"That wasn't all talk?"

"Not a bit of it."

"After all," he went on, "a little shop needn't be so bad."

"It's a 'ome," said Miriam.

"It's a home."

Pause.

"There's no need to keep accounts and that sort of thing if there's no
assistant. I daresay I could run a shop all right if I wasn't
interfered with."

"I should like to see you in your shop," said Miriam. "I expect you'd
keep everything tremendously neat."

The conversation flagged.

"Let's sit down on one of those seats over there," said Miriam. "Where
we can see those blue flowers."

They did as she suggested, and sat down in a corner where a triangular
bed of stock and delphinium brightened the asphalted traceries of the
Recreation Ground.

"I wonder what they call those flowers," she said. "I always like
them. They're handsome."