"Lady Ventnor? Mrs. Bubb? Lord Rye? Dear, yes. Why they _like_ one."

"But does one personally _know_ them?" our young lady went on, since that
was the way to speak. "I mean socially, don't you know?--as you know
_me_."

"They're not so nice as you!" Mrs. Jordan charmingly cried. "But I
_shall_ see more and more of them."

Ah this was the old story. "But how soon?"

"Why almost any day. Of course," Mrs. Jordan honestly added, "they're
nearly always out."

"Then why do they want flowers all over?"

"Oh that doesn't make any difference." Mrs. Jordan was not philosophic;
she was just evidently determined it _shouldn't_ make any. "They're
awfully interested in my ideas, and it's inevitable they should meet me
over them."

Her interlocutress was sturdy enough. "What do you call your ideas?"

Mrs. Jordan's reply was fine. "If you were to see me some day with a
thousand tulips you'd discover."

"A thousand?"--the girl gaped at such a revelation of the scale of it;
she felt for the instant fairly planted out. "Well, but if in fact they
never do meet you?" she none the less pessimistically insisted.