'If you would allow me to go,' she murmured, 'I have quite enough flowers here. It is such a small church, and the orchids would be much too rare----'
'If the orchids were made of rubies and pearls, what happier fate could they ask than to fall from your hands on to the altars of the Madonna?' said Othmar, as he broke off the blossoms of his camellias with no sparing hand.
At that moment the head-gardener, alarmed and disturbed at the message which he had received from his master, came in sight with a basket hurriedly filled with some of the choicest treasures of his forcing-houses.
'You did quite right,' he said in a low tone, 'to make my friends welcome to the gardens in my absence, but another time, M. Duvelleroy, make them welcome to the best; do not reserve it for the markets and the florist shops of Nice.'
The man, guilty, and taken at a disadvantage, had no time to prepare a lie; he grew red, and stammered, and was thankful for his master's gesture of dismissal as Othmar turned from him impatiently and offered the orchids to the girl.
'You are angry with him,' she said, anxiety conquering her timidity.
'Not so; I am grateful to him,' said Othmar. 'But I shall, perhaps, be angry with my house-steward, whose duty it is to keep these rogues clean-handed. If he had given you his best flowers I would have pensioned him for life, but to limit you to taking what he did not want to sell, was to disgrace S. Pharamond.'
'Indeed, he has been very kind all these three winters,' she murmured, in infinite distress at the thought that she had inadvertently injured the man in his master's opinion.
'He shall wear the order of St. Fiacre if you like, if there be such an order to reward good gardeners,' said Othmar gaily, seeing her genuine anxiety on the man's behalf. 'I may come and see your decorations to-morrow. Shall I send you a load of flowers? That would be better I think.'
'Oh no; oh pray, do not!' she said with earnestness. 'You are very kind to think of it, Monsieur, but it would frighten the curé, and we should not know what to do with so many, the church is so very small----'
She hesitated a moment, the colour in her cheeks grew warm as she added:
'My cousin does not know that I come here. I do not mean that it is any secret, but she might think it wrong, intrusive, impertinent----'