The plot of the story and types of speech employed in it

       Trysdale, the main character of the story, a young man, noble, wealthy and cultured, realizes that his girl friend is excessively devoted to him. ‘She had always insisted on placing him upon a pedestal, and he had accepted her homage with royal dignity’. Ultimately the day comes when Trysdale proposes to her. He is sure that she would be too eager to accept him readily. She showed all kinds of emotional jubilation and her body language too had been one of eager consent.’ How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was…. There was unmistakable consent in her eyes’, but it is her feminine modesty and coyness that results in her statement that she would send her answer the day after. The next day, Trysdale desperately awaited her reply, and his notion of himself as ‘the indulgent, confident victor’ was being deeply hurt. However, she sent through her groom a cactus plant with a tag ‘bearing a barbarous foreign or botanical name’ which he simply did not care for. Trysdale had taken the cactus as a mark of refusal or betrayal.

       From the point of view of presentation the story is the 3d person narrative with elements of dialogue.

      The introduction of the story said that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.

      The plot is the Trysdale's recollaction of events of near past.

     The climax of the story is when Trysdale's friend said him what the inscription on the tag which was on the cactus means.