"But I recognize them now; they are wonderful. I
suppose they have thorns?" His eyes met Roberta's for one daring
instant.
"You wouldn't like them if they didn't," said she.
"Shouldn't I? I'd like to find one with the thorns off; I'd wear it--if
I might. May I have one, grandfather?"
"Of course, Dick. They're mine now to give away, Miss Roberta? Perhaps
you'll put it on for him."
Since the suggestion was made by an old man, who might or might not have
been wholly innocent of taking sides in a game in which his boy was
playing for high stakes, Roberta could do no less than hurriedly to
select a splendid crimson bud without regard to thorns--she was aware of
more than one as she handled it--and fasten it upon a gray coat,
intensely conscious of the momentary nearness of a personality whose
influence upon her was the strangest, most perturbing thing she had ever
experienced.
The flower in place, she could not get away too fast. Rosamond,
understanding now that the air was electric and that her sister wanted
nothing so much as to escape to a safer atmosphere, aided her by taking
the lead and engaging Richard Kendrick in conversation all the way
downstairs to the door and out to the waiting carriage.
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