from him at the door not to say who left it; but Alice
would know, of course, and they would all know; it would be very pretty.
He made Mrs. Pasmer say some flattering things of him; and he made Alice
blush deliciously to hear them. He could not manage Mr. Pasmer very
well, and he left him out of the scene: he imagined him shaving in
another room; then he remembered his wearing a full beard.

He dressed himself as quickly as he could, and went down into the hotel
vestibule, where he had noticed people selling flowers the evening
before, but there was no one there with them now, and none of the
florists' shops on the street were open yet. He could not find anything
till he went to the Providence Depot, and the man there had to take some
of his yesterday's flowers out of the refrigerator where he kept them;
he was not sure they would be very fresh; but the heavy rosebuds had
fallen open, and they were superb. Dan took all there were, and when
they had been sprinkled with water, and wrapped in cotton batting, and
tied round with paper, it was still only quarter of eight, and he
left them with the man till he could get his breakfast at the Depot
restaurant. There it had a consoling effect of not being so early; many
people were already breakfasting, and when Dan said, with his order,
"Hurry it up, please," he knew that he was taken for a passenger just
arrived or departing. By a fantastic impulse he ordered eggs and bacon
again; he felt, it a fine derision of the past and a seal of triumph
upon the present to have the same breakfast after his acceptance as he
had ordered after his rejection; he would tell Alice about it, and it
would amuse her. He imagined how he would say it, and she would laugh;
but she would be full of a ravishing compassion for his past suffering.
They were long bringing the breakfast; when it came he despatched it so
quickly that it was only half after eight when he paid his check at the
counter. He tried to be five minutes more getting his flowers, but the
man had them all ready for him, and it did not take him ten seconds. He
had said he would carry them at half-past nine; but thinking it over
on a bench in the Garden, he decided that he had better go sooner; they
might breakfast earlier, and there would be no fun if Alice did not find
the roses beside her plate: that was the whole idea. It was not till he
stood at the door of the Pasmer apartment that he reflected that he was
not accomplishing his wi