Free Mrs. Ames by E. F. Benson Page A

somebody had put them in water.
    She was already more than a little interested in her reflections: there was something original and exciting to her in them, and it was annoying to have them broken in upon by the parlourmaid who came towards her from the house. Personally, she thought it absurd not to keep menservants, but Wilfred always maintained that a couple of good parlourmaids produced greater comfort with less disturbance, and yielding to him, as she always yielded to anybody who expressed a definite opinion, she had acquiesced in female service. But she always called the head parlourmaid Watkins, whereas her husband called her Mary.
    â€˜Major Ames wants to know if you will see him, ma’am,’ said Watkins.
    The interest returned.
    â€˜Yes, ask him to come out,’ she said.
    Watkins went back to the house and returned with Major Ames in tow, who carried a huge bouquet of sweet peas. There then followed the difficulty of meeting and greeting gracefully and naturally which is usual when the visitor is visible a long way off. The Major put on a smile far too soon, and had to take it off again, since Mrs Evans had notyet decided that it was time to see him. Then she began to smile, while he (without his smile) was looking abstractedly at the top of the mulberry tree, as if he expected to find her there. He looked there a moment too long, for one of the lower branches suddenly knocked his straw hat off his head, and he said, ‘God bless my soul,’ and dropped the sweet peas. However, this was not an unmixed misfortune, for the recognition came quite naturally after that. She hoped he was not hurt, was he SURE that silly branch had not hit his face? It must be taken off! WHAT lovely flowers! And were they for her? They were.
    Major Ames replaced his hat rather hastily, after a swift manoeuvre with regard to his hair which Mrs Evans did not accurately follow. The fact was (though he believed the fact not to be generally known) that the top of Major Ames’ head was entirely destitute of hair, and that the smooth crop which covered it was the produce of the side of his head -just above the ear - grown long, and brushed across the cranium so as to adorn it with seemingly local wealth and sleekness. The rough and unexpected removal of his hat by the bough of the mulberry tree had caused a considerable portion of it to fall back nearly to the shoulder of the side on which it actually grew, and his hasty manoeuvre with his gathered tresses was designed to replace them. Necessarily he put back his hat again quickly, in the manner of a boy capturing a butterfly.
    His mind, and the condition of it, on this Sunday morning, would repay a brief analysis. Briefly, then, a sort of aurora borealis of youth had visited him: his heaven was streaked with inexplicable lights. He had told himself that a man of forty-seven was young still, and that when a most attractive woman had manifested an obvious interest in him, it was only reasonable to follow it up. He was not acoxcomb, he was not a loose liver; he was only a very ordinary man, well and healthy, married to a woman considerably older than himself, and living in a town which, in spite of his adored garden, presented but moderate excitements. But indeed, this morning call, paid with this solid tribute of sweet peas, was something of an adventure, and had not been mentioned by him to his wife. He had seen her start for St Barnabas, and then had hastily gathered his bouquet and set out, leaving Harry wandering dreamily about the cinder paths in the kitchen garden, in the full glory of the discovery that the colour of the scarlet runners was like a clarion. Major Ames had plucked almost his rarest varieties, for to pluck the rarest, since he wished to save their first bloom for seed, would have been on the further side of quixotism and have verged on imbecility, but he had brought the best of his second best. Last night, too, he had hinted at his own remissness in the