"Well, he didn't stare. But it's a mighty good thing that all men haven't got the same kind of eyes, ain't it? What I could never make out was why men ever marry women who haven't got curly hair, an' yet they do it every day--they go right straight out an' do it with their wits about 'em." The front door opened suddenly, and the man came out again, and, descended the walk with the springy step Gabriella had noticed at their first meeting. Notwithstanding his size, he moved with the lightness and agility of a boy, and without looking at him she could see, as she bent over the flower-bed, that he had the look of exuberant vitality which accompanies perfect physical condition. Without meaning to, without knowing why she did it, she glanced up quickly and met his eyes. "So you are making a garden?" he remarked, and stopped beside the freshly turned flower-bed. Against the gray twilight the red of his hair was like a dark flame, and the vivid colour appeared to intensify the sanguine glow in his face, the steady gaze of his eyes, and the cheerful heartiness of his voice. "He is cyclonic," she said to herself. "Yes, that is the word--he is cyclonic--but he isn't a gentleman." "It's a pity to let the yard run to waste," she responded, with an imperiousness which took Miss Polly's breath away, though it left the irrepressible O'Hara still buoyantly gay and kind. "Now it takes a woman to think of that," he observed with an off-hand geniality which she felt was directed less toward herself than toward an impersonal universe. "I like to look at that old rose-bush when it is in bloom, but the idea"--(he pronounced it idee)--"of planting anything would never have occurred to me." Gabriella's lips closed firmly, while she sprinkled the earth with an air of patient finality which made Miss Polly think of Mrs. Carr on one of her neuralgic days. "What's that stringy looking grass over there?" pursued the man, undismayed by her manner. "Clove pinks." Nothing, she told herself indignantly, could persuade her to encourage the acquaintance of a man who mispronounced his words so outrageously. "And here?" He pointed to the flower-bed she was watering. "Mignonette and nasturtium seeds." "When will they come up?" "Very soon if they're watered." "And they'll bloom about July, I guess?" "They ought to bloom all summer. In the autumn, if we have room, we're going to plant some dahlias, and a row of hollyhocks against the house. By next summer the yard will look much better." "By George!" he exclaimed abruptly, and after a minute or two: "Do you know, I can remember the first time I ever saw a flower--or the first time I took notice of one, anyway. It was red--a red geranium. There was a whole cart of 'em, and that's why I noticed 'em, I expect. But a red geranium is a Jim-dandy flower, ain't it?"