"Go on," Rose suggested mischievously. "This is getting interesting."
"You needn't laugh. I assure you that men know more about those things
than they're usually given credit for. Your jewels fit in with the whole
idea, too. That jade pin, for instance, and your tourmaline necklace,
and your ruby ring, and the topazes you wear with yellow, and the faint
scent of roses that always hangs about you."

"What else?" she smiled.

"Well, I had a note from you the other day. It was fragrant with rose
petals and the conventionalised rose, in gold and white, that was
stamped in place of a monogram, didn't escape me. Besides, here's this."

He took from his pocket a handkerchief of sheerest linen, delicately
hemstitched. In one corner was embroidered a rose, in palest shades of
pink and green. The delicate, elusive scent filled the room as he shook
it out.

"There," he continued, with a laugh. "I found it in my violin case the
other day. I don't know how it came there, but it was much the same as
finding a rose twined about the strings."

Aunt Francesca was on the other side of the room, by the fire. Her face,
in the firelight, was as delicate as a bit of carved ivory. Her thoughts
were far away--one could see that. Isabel sat near her, apparently
absorbed in a book, but, in reality, listening to every word.

"I wish," Allison was saying, "that people knew how to live up to
themselves. That's an awkward phrase, but I don't know of anything