debut.



Chapter XIV. Love and lavender.



How well I remember our last evening in Dovermarle Street!

At one of our open windows behind the potted ferns and blossoming
hydrangeas sat Salemina, Bertie Godolphin, Mrs. Beresford, the
Honourable Arthur, and Francesca; at another, as far off as
possible, sat Willie Beresford and I. Mrs. Beresford had sanctioned
a post-prandial cigar, for we were not going out till ten, to see,
for the second time, an act of John Hare's Pair of Spectacles.

They were talking and laughing at the other end of the room; Mr.
Beresford and I were rather quiet. (Why is it that the people with
whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one
loves to talk?)

The room was dim with the light of a single lamp; the rain had
ceased; the roar of Piccadilly came to us softened by distance. A
belated vendor of lavender came along the sidewalk, and as he
stopped under the windows the pungent fragrance of the flowers was
wafted up to us with his song.

'Who'll buy my pretty lavender?
Sweet lavender,