I do not wish to make a fool of myself, and there'd be that danger
if she remained." Yet the idea of her absence gave him an
unaccustomed pang.
He filled her quarters aboard ship with exquisite flowers. She was
not yet used to graceful attentions, they had been for other women,
not for her. She had no idea at all that she was of the slightest
importance, if only because of the Champneys money; her comparative
freedom was still too recent for her to have changed her estimate of
herself. She thought it touchingly kind and thoughtful of this
handsome, important man to have remembered just _her_, particularly
when there wasn't anybody else to do so, and she looked at him with
a pleased and appreciative friendliness for which he felt absurdly
grateful. While Marcia was busied with the other friends who had
come to see her off, he stood beside Mrs. Champneys, who seemed to
know no one but himself, and this established a measure of intimacy
between them.
"It occurs to me," said he, tentatively, "that it has been some time
since I saw Florence.
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