It is almost certain that such a part is one for which
flowers were especially designed.
Those splendid steeds, David and Angela, having been
duly exercised, groomed, and turned out to browse
upon bun-corn, George rushed at once upon the matter
that was singing within him.
Where he sat with his Mary they were sheltered from
any but chance obtrusion. She had taken off her
gloves, and George gave her hands, as they lay in
her lap, a little confident pat. It was the tap
of the baton with which the conductor calls together
his orchestra—for this was a song that
George was about to tune, very confident that the
chords of both instruments that should give the notes
were in a harmony complete.
He said: “Mary, do you know what I am going
to talk about?”
She had been a little silent that morning, he had
thought; did not answer now, but smiled.
He laid a hand upon both hers. “You must
say ‘yes.’ You’ve got to say
‘yes’ about twenty times this morning,
so start now. Do you know what I’m going
to talk about?”
“Yes.”
“No objections this time?”
“Yes.”
He laughed; gave her hand a little smack of reproof.
(You who have loved will excuse these lovers’
absurdities.) “No, no; you are only to say ‘yes’
when I tell you. No objections to the subject
this morning?”
His Mary told him “No.”
“Couldn’t have a better morning for it,
could we?”
She took a little catch at her breath.
George dropped the banter in his tone. “Nothing
wrong to-day, is there, dear? Nothing up?”
How sadly wrong everything in truth was she had determined
not to tell him until she more certainly knew its
extent. She shook her head; reassuringly smiled.
“Well, that’s all right—there
couldn’t be on a morning like this. Now
we’ve got to begin at the beginning. Mary,
I planned it all out last night—all this
conversation. We’ve got to begin at the
beginning—Do you know I’ve never
told you yet that I love you? You knew it, though,
didn’t you, from the first, the very first?
Tell me from when?”
“George, this is awfully foolish, isn’t
it?”
“Never mind. It’s jolly nice.
It’s necessary, too. I’ve read about
it. It’s always done. Tell me from
when you knew I loved you.”
“After last Saturday.”
“Oh, Mary! Much earlier than that!
You must have!”
“Well, I thought perhaps you—you
cared after that first day when you came here.”
“Not before that?”
She laughed. “Come, how could I?
Why, I’d hardly seen you.”
“Well, I did, anyway,” George told her.
“I loved you from the very minute you shot out
of the cab that day. There! But even this
isn’t the proper thing. I’ve been
promising myself all night to say four words to you—just
four. Now I’m going to say them: Mary,
I love you.”
