And then quickly, to forestall refusal: "I cut out more than we can use for the house.

And I'd like to have you have them." "Thank you," and Maggie took the flowers.
For an instant their eyes held.

In every outward circumstance the event was a commonplace--this meeting of father and daughter, not knowing each other.

It was hardly more than a commonplace to Maggie: just a tall, white-haired gardener respectfully offering her roses.

And it was hardly more to Joe Ellison: just a tribute evoked by his hungry interest in every well-seeming girl of the approximate age of his daughter.
At the moment's end Joe Ellison had bowed and started back for his flower beds.