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Updated: June 9, 2025
Flower-bearing shrubs also abounded, such as the Hibiscus, Mairi, of which the women make wreaths, and Gardenia, with the flowers of which they also adorn themselves. In some of the gardens water was laid on, and pretty fountains were playing, from which it would appear that the water supply is good, and that there is a good head of it in some mountain reservoir above.
He touched the gardenia gently. "I gave her some roses. Just as the train started to pull out I dared her to come with me ... she came!" "Tut tut!" said Mr. Holiday. "What are we to do?" cried the young man. "Go back and sit with her," said Mr. Holiday, "and leave the door wide open. I'm going through the train now to see who's on board; so don't worry. Leave it all to me."
A daisy in the grass bored him; a gardenia emitting its strangely unreal perfume on a dung heap brought all his powers into play. He was an eccentric of genius, and in his strangeness was really true to himself, although normal people were apt to assert that his unlikeness to them was a pose. Simplicity, healthy goodness, the radiance of unsmirched youth seemed to his eyes wholly inexpressive.
And between the acts, when the young men in the stalls, in their white ties, and white kid gloves, and nicely parted hair, stood up and languidly surveyed the house through their opera-glasses, Kavanagh had a sardonic amusement in the recollection as he thought that a fortnight before he had sat in that fourth stall in the third row, in evening dress, with a gardenia in his button-hole, and had similarly inspected the inferior beings around him.
It was so sudden. It was as though a part of the earth had fallen through, into space beneath, without warning. There was too much gone, all at once. She could only ask why. And there was no answer to that. Her eyes fell upon the artificial gardenia she had worn. It lay upon the dressing-table where she had tossed it when she had taken it from her bodice.
The girl, hatless and coatless in the chill November night, turned nonchalantly at the question, surveyed the usher coolly from the point of his patent leather shoes to the white gardenia in his buttonhole, gave his features a cursory glance, and then shook her head. "There might have been an old woman come out a while back. Dressed in black, was she? I wasn't paying much attention.
She was facing the gloomy afternoon light, though she did not think out these things like her uncle, so he had a clear and wonderful picture of her. "How could so voluptuous looking a creature be so icily cold?" he wondered. Her wonderful hair seemed burnished like dark copper, in the double light of fire and day, and that gardenia skin looked fit to eat.
And joy, the joy of the theatre, would that, too, be taken away? She swayed a little and longed with all her strength for a force not her own to enter in. She was too weak to fight against her own Destiny. She found it. A hint of it came first in the scent of gardenia flowers, sweet and strong and penetrating, compelling and agreeable to the senses.
Costume, appearance, manner, were beyond reproach even beyond the criticism of two such keen critics as were these. The glorious attire of a London dandy was surmounted with a beautiful white top hat. In his buttonhole was a magnificent gardenia. In age the stranger was scarcely more than a boy, and a sunny-faced, handsome boy at that. His cheeks were hairless, his eyes were blue.
He had been going out when these callers were announced and he was dressed for parade, in a very light, very tight suit, gardenia in his button-hole, cane in his gloved hands, fez upon his head. For all their smiling welcome, his full, dark eyes were uneasy. He had grown distrustful of surprises. It was McLean's affair to reassure him.
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