"It is such a cheerful thing blooming in my shop."
"There are other cheerful things in your shop," he told her.
As she met his smiling eyes, she smiled back, "Do you mean that I am a
cheerful thing?"
"A rose, mein Fraeulein, when your cheeks are red, like this."
Emily, alone at last in the Toy Shop, took off her hat in front of the
mirror and saw her red cheeks. She set the cyclamen safely in a warm
corner. The four elephants with their fragrant freight of violets made
an exotic and incongruous addition to the Christmas scene in the window.
Bruce McKenzie, coming in, asked, "Where did you get them?"
"The elephants? Ulrich Stoelle brought them. Do you know him?"
"Yes. But I didn't know that you did."
"His father makes toys. I lent him my white elephant, and he made
these--"
She spoke without self-consciousness, and McKenzie's mind was on his
own matters, so they swept away from the subject of Ulrich Stoelle.
"Emily," Bruce said, "I have my orders. Tomorrow at twelve I must
leave for France."
She gazed at him stupidly. "Tomorrow--?"
"Yes."
"But--Jean--?"
"I haven't told her.
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