‘Do you like red roses best, or white?’ was her answer, moving to a couple of trees in pots.

‘Can’t make up your mind?’ she continued, and plucked both a white and red rose, saying:  ‘There! choose your colour by-and-by,’ and ask Juley to sew the one you choose in your button-hole.’

She laid the roses in his hand, and walked away.  She must have known that there was a burden of speech on his tongue.  She saw him move to follow her, but this time she did not linger, and it may be inferred that she wished to hear no more.

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH EVAN WRITES HIMSELF TAILOR

The only philosophic method of discovering what a young woman means, and what is in her mind, is that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by following her actions, for she can tell you nothing, and if she does not want to know a particular matter, it must be a strong beam from the central system of facts that shall penetrate her.  Clearly there was a disturbance in the bosom of Rose Jocelyn, and one might fancy that amiable mirror as being wilfully ruffled to confuse a thing it was asked by the heavens to reflect:  a good fight fought by all young people at a certain period, and now and then by an old fool or two.  The young it seasons and strengthens; the old it happily kills off; and thus, what is, is made to work harmoniously with what we would have be.

After quitting Evan, Rose hied to her friend Jenny Graine, and in the midst of sweet millinery talk, darted the odd question, whether baronets or knights ever were tradesmen:  to which Scottish Jenny, entirely putting aside the shades of beatified aldermen and the illustrious list of mayors that have welcomed royalty, replied that it was a thing quite impossible.  Rose then wished to know if tailors were thought worse of than other tradesmen.  Jenny, premising that she was no authority, stated she imagined she had heard that they were.

‘Why?’ said Rose, no doubt because she was desirous of seeing justice dealt to that class.  But Jenny’s bosom was a smooth reflector of facts alone.

Rose pondered, and said with compressed eagerness, ’Jenny, do you think you could ever bring yourself to consent to care at all for anybody ever talked of as belonging to them?  Tell me.’

Now Jenny had come to Beckley Court to meet William Harvey:  she was therefore sufficiently soft to think she could care for him whatever his origin were, and composed in the knowledge that no natal stigma was upon him to try the strength of her affection.  Designing to generalize, as women do (and seem tempted to do most when they are secretly speaking from their own emotions), she said, shyly moving her shoulders, with a forefinger laying down the principle: 

’You know, my dear, if one esteemed such a person very very much, and were quite sure, without any doubt, that he liked you in return—­that is, completely liked you, and was quite devoted, and made no concealment—­I mean, if he was very superior, and like other men—­you know what I mean—­ and had none of the cringing ways some of them have—­I mean; supposing him gay and handsome, taking—­’