I might be invited out until a full hour beyond
the specified time--and I've generally kept it, too!

Min did not treat me cavalierly, however, notwithstanding that I had
arrived in advance of expectation. _She_ was all kindness and grace,
endeavouring to make the "mauvais quart d'heure" of my solitary
guesthood pass away as little uncomfortably to me as possible.

She asked me to come and see her flowers in the bay window of the
drawing-room, which she had fitted up as a tiny conservatory; while her
mother sat down to the piano and played dreamy music in a desultory
fashion. I like dreamy music, although it always makes me melancholy--
indeed, all music affects me the same way, in spite of my not being by
any means what you would call a sad person. On the contrary, I am
supposed to be one of the most light-hearted fellows imaginable, and,
certainly, laugh more than I ever cry. However, mirth and sadness are
closer allies than people generally suspect. All emotion proceeds, more
or less, from hysteria.

While Mrs Clyde was playing, Min and I got talking. She thanked me for
coming early; and upbraided the absent guests for thinking it
fashionable to come later than bidden.

We discussed the rival merits of a scarlet japonica and a double
fuchsia, giving the palm of merit to the former, though the latter had
some wondrous lobes; and I was also asked my opinion whether her
favourite maidenhair fern would survive a sudden and unaccountable
blight which had fallen upon it a few days before.

She then showed me the identical violets I had given her that Christmas
morning, now so long passed by: she had tipped the stalks with sealing
wax and preserved them in cotton wool, so that they looked as fresh as
when first gathered.

"There!" she said, with an air of triumph. "There, Mr Lorton! I have
kept them ever since."

"Mr Lorton!" I repeated, "who is he? I don't know him."

"Well, `Frank,' then--will that please you better, you tiresome thing?"

"You know you promised," I said, apologetically.

"Did I?" she asked, with charming naivete.

"Why, have you forgotten that night already?" I said, in a melancholy
tone.

"Don't be so lugubrious," she said. "You have to amuse me. You mustn't
remember all my promises."

"Are they so unsubstantial?" I asked.

"No, they're not, sir!" she said, stamping her foot in affected anger.
"But what do you say to my keeping your violets so long, Frank?"

"What do I sa