Women would have shared that wonder, but not men.  There was a home ready made in Rachel’s faithful, dog-like eyes, which at once appealed to the desire of expansion of empire in the heart of the free-born Briton.

Hugh had, until lately, considered woman as connected with the downward slope of life.  He would have loudly disclaimed such an opinion if it had been attributed to him; but nevertheless it was the key-note of his behavior towards them, his belief concerning them which was of a piece with his cheap cynicism and dilettante views of life.  He now discovered that woman was made out of something more than man’s spare rib.

It is probable that if he had never been in love with Lady Newhaven, Hugh would never have loved Rachel.  He would have looked at her, as many men did, with a view to marriage and would probably have dismissed her from his thoughts as commonplace.  He knew better now.  It was Lady Newhaven who was commonplace.  His worldliness was dropping from him day by day as he learned to know Rachel better.

Where was his cynicism now that she loved him?

His love for her, humble, triumphant, diffident, passionate, impatient by turns, now exacting, now selfless, possessed him entirely.  He remembered once, with astonishment, that he was making a magnificent match.  He had never thought of it, as Rachel knew, as she knew well.

* * * * *

December came in bleak and dark.  The snow did its poor best, laying day after day its white veil upon the dismal streets.  But it was misunderstood.  It was scraped into murky heaps.  It melted and then froze, and then melted again.  And London groaned and shivered on its daily round.

Every afternoon Hugh came, and every morning Rachel made her rooms bright with flowers for him.  The flower shop at the corner sent her tiny trees of white lilac, and sweet little united families of hyacinths and tulips.  The time of azaleas was not yet.  And once he sent her a bunch of daffodils.  He knew best how he had obtained them.

Their wild, sweet faces peered at Rachel, and she sat down faint and dizzy, holding them in her nerveless hands.  If one daffodil knows anything, all daffodils know it to the third and fourth generation.

“Where is he?” they said.  “That man whom you loved once?  We were there when he spoke to you.  We saw you stand together by the attic window.  We never say, but we heard, we remember.  And you cried for joy at night afterwards.  We never say.  But we heard.  We remember.”

Rachel’s secretary in the little room on the ground-floor was interrupted by a tap at the door.  Rachel came in laden with daffodils.  Their splendor filled the gray room.

“Would you mind having them?” she said, smiling, and laying them down by her.  “And would you kindly write a line to Jones telling him not to send me daffodils again.  They are a flower I particularly dislike.”