Why shouldn’t Victor take a big bunch of them to Lucy? She suggested it to him when he came strolling out to the kitchen where she was cracking eggs for an omelet.
“I’ll pack them in a nice box with wet cotton, and you take them up just as soon as you get there—Victor, don’t eat those raisins, you’ll spoil your lunch. You’ll see they haven’t anything like these in New York.”
“Oh, well, I guess they’ll have plenty of flowers—I don’t believe I’d bother—I mean, I guess they’ll have enough,” said Victor, dreadfully embarrassed.
“They won’t have any like these, and it won’t be a bit of trouble. I’ll pack the box right in your bag,” Maggie said, killing a currant on the table with great firmness under the impression that it was a fly; and she thought, “If he takes them in the afternoon, they’ll know he’s reached New York, and they’ll certainly ask him to supper, even if it’s just a pickup meal because of the party.”
Oh, she did want him to have a good time! Her heart still ached so for him, because he had not been able to go back to Harvard. She had suffered for him all winter—so hard on him hanging around the place. She would look at him standing in the window watching the falling snow, whistling and rocking back and forth from his toes to his heels, or yawning by the fire over “A Daughter of Heth,” or “Just As I Am,” and think that really he would be happier doing some sort of work. But Victor felt that it was important to wait until just the right position offered itself.
Maggie found a splendid box for the lilies-of-the-valley, but just because it said “1 pr. Corsets, extra heavy boning” Victor was ridiculous, even though she offered to paste a piece of plain paper over the shocking words. So they had to be put in another box, not nearly as good.
He would much rather have let them stay at the hotel, much much rather. But he thought of Maggie going out last night after she had finished the dishes—she wouldn’t let May wash them because of her pretty hands, or Lily, because she broke too many plates—gathering a great burst of them, carillons of silver bells, cool with evening, and bringing them in for him to see and smell, her face shining.
He meant just to leave them at the big brownstone house. He was astonished to hear himself asking the butler, “Is Miss Hawthorn in?”
“Is that the man about the extra chairs?”
Mrs. Hawthorn came into the hall, all sweeping violet silk and foaming lace—was she dressed for the ball already at five in the afternoon, or could it be only a tea-gown?
“Are you the man about the extra chairs?”
“Oh—I’m Victor Campion, Mrs. Hawthorn—I just—I wondered if Lucy—”
“Oh. Mr. Campion. Yes, I remember.” She gave him a finger and said in a preoccupied voice, “I’m sorry, Lucy is lying down.”
“Oh, that’s all right! I just brought a few lilies-of-the-valley, they aren’t anything really, but we thought—”
He followed her into the drawing-room, cleared of most of its furniture, and sat on the edge of a small gilt chair, not wanting to stay, but afraid she would be hurt if he went right away. He felt his face getting red. “It’s warm today, isn’t it?” he asked, laughing a little, nervously.
“Heavens, will the goose never go?” thought Mrs. Hawthorn; and she let a moment pass before she answered:
“Very warm.”
He had never seen such a grand parlor. The high sky-blue ceiling was painted with clouds and cupids, and from it hung gas globes like giants’ eggcups, with the profiles of Roman emperors clear on the ground glass. Long mirrors reflected over and over again the firescreen of terra-cotta silk embroidered with bullrushes, the marble lady looking down at a butterfly perched on her shoulder, Mrs. Hawthorn’s violet draperies, and his own best grey suit and flaming face.
Would it be all right to go now? He didn’t know how late you could get supper at the hotel, and he felt as if he had been sitting there for hours. There was a clock on the mantelpiece, but it was so fancy, its hands were such delicate traceries of golden frost-work against a golden moon of background that he couldn’t read it at all.
“Well, I think maybe I’d better—”
And somehow he was out of the house, on the street. What a relief!
“Mercy!” cried Mrs. Hawthorn, flapping her hands with exasperation, as she hurried into the dining-room for a last look at the table before the florist’s men left. All white and palest green, lilies-of-the-valley, masses and masses of them.
Lucy, rosy with sleep, came trailing down, wrapped in a dressing gown of pale blue silk trimmed with swansdown, like fluffy white clouds in a summer sky, and helped herself to a glacé pear from a dish on the table.
“Your rustic admirer has been here,” said her mother. “That Campion young man. He left a box of something or other for you somewhere, and he hopes we’ll understand why his sisters couldn’t come. Lucy Hawthorn, those extra chairs aren’t here yet!”
“Oh, Mother! To think of Victor’s coming all the way here for my ball! Oh, can’t we ask him to the dinner?”
Her flower-blue eyes filled with tears as she thought of his lonely dinner at the hotel, her hand went out for a piece of crystallized pineapple.
“No we can’t—there really isn’t room for him. I’m sorry, but good gracious! Who would have dreamed of the goose coming all that distance? Now, Lucy, don’t cry, or you’ll spoil your eyes, and don’t eat any more candied fruit, or you’ll spoil the looks of the table.”
Should he dress before dinner, or after? He couldn’t decide, and this time he couldn’t call over the stairs and ask one of the girls. If he could only go down and look
