"You are spoiling mine."

"We won't quarrel about it. And we'll stop at Small's. Shall it be
roses or violets, to-day, my dear?"

She chose violets, as more in accord with her pensive mood, lighting
the bunch, however, with one red rose. The question of Hilda was not
settled, but she yielded as many an older woman has yielded--to the
sweetness of tribute--to man's impulse to make things right not by
justice but by the bestowal of his bounty.

From the florist's, they went to Huyler's old shop on F Street, where
the same girl had served Jean with ice-cream sodas and hot chocolate
for fifteen years. Administrations might come and administrations go,
but these pleasant clerks had been cup-bearers to them all--Presidents'
daughters and diplomats' sons--the sturdy children of plain
Congressmen, the scions of noble families across the seas.

It was while Jean sat on a high stool beside her father, the sunshine
shining on her through the wide window, that Derry Drake, coming down
Twelfth, saw her!

Well, he wanted a lemonade. And the fact that she was there in a gray
squirrel coat and bunch of violets with her copper-colored hair shining
over her ears wasn't going to leave him thirsty!

He went in. He bowed to the Doctor and received a smile in return.
Jean's eyes were cold above her chocolate. Derry bought his check,
went to a little table on the raised platform at the back of the room,