CHAPTER XXVII. THE TWO LUCYS
Within a week after this incident, while Fossbrooke and young Lendrick were ploughing the salt sea towards their destination, Lucy sat in her room one morning engaged in drawing. She was making a chalk copy from a small photograph her brother had sent her, a likeness of Sir Brook, taken surreptitiously as he sat smoking at a window, little heeding or knowing of the advantage thus taken of him.
The head was considerably advanced, the brow and the eyes were nearly finished, and she was trying for the third time to get an expression into the mouth which the photograph had failed to convey, but which she so often observed in the original. Eagerly intent on her work, she never heard the door open behind her, and was slightly startled as a very gentle hand was laid on her shoulder.
“Is this a very presumptuous step of mine, dear Lucy?” said Mrs. Sewell, with one of her most bewitching smiles: “have I your leave for coming in upon you in this fashion?”
“Of course you have, my dear Mrs. Sewell; it is a great pleasure to me to see you here.”
“And I may take off my bonnet and my shawl and my gloves and my company manner, as my husband calls it?”
“Oh! you have no company manner,” broke in Lucy.
“I used to think not; but men are stern critics, darling, and especially when they are husbands. You will find out, one of these days, how neatly your liege lord will detect every little objectionable trait in your nature, and with what admirable frankness he will caution you against—yourself.”
“I almost think I 'd rather he would not.”