expecting; perhaps it had been
something of the old, pleasurable excitement that she had learnt to
associate with an occasion like the present. She put back her head and
looked at him, and her look was a question.

"Yes. At least it's over, thank goodness!" he said in reply.

Not knowing what answer to make to this, she led him to the sofa. They
sat down, and, for a few minutes, neither spoke. Then, he did what on
the way there, he had imagined himself doing: laid his head on her lap,
and himself placed her hands on his hair. She passed them backwards and
forwards; her sense of having been repulsed, yielded, and she tried to
change the current of his thoughts.

"Did you notice, Maurice, as you came along, how full the air was of
different scents to-night?" she asked as her cool hands went to and
fro. "It was like an evening in July. I was at the window trying to
make them out. But the roses were too strong for them; for you see--or
rather you have not seen--all the roses I have got for you--yes, just
dark red roses. This afternoon I went to the little shop at the corner,
and bought all they had. The pretty girl served me--do you remember the
pretty girl with the yellow hair, who tried to make friends with you
last summer? You like roses, too, don't you? Though not as much as I
do. They were always my favourite flowers. As a child, I used to
imagine what it would be like to gather them for a whole day, without
stopping. But, like all my wishes then, this had to be postponed, too,
till that wonderful future, which was to bring me all I wanted. There
were only a few bushes where I lived; it was too dry for them. But the
smell of them takes me back--always. I have only to shut my eyes, and I
am full of the old extravagant longings--the childish impatience with
time, which seemed to crawl so slowly ... even to stand still."

"Tell me all about it," he murmured, without raising his head.

She smiled and humoured him.

"I like flowers best for their scents," she went on. "No matter what
beautiful colours they have. A camelia is a foolish flower; like a
blind man's face--the chief thing is wanting. But then, of course, the
smell must remind one of pleasant things. It's strange, isn't it, how
much association has to do with pleasure?--or pain. Some things affect
me so strongly that they make me wretched. There's music I can't listen
to; I have to put my hands to my ears, and run away from it; and all
because it takes me ba