"It's so much more fun," she asserted, "to choose one's own than to
watch a man picking all the poorest blossoms and leaving the very best."
"Is that what we do?" King asked, his eyes feasting upon the sight of
her as she filled her arms with the gay masses, her face eager with her
pleasure in them.
"Yes, indeed. Or else you get out a jackknife and hack off great
handfuls of them at once, and bring them back all bleeding from your
ruthless attack."
"I see. And you gather them delicately, so they don't mind, I suppose.
Yet--I was given to understand that 'Susquehanna' died first. I've
always wondered what you did to her. I'd banked on her as the huskiest
of the lot."
She flashed a quick look at him, compounded of surprise, mirth, and
something else whose nature he could not guess. "'Susquehanna' was
certainly a wonderful rose," she admitted.
"Yet only next morning she was sadly drooping. I know, because I
received a report of her. And I lost my wager."
"You should have known better," she said demurely, her head bent over
her armful of flowers, "than to make a wager on the life of a rose sent
to a girl who was just coming back to life herself."
"You weren't so gentle with 'Susquehanna,' then, I take it, as you are
with those wild things you have there."
"I was not gentle with her at all." Anne lifted her head with a
mischievously merry look. "If you must know--I kissed her--hard!"
"Ah!" Jordan King sat back, laughing, with suddenly rising colour.
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