These gave her some relief, for she thought, after all, that he
might be only jesting. When the blood had gone from her forehead, she
turned towards her lover, who had been looking at her since speaking,
with a tender expression in his mischievous eyes.
"Do white girls never wear roses in their hair? I thought they did.
Can it be wrong for me to wear mine in the same place?"
"Ah, my little barbarian, you do not understand me. If an ancient
bachelor, whose head shone like the moon there in the sky, were to
give to some blithe young belle a rose or a lily, she would, most
likely, twist it in her hair; but if some other person had presented
the flower, one whose eye was brighter, whose step was quicker, whose
laugh was cheerier, whose years were fewer; in short, ma chere
Annette, if some one for whom she cared just a little more than for
any other man that walked over the face of creation, had presented it
to her, she would not put it in her hair. No, my unsophisticated one,
she would feel about with her unerring fingers, for the spot nearest
her heart, and there she would fasten the gift. Now, ma Marie,
suppose you had possessed all this information when I gave you the
flower, where would you have pinned it?"
"Nobody has ever done so much for me as Monsieur. He leaped into the
flood, risking his life to save mine. I would be an ungrateful girl,
then, if I did not think more of him than of any other man;
therefore, I would have pinned your flower on the spot nearest my
heart."
Then, deftly, and before he could determine what her supple arms and
nimble brown fingers were about, she had disengaged the lily from her
hair, and pinned it upon her bosom.
"There now, Monsieur, is it in the right place?" and she looked at
him with a glance exhibiting the most curious commingling of naivete
and coquetry.
"I cannot answer. I do not think that you understand me yet. If the
act of saving you from drowning were to determine the place you
should wear the rose, then the head, as you first chose, was the
proper spot. Do you know what the word Love means?"
"O, I could guess, perhaps, if I don't know. I have heard a good
deal about it, and Violette, who is fond of a young Frenchman, has
explained it so fully to me, that I think I know. Yes, Monsieur, I
do know."
"Well, you little rogue, it takes one a long time to find out
whether you do or not. In fact I am not quite satisfied on the point.
However, let me suppose that you do know what love is; the all-consuming
sort; the kind that sighs like the furnace. Well, supposing
that a flower is worn over the heart only to express love of this
sort, where would you, with full knowledge of this fact, have pinned
the blossom that I plucked for you this morning?"