Meantime Gwendolen was losing her morning, and many dollars.  She supposed Tracy was coming in the forenoon—­a conclusion which she had jumped to without outside help.  So she tripped down stairs every little while from her work-parlor to arrange the brushes and things over again, and see if he had arrived.  And when she was in her work-parlor it was not profitable, but just the other way—­as she found out to her sorrow.

She had put in her idle moments during the last little while back, in designing a particularly rare and capable gown for herself, and this morning she set about making it up; but she was absent minded, and made an irremediable botch of it.  When she saw what she had done, she knew the reason of it and the meaning of it; and she put her work away from her and said she would accept the sign.  And from that time forth she came no more away from the Audience Chamber, but remained there and waited.  After luncheon she waited again.  A whole hour.  Then a great joy welled up in her heart, for she saw him coming.  So she flew back up stairs thankful, and could hardly wait for him to miss the principal brush, which she had mislaid down there, but knew where she had mislaid it.  However, all in good time the others were called in and couldn’t find the brush, and then she was sent for, and she couldn’t find it herself for some little time; but then she found it when the others had gone away to hunt in the kitchen and down cellar and in the woodshed, and all those other places where people look for things whose ways they are not familiar with.  So she gave him the brush, and remarked that she ought to have seen that everything was ready for him, but it hadn’t seemed necessary, because it was so early that she wasn’t expecting—­but she stopped there, surprised at herself for what she was saying; and he felt caught and ashamed, and said to himself, “I knew my impatience would drag me here before I was expected, and betray me, and that is just what it has done; she sees straight through me—­and is laughing at me, inside, of course.”

Gwendolen was very much pleased, on one account, and a little the other way in another; pleased with the new clothes and the improvement which they had achieved; less pleased by the pink in the buttonhole.  Yesterday’s pink had hardly interested her; this one was just like it, but somehow it had got her immediate attention, and kept it.  She wished she could think of some way of getting at its history in a properly colorless and indifferent way.  Presently she made a venture.  She said: 

“Whatever a man’s age may be, he can reduce it several years by putting a bright-colored flower in his button-hole.  I have often noticed that.  Is that your sex’s reason for wearing a boutonniere?”

“I fancy not, but certainly that reason would be a sufficient one.  I’ve never heard of the idea before.”

“You seem to prefer pinks.  Is it on account of the color, or the form?”