Antonia, in a sunny angle of the old brick wall, amid the pinks and poppies and cornflowers, was humming to herself. Shelton saw the stained-glass man pass out of sight, then, unobserved, he watched her smelling at the flowers, caressing her face with each in turn, casting away spoiled blossoms, and all the time humming that soft tune. In two months, or three, all barriers between himself and this inscrutable young Eve would break; she would be a part of him, and he a part of her; he would know all her thoughts, and she all his; together they would be as one, and all would think of them, and talk of them, as one; and this would come about by standing half an hour together in a church, by the passing of a ring, and the signing of their names.
The sun was burnishing her hair—she wore no hat flushing her cheeks, sweetening and making sensuous her limbs; it had warmed her through and through, so that, like the flowers and bees, the sunlight and the air, she was all motion, light, and colour.
She turned and saw Shelton standing there.
“Oh, Dick!” she said: “Lend me your hand-kerchief to put these flowers in, there 's a good boy!”
Her candid eyes, blue as the flowers in her hands, were clear and cool as ice, but in her smile was all the warm profusion of that corner; the sweetness had soaked into her, and was welling forth again. The sight of those sun-warmed cheeks, and fingers twining round the flower-stalks, her pearly teeth, and hair all fragrant, stole the reason out of Shelton. He stood before her, weak about the knees.
“Found you at last!” he said.
Curving back her neck, she cried out, “Catch!” and with a sweep of both her hands flung the flowers into Shelton's arms.
Under the rain of flowers, all warm and odorous, he dropped down on his knees, and put them one by one together, smelling at the pinks, to hide the violence of his feelings. Antonia went on picking flowers, and every time her hand was full she dropped them on his hat, his shoulder, or his arms, and went on plucking more; she smiled, and on her lips a little devil danced, that seemed to know what he was suffering. And Shelton felt that she did know.
“Are you tired?” she asked; “there are heaps more wanted. These are the bedroom-flowers—fourteen lots. I can't think how people can live without flowers, can you?” and close above his head she buried her face in pinks.
He kept his eyes on the plucked flowers before him on the grass, and forced himself to answer,
“I think I can hold out.”
“Poor old Dick!” She had stepped back. The sun lit the clear-cut profile of her cheek, and poured its gold over the bosom of her blouse. “Poor old Dick! Awfully hard luck, is n't it?” Burdened with mignonette, she came so close again that now she touched his shoulder, but Shelton did not look; breathless, with wildly beating heart, he went on sorting out the flow............