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I repeat she is indecently beautiful. A chit of a girl of
eighteen (for that I learn is her age) has no right to flaunt the
beauty that should be the appanage of the woman of seven and
twenty. She should be modestly well-favoured, as becomes her
childish stage of development. She looked incongruous among my
sober books, and I regarded her with some resentment. I dislike
the exotic. I prefer geraniums to orchids. I have a row of pots
of the former on my balcony, and the united efforts of Stenson,
Antoinette, and myself have not yet succeeded in making them
bloom; but I love the unassuming velvety leaves. Carlotta is a
flaring orchid and produces on my retina a sensation of disquiet.

I broke the tidings of the tragedy as gently as I could. I had
news of Harry, I said, gravely. She merely looked interested and
asked me when he was coming.
"I'm afraid he will never come," said I.
"If he does not come, then I can stay here with you?"
Her eyes betrayed a quiver of anxiety. For the life of me I
could not avoid the ironical.


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