accompaniment. He went out at lunch-time but ate nothing. It was at lunch-time that he bought the violets—paying an unthinkable price for them, and not caring.

He had wild thoughts of following the road to Alexandria—of finding his Juliet on some balcony and climbing up to her. Or of sending the flowers forth addressed largely to “A Princess who passed.” One could not, however, be sure of an uncomprehending mail service. He would need more definite appellation.

He had not, indeed, bought the flowers for Jane. He had had no thought of his sister as he passed the florist’s window. He had been drawn into the shop by the association of ideas—when he entered all the scent and sweetness seemed to belong to a garden in which his lady walked.

He did not eat any lunch, and he took the box of violets back with him to the office, wrapped to prodigious size to protect it from the cold. It was an object of much curiosity to his fellow-clerks as it sat on the window-sill. They all wanted to know who it was for, and one of the abhorred flappers,[31] who, at times, took Baldy’s dictation, tried to peep between the covers.

[31]

He felt that her glance would be desecration. What did she know of delicate fragrances? Her perfumes were oriental, and she used a lipstick!

He managed, however, to carry the thing off lightly. He was, in the opinion of the office, a gay and companionable chap. They knew nothing of his reactions. And he was popular.

So now he said to the girl, “If you’ll let that alone, I’ll bring a box of chocolates for the crowd.”

“Why can’t I look at it?”

“Because curiosity is a deadly sin. You know what happened to Bluebeard’s wife?”

“Oh, Bluebeard.” She had read of him, she thought, in the Paris papers. He had killed a lot of wives. She giggled a little in deference to the spiciness of the subject. Then pinned him down to his promise of sweets. “You know the kind we like?”

“This week?”

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