CHAPTER XIV
THE ROYAL MANTLE
The week that followed was an unhappy one for Lloyd. Everywhere she went it seemed to her that lilies-of-the-valley were thrust into her face. On the way to town people got on the car at nearly every station with great bunches of them that they were carrying to offices or to their friends. The florists' windows were full of them. Men passed her on the street wearing them on their coats, and even the little shop-girl, who waited on her at the ribbon counter, had them stuck in her belt. When she called at Mrs. Bisbee's there was a box of them growing on her window-sill, and at home the whole house was permeated by the fragrance that floated out from the great crystal bowl on the library table. She could not get away from them, and they kept Rob constantly in her thoughts.
She told herself that she had never known anything quite so considerate and sweet as the way he had taken her answer. The more she thought of his quick putting aside of self in order that she might not be unhappy, the more it grieved her that he must be disappointed. She did not see him again until the following Sunday. He came into church behind the old Judge and Mrs. Moore, and Lloyd dropped her eyes to her hymn-book, her heart in such a flutter that it sent a queer little tingle all over her. She was afraid to meet his glance, for fear the consciousness of their last meeting would send the telltale red to her face.
In the pew just behind the Moores' sat Katie Mallard with a girl from Frankfort, who was visiting her, and as Rob took his seat Lloyd saw the guest's pretty eyes fixed inquiringly on him. Then she whispered something to Katie behind her fan. Instantly the wonder crossed Lloyd's mind what the newcomer thought of him, and then she wondered how he would appear to her if she could see him with the eyes of a stranger, without the intimate knowledge their long acquaintance had given her.
She stole a glance in his direction, as the organist pulled out the stops and struck the opening chords of the voluntary. He was certainly good to look at, and, she concluded, the veriest stranger, if he were any judge at all of such things, must see at a glance that his was a strong character, that he would scorn to do a dishonourable thing and that the years behind him were clean and honest. Then with a start she realized that she had been holding him up to her silver yardstick, and that he not only met its three requirements, but went far beyond. He had family, social position, everything that her father had desired for her save wealth, and she remembered how earnestly he had added, on that solemn watch-night, "but all these are nothing when weighed in the balance with the love of an honest man."
This greatest of all had been given her, but she could not accept because—well, she didn't know why—but probably because it was just Bobby who had offered it, and she couldn't think of him as being the one the stars had destined for her—a boy that she had made mud pies with. The old Hildegarde story had been good for her in many ways, but it had made the prince of her dreams a vague personality unlike any man she had ever met. She had never put into words, even to herself, what she expected him to be like, but the shadowy image that her imagination sometimes held up had no flaw like ordinary mortals, no human faults and failings. And she would know him when he came, in some strange, mysterious way that needed no speech—his coming would be heralded like Hebe's: "Before her ran an influence sweet, that bowed my heart like barley bending."
The congregation rose for the Gloria and her eyes met Rob's. For one instant in the quick lighting of his face she had a revelation of all that his "miracle of blossoming" meant to him, then he flashed her a reassuring smile that seemed to say: "Never mind, old chum. We'll go on just as we've always done."