The delicate, tender, modest, flattering message could not be ignored.
Ravenel noticed beside the roses a small flowerpot containing a plant, Without shame he brought his opera-glasses and employed them from the cover of his window-curtain. A nutmeg geranium!
With the true poetic instinct he dragged a book of useless information from his shelves, and tore open the leaves at “The Language of Flowers.”
“Geranium, Nutmeg—I expect a meeting.”
So! Romance never does things by halves. If she comes back to you she brings gifts and her knitting, and will sit in your chimney-corner if you will let her.
And now Ravenel smiled. The lover smiles when he thinks he has won. The woman who loves ceases to smile with victory. He ends a battle; she begins hers. What a pretty idea to set the four roses in her window for him to see! She must have a sweet, poetic soul. And now to contrive the meeting.
A whistling and slamming of doors preluded the coming of Sammy Brown.
Ravenel smiled again. Even Sammy Brown was shone upon by the far-flung rays of the renaissance. Sammy, with his ultra clothes, his horseshoe pin, his plump face, his trite slang, his uncomprehending admiration of Ravenel—the broker’s clerk made an
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