“But I--perhaps I don’t want to lose a second of you to other persons.” She rested her hand on his arm lightly. “Where are you going?” “Be back before you can say Jack Robinson.” He darted off. As he entered the shop, he caught her slow smile of intelligence forbidding him. While the flowers were being arranged, he kept his eyes turned to where she hovered on the pavement; the anxiety that she might escape him was not quite gone. He saw her hail a taxi. For a moment he thought---- But, no, she was having an earnest conversation. “It’s all arranged, brother. We’re going to drive down “Don’t tell me.” He banged the door and settled himself beside her. “Life’s much more surprising when you don’t know where you’re going.” He laid the flowers in her lap. “For you. You won’t refuse them?” She bent over them curiously, as though she hadn’t the least idea what he had been purchasing. As she stripped the paper from them and the white cup of the blossoms began to appear, she frowned severely. “Lilies of the valley! You’re too good. You spoil me. And now you’ll think that I was asking for them. No. I won’t wear them.” Having registered her protest, she at once rewarded him with her fluttering delight as she turned back her coatee and tried several effects before finally deciding where to fasten them. While he had walked at her side, he had been too embarrassed to take much notice of how she was dressed. Now that her attention was occupied, he grew bold to examine her toilet. Her beauty was a subtle, intoxicating perfume, like incense suggesting the spirit of worship. She was different from his mother--different even from Vashti, and from any woman that he had known. Her difference might not be the result of virtues--might even be due to omitted qualities. He did not stop to analyze; to him the very newness of her type was a fascination. Nothing that she wore was useful. It was perishable as a spring garden. A shower of rain, and it would be eternally ruined. None of it could be employed as second-best when its first freshness was gone. It couldn’t even be given to the poor: her attire was too modish--it bespoke luxury and marked the wearer’s class in society. Her clothes were the whim of the moment--utterly uneconomic. If Mrs. Sheerug had had to pass judgment on them, she would have said that they weren’t sensible. In the exact sense they weren’t even clothing; they were adornments, planned with a view to exposing quite as much as to concealing the person. To enhance the effect of beauty was their sole purpose.