Page:In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories.djvu/285

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
MISS McMILLAN.
273

in delicately returning those flowers to their proper owner. I think that both have been very remiss in not doing so long ago. They should apologize publicly to the young lady for having deprived her of the offering for a day and a half, and then I think they owe an apology to this table for the mere pretense that any sane person in New York or elsewhere would go to the trouble of sending either of them a single flower."

"There will be no apology from me," said Waters. "If I do not receive the thanks of Miss McMillan it will be because good deeds are rarely recognized in this world. I think it must be evident, even to the limited intelligence of my journalistic friend across the table, that Mr. Blair intended to keep those flowers in his stateroom, and—of course I make no direct charges—the concealment of that card certainly looks bad. It may have been concealed by the sender of the flowers, but to me it looks bad."

"Of course," said Blair dryly, "to you it looks bad. To the pure, etc."

"Now," said the sentimental lady on my left, "while you gentlemen are wasting the time in useless talk the lady is without her roses. There is one thing that you all seem to miss. It is not the