Percival looked round his room. She had been there, then?--perhaps had stood where he was standing. His glance fell on the turquoise-blue vase and the artificial flowers, and he colored as if he were Lydia's accomplice. Had she seen those and the _Language of Flowers_?
As if his thought had summoned her, Lydia herself appeared to lay the cloth for his dinner. She looked quickly round: "Did you see your note, Mr. Thorne?"
"I supposed it was right to show them in here to write it--wasn't it?" she asked after a pause. "He said he knew you very well."
"A very pleasant-spoken young gentleman, ain't he?" said Miss Bryant, setting down a salt-cellar.
"Coming to play the High Church organ, he tells me," Lydia continued, as if the instrument in question were somehow saturated with ritualism.
Lydia looked at him, but he was gazing into the fire. She went out, came back with a dish, shook her curl out of the way, and tried again: "I suppose we're to thank you for recommending the lodgings--ain't we, Mr. Thorne? I'm sure ma's much obliged to you. And I'm glad"--this with a bashful glance--"that you felt you could. It seems as if we'd given satisfaction."
"Certainly," said Percival. "But you mustn't thank me in this case, Miss Bryant. I really didn't know what sort of lodgings my friend wanted. But of course I'm glad Mr. Lisle is coming here."
"And ain't you glad _Miss_ Lisle is coming too, Mr. Thorne?" said Lydia very archly. But she watched him, lynx-eyed.
He uttered no word of surprise, but he could not quite control the muscles of his face, and a momentary light leapt into his eyes. "I wasn't aware Miss Lisle _was_ coming," he said.
Lydia believed him. "That's true," she thought, "but you're precious glad." And she added aloud, "Then the pleasure comes all the more unexpected, don't it?" She looked sideways at Percival and lowered her voice: "P'r'aps Miss Lisle meant a little surprise."
Percival returned her glance with a grave scorn which she hardly understood. "My dinner is ready?" he said. "Thank you, Miss Bryant." And Lydia flounced out of the room, half indignant, half sorrowful: "_He_ didn't know--that's true. But _she_ knows what she's after, very well. Don't tell me!" To Lydia, at this moment, it seemed as if every girl must be seeking what she sought. "And I call it very bold of her to come poking herself where she isn't wanted--running after a young man. I'd be ashamed." A longing to scratch Miss Lisle's face was mixed with a longing to have a good cry, for she was honestly suffering the pangs of unrequited love. It is true that it was not for the first time. The curl, the earrings, the songs, the _Language of Flowers_, had done duty more than once before. But wounds may be painful without being deep, although the fact of these former healings might prevent all fear of any fatal ending to this later love. Lydia was very unhappy as she went down stairs, though if another hero could be found she was perhaps half conscious that the melancholy part of her present love-story might be somewhat abridged.