“Yes, sir—certainly, sir,” said Sam, with deep respect.
But there passed between the two men an unspoken conversation, thrilling and full of point, which left Andy greatly annoyed. How had a fellow like that learned a secret that he had told to no one in the world?
It enraged him to think that Sam Petch should know he loved Elizabeth before he had told even her. Mrs. Petch’s apron could not have been so opaque as it appeared during that exquisite moment when he held Elizabeth’s arm in the cottage kitchen and they laughed together.
However, the memory of that moment thrilled him to a bravery that made him care naught for fifty Sam Petches. He returned to the rose-garden.
“You can keep those roses sheltered. I may want them, after all.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sam solemnly, without looking up. “I’ll see to it, sir.”
But when his Vicar had passed out of sight he straightened his long figure and looked towards the house with a queer mixture of scorn and affection on his handsome face.
“Why doesn’t he ask me how to go on? I could let him have a tip or two. There isn’t enough of the ‘Give us a kiss, me lass, first, and talk after,’ about him.”
Young Sam Petch smiled pleasantly as he moved to another rose bush—a vista of happy occasions not neglected rose before his mind; anyway, he had had nothing of the sort to reproach himself with at twenty-five.
But it was not worthy of Andy—either as a beneficed clergyman or a lover—that he should sneak into the rose-garden next day during Sam’s dinner-hour and cut the blooms surreptitiously, afterwards secreting them in his bedroom washbasin. Nor did it do any good. For when Mrs. Jebb went there with a fresh pat of soap she put the roses and a young lady together and made matrimonial intentions out of the combination. On the day of the luncheon-party she had suspected, and her suspicions had fallen on Elizabeth for the reason—unflattering both to Andy and the Beloved—that Norah was certain to look higher.