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"It's too ghastly. Don't tell me any more about it." He wandered across the room, pulling a leaf from the azaleas, stopping at the window for a long look out. The wind was blowing some riotous young clouds over the sky like inarticulate shouts. There was an arrogant bird in the elm; there were pert crocus-buds in the window-boxes.
There was something, it seemed to him, which reminded him, however faintly, of the mornings in his own land, the perfume of the flowers from the window-boxes, perhaps, the absence of that hideous roar of traffic, or the faint aromatic scent from the lime trees in the Park, heavy from recent rain. It was the quietest hour of the twenty-four, the hour almost of dawn.
The wooden pavement was unknown, and the roar of traffic in crowded thoroughfares was positively deafening. The window-boxes filled with the flowers that are now so common and so pretty a feature of the London summer were rare, as also were the coloured awnings and outside blinds now almost universal in the better-class of thoroughfares.
He wanders all over the world, and has no garden of his own except window-boxes in London, where he seems to grow what he pleases. He is constantly doing kindnesses, and likes to do them his own way. He said it wanted flowers, and he meant to sow some. I suggested that, sown at that period of the summer, they would not flower this season. He said they would. I only begged him to avoid my labels.
The flowers in the many window-boxes in which Redcross indulged were still, for the most part, gay with the deeper tints of autumn, the purple of asters and the orange of chrysanthemums setting off the geraniums blossoming on till the frost shrivelled them, and the seeded green and straw-coloured spikes of the still fragrant mignonette.
Winifred remembered ridiculously the flowers in her window-boxes after a blazing summer day; the way they lay, or rather stood parched, yet rested by the sun's retreat. It was as if a little dew had come already on her burnt-up husband. He said apathetically: "I suppose you've been to Park Lane. How's the old man?" Winifred could not help the bitter answer: "Not dead."
There is one pleasant thing to notice, namely, wherever you look you see flowers growing; the larger and better-class houses have balconies filled with broad-leaved plants and creepers, and the very poorest people living high up towards the sky have window-boxes filled with flowers.
In stooping to measure a recess, his attitude suddenly changed to one of interest and attention. Presently he rose again, rubbing his hands with gentle glee. "Oho, oho!" he said. "These look to me very much like window-boxes, nailed up. We must look into this! Yes, those are boxes, or I'm ... oho, this is an adventure!"
Winifred remembered ridiculously the flowers in her window-boxes after a blazing summer day; the way they lay, or rather stood parched, yet rested by the sun's retreat. It was as if a little dew had come already on her burnt-up husband. He said apathetically: "I suppose you've been to Park Lane. How's the old man?" Winifred could not help the bitter answer: "Not dead."
It was Isabelle Carter who had visualized the window-boxes and the awnings, the walks where emerald grass spouted between the bricks, the terrace with its fat balustrade and shallow marble steps descending to the river. Great stone jars, spilling the brilliant scarlet of geraniums, flanked the steps, and the shadows of the mighty trees fell clear and sharp across the marble.
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