XXIII
BEHOLD HOW GREAT A MATTER A LITTLE FIRE KINDLETH
It was so delightful! The weeks were passing all too quickly, and the letters to Mount Hunger waxed eloquent in praise of everybody's kindness.
Jack had come on to lead a cotillion with Rose at Aunt Carrie's. It was a weighty affair—the selecting of the flowers for her. White violets they must be, and white violets were about as rare as white raspberries. Jack gave the florist his own address.
"I'11 see them, myself, before I send them up; for I won't trust anyone's eyes but my own," he said to himself as he hurried home to dress for dinner with a friend. "I wish I had n't promised Grayson to meet him at the Club before seven. I'm afraid they won't come in time." He looked at his watch. "I'm going to make them a test and see what she'11 do. She's so friendly and frank and all that, I can't find out even whether she's beginning to care."
Jack's absorption in the theme was such that he put his latch-key in wrong-side up, and, in consequence, wrestled with the lock till he had worked himself into a fever of impatience; finally he touched the button before he discovered the trouble.
