Bible's Rose of Sharon, are you?" he joshed a bit awkwardly.

"If I were a rose of anywhere, I'd soon wilt in this stuffy
little office of inky smells," she answered pleasantly. "A rose
would need petals of leather to get by here."

"A rose, by rights, belongs out of doors,"--Martin indicated the
direction of his farm--"out there where the sun shines and
there's no smells except the rich, healthy smells of nature."

A merry twinkle appeared in Rose's eyes. "Aren't roses out
there"--and her gesture was in the same direction--"rather apt to
be crowded down by the weeds?"

"Not if there was a good strong man about--a man who wanted to
cultivate the soil and give the rose a pretty place in which to
bloom."

"Why, Martin," Rose laughed lightly, "the way you're fixed out
there with that shack, the only thing that ever blooms is a fine
crop of rag-weeds."

At this gratuitous thrust a flood of crimson surged up Martin's
magnificent, column-like throat and broke in hot waves over his
cheeks. "Well, it's not going to be that way for long," he
announced evenly. "I'm going to plant a rose--a real rose there
soon and everything is going to be right--garden, house and all."

"Is this your way of telling me you're going to be married?"