The newsboys' shouts were the notes of singing birds; that
garden was the pleasance of the Capulets; the janitor was an ogre;
himself a knight, ready with sword, lance or lute.
Thus does romance show herself amid forests of brick and stone when
she gets lost in the city, and there has to be sent out a general
alarm to find her again.
At four in the afternoon Ravenel looked out across the garden. In
the window of his hopes were set four small vases, each containing a
great, full-blown rose--red and white. And, as he gazed, she leaned
above them, shaming them with her loveliness and seeming to direct
her eyes pensively toward his own window. And then, as though she had
caught his respectful but ardent regard, she melted away, leaving the
fragrant emblems on the window-sill.
Yes, emblems!--he would be unworthy if he had not understood. She had
read his poem, "The Four Roses"; it had reached her heart; and this
was its romantic answer. Of course she must know that Ravenel, the
poet, lived there across her garden. His picture, too, she must have
seen in the magazines. The delicate, tender, modest, flattering
message could not be ignored.
Ravenel noticed beside the roses a small flowering-pot containing a
plant. Without shame he brought his opera-glasses and employed them
from the cover of his window-curtain. A nutmeg geranium!
With the true poetic instinct he dragged a book of useless
information from his shelves, and tore open the leaves at "The
Language of Flowers.
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