As if relapsing into sweet simplicity, after the vagaries of a
wayward nature had run their course, Valentine had filled his hall and
dining-room with violets, purple and white, and a bell of violets hung
from the ceiling over the chair which the lady of the feathers was to
occupy at dinner. These were white only, white and virginal, flowers for
some sweet woman dedicated to the service of God, or to the service of
some eternal altar-flame burning, as the zeal of nature burns, through
all the dawning and fading changes of the world.
Thus Valentine passed his day among flowers, and only when the last
twilight of the year fell had he fixed the last blossom in its place.
Then he rested, as after six days of creation, and from the midst of
his flowers saw the snow falling delicately upon London. Lights began
to gleam in the tall houses opposite his drawing-room windows. He glanced
at them, and they brought him thoughts at which he smiled. Behind those
squares of light he imagined peace and good will in enormous white
waistcoats and expansive shirt-fronts, red-faced, perhaps even whiskered,
getting ready for good temper and turkey, journalistic geniality and plum
pudding. And holly everywhere, with its prickly leaves and shining,
phlegmatic surfaces.
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