Read it through once

While this whispered conversation was going on, the young men were standing in the garden outside. It was not planted in formal borders; but there was a great clump of carnations and a tangled hedge of tall flowering plants, both Chinese and Japanese, with great masses of blossom that stood out vividly in the fading light. True, they had come that evening hoping to pluck a very different flower; but as they sat resting in front of the house they could scarcely restrain themselves from stretching out a hand and filling their laps with these resplendent blossoms.