Perhaps that had been his charm, too, for Connie.

“It’s a lovely day, today!” Mrs. Bolton would say in her caressive, persuasive voice. “I should think you’d enjoy a little run in your chair today, the sun’s just lovely.”

“Yes? Will you give me that book⁠—there, that yellow one. And I think I’ll have those hyacinths taken out.”

“Why, they’re so beautiful!” She pronounced it with the “y” sound: be-yutiful! “And the scent is simply gorgeous.”

“The scent is what I object to,” he said. “It’s a little funereal.”

“Do you think so!” she exclaimed in surprise, just a little offended, but impressed. And she carried the hyacinths out of the room, impressed by his higher fastidiousness.