“Where are my roses? Didn’t you get them?” Prest asked. He had a way of looking her over from beneath lowered lids, while he affected to be examining a glove-button or contemplating the tip of his shining boot. “Yes, I got them,” she answered. “You’re not wearing them. I didn’t order those.” “No.” “Whose are they, then?” She unfolded her mother-of-pearl fan, and bent above its complicated traceries. “Mine,” she pronounced. “Yours? Well, obviously. But I suppose someone sent them to you?” “_I_ did.” She hesitated a second. “I sent them to myself.” He raised his eyebrows a little. “Well, they don’t suit you--that washy pink! May I ask why you didn’t wear mine?” “I’ve already told you.... I’ve often asked you never to send flowers ... on the day....” “Nonsense. That’s the very day.... What’s the matter? Are you still nervous?” She was silent for a moment; then she lowered her voice to say: “You ought not to have come here tonight.” “My dear girl, how unlike you! You _are_ nervous.” “Didn’t you see all those people in the Parretts’ window?” “What, opposite? Lord, no; I just took to my heels! It was the deuce, the back way being barred. But what of it? In all that crowd, do you suppose for a moment--” “My husband was in the window with them,” she said, still lower. His confident face fell for a moment, and then almost at once regained its look of easy arrogance. “Well--?” “Oh, nothing--as yet. Only I ask you ... to go away now.” “Just as you asked me not to come! Yet _you_ came, because you had the sense to see that if you didn’t ... and I came for the same reason. Look here, my dear, for God’s sake don’t lose your head!” The challenge seemed to rouse her. She lifted her chin, glanced about the thronged room which they commanded from their corner, and nodded and smiled invitingly at several acquaintances, with the hope that some one of them might come up to her. But though they all returned her greetings with a somewhat elaborate cordiality, not one advanced toward her secluded seat. She turned her head slightly toward her companion. “I ask you again to go,” she repeated. “Well, I will then, after the fellow’s sung. But I’m bound to say you’re a good deal pleasanter--”