ch
lit as stained amber by candlelight, and her voice was quiet and
pattering and gentle, like castanets played softly. She made him tea,
though it was far too late, and he had politely said he did not want
any, and afterwards she sat by the fire, listening without exclamation
to the story of the accident, making no demand on him for argument or
cheerfulness, sometimes letting the conversation sag into silence, but
always showing a smile that such a time meant no failure of goodwill.
The unique quality of her smile, which was exquisitely gay and comically
irregular, lifting the left corner of her mouth a little higher than the
right, reminded Yaverland that of course he loved her. It would make it
all right if he wrote to his mother about her at once. He reflected how
he could word the letter to convey that this girl was the most glorious
and desirable being on earth without lapsing into the exuberance of
phrase which was the one thing that made her turn on him the speculative
gaze, not so much expressive of contempt as admitting that the word
contempt had certainly passed through her mind, which she habitually
turned on the rest of the world....

But Ellen was speaking now, apologising because she had made him eat by
candlelight, offering to light the gas, explaining that she and her
mother had burned candles all the week because they hurt his roses less.
"But surely," he said, "these roses can't be the ones I sent you? That
was five days ago. These look quite fresh." Her face became vivacious
and passionate; she came to the table and bent over the vases with an
excitement that would have struck most people as a little mad. "Of
course these are your roses!" she exclaimed. "Five days indeed! They'll
keep a fortnight the way mother and I do them. When they begin to droop
you plunge the stalks into boiling water...."

He watched her with quiet delight. In the course of his life he had
given flowers to several women, but none of them had ever plunged their
stalks into boiling water. Instead they had stood up very straight in
their shiny gowns and lifted the flowers in a pretence of inhaling the
fragrance which the strong scent they used must certainly have prevented
them from smelling, and had sent out from their little mouths fluttering
murmurs of gratitude that were somehow not references to the flowers at
all, but declarations of femaleness. Surely both the woman who performed
that conventional gesture and the man who