Pocahontas laughed softly.  “Yes,” she said, “but they did not come from Belle, or Nina, and Susie is in California.  Jim ordered them for me.  I am so pleased.”

Thorne instantly raised his head and stiffened his back as though the delicate perfume were some noxious poison, and moved on with her toward the parlors in silence.

“I wish you knew Jim, Mr. Thorne,” pursued the happy voice at his side; “he’s such a good fellow, so noble, generous, and unselfish; we’re all so fond of Jim.  I wish he were here to-night to tread a measure with me in the old rooms.  You would be sure to fraternize with Jim.  You could not help liking him.”

Thorne drew in his lips ominously.  He could help liking Jim Byrd well enough, and felt not the faintest desire for either his presence or his friendship.  The intervention of a woman with whom two men are in love has never yet established amity between them; the very suggestion of such a thing on her lips is sufficient to cause an irruption of hatred, malice and all unkindness.

Moreover, Thorne was in a fury with himself.  He had thought of sending for flowers for Pocahontas at the same time he dispatched the order to the Richmond florist for his aunt.  He had feverishly longed to do it, and had pondered the matter fully half an hour before deciding that he had better not.  He had not scrupled to pay Pocahontas attentions before he realized that he was in love with her, but that fact, once established in his mind, placed her in a different position in regard to him.

She was no longer the woman he wished to draw into a flirtation pour passer le temps; she was the woman he wished to marry—­was determined to marry, if possible.  The instinct, common to every manly man, to hold in peculiar respect the woman whom he wishes to make his wife, led Thorne to feel that, until he should be free from the fetter that bound him, he should abstain from paying Pocahontas marked attention; to feel that she would have cause of complaint against him if he did not abstain.

So he argued the case in cold blood; but now his blood was boiling and he dubbed himself fool in language concise and forcible.  See what had come of his self-denial?  Another man had done what he had left undone; another hand had laid in hers the fragrant offering it should have been his to bestow.  Fool that he had been, to stand aside and let another man seize the opportunity!

Jasmin, too!  Pah!  The heavy perfume made him ill.  He was conscious of a fierce longing to snatch the blossoms from her hand and crush them down into the heart of the fire and hold them there—­the pale, sickly things. He would have given her roses, passionate, glorious roses, deep-hearted and crimson with the wine of love.

Pocahontas had small time for wondering over her cavalier’s sudden moroseness, for no sooner had she entered the parlors than old friends crowded forward to speak to her and claim a dance; the girl was popular among the young people of the vicinity.  She was a wonderful success that night.  Not even Norma, for all her rich tropical beauty, was more admired.