'Oh no,' cried Winifred, 'it's silly.'
'Not at all. It is a very charming and ordinary attention.'
'Oh, it is silly,' protested Winifred, with all the extreme MAUVAISE
HONTE of her years. Nevertheless, the idea appealed to her. She wanted
very much to carry it out. She flitted round the green-houses and the
conservatory looking wistfully at the flowers on their stems. And the
more she looked, the more she LONGED to have a bunch of the blossoms
she saw, the more fascinated she became with her little vision of
ceremony, and the more consumedly shy and self-conscious she grew, till
she was almost beside herself. She could not get the idea out of her
mind. It was as if some haunting challenge prompted her, and she had
not enough courage to take it up. So again she drifted into the
green-houses, looking at the lovely roses in their pots, and at the
virginal cyclamens, and at the mystic white clusters of a creeper. The
beauty, oh the beauty of them, and oh the paradisal bliss, if she
should have a perfect bouquet and could give it to Gudrun the next day.
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