"
Deleah laughed in spite of herself. "You are too kind, Mr. Gibbon."
She got up from her chair and picked up the concert tickets and twisted
them about in her fingers with a little distaste of them. "All this is
very kind of Mr. Boult, of course," she said: "and one likes to be sure
there is a generous heart beneath that--well, that atrocious manner of
his. But we're under mountains of obligation to people already, and we can
do without concert tickets. We can do without--" She was going to say
without flowers, but she leant across the table and stooped her face above
the pot of heliotrope that graced the centre of the humble board, then
lifted it, shaking her head. "No; we could not do without the flowers,"
she said. "I do thank the good man for his flowers; and I shall tell him
so the first time I see him. I have made up my mind."
"I would not if I were you, Miss Deleah."
"But why not? Do tell me why not?"
"Mr. Boult is a good business man. He's my chief, and I'm not going to
speak against him; but I don't quite see him buying you flowers."
"You know he loved my poor father, don't you?" she asked him in a lowered
voice. She had never mentioned the dead man's name to him before; her
cheek paled, he saw, as she did so now.
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