"Anyhow, I'm glad she didn't say that she would be a sister to me!"
[CHAPTER XI]
But if Lyon had fancied that Fate was doing nothing merely because he had run into a blind alley himself, he soon had reason to suspect that he was mistaken. The manner in which during the next few days he stumbled against some of her threads, and so became more than ever entangled in her weaving, was curiously casual,--but as a matter of fact, most of the happenings of life seem casual at the time. It is only looking back that their connection comes into view, like a path on a far mountain, only to be seen from a distance.
Lyon had allowed himself to jubilate a little over the curtain-code which he had established with Kittie. He felt that it had the justification of being important in itself for the purpose which he and Howell had at heart, but apart from that it was so charmingly personal. The messages might concern Mrs. Broughton, but Kittie would have to give them,--and that little fact was so interesting that if he had not been a young man of much steadiness of purpose, he might have let it eclipse the significance of the message. As it was, he felt it highly important that he should be able to see those windows very frequently. Suppose Kitty should pull down a curtain and he not know about it for hours! The idea was not to be entertained calmly. Would it be possible for him to get a room in the neighborhood? He had learned in his profession that the world belongs to him who asks for it, so, selecting a house whose back windows must, from their position, command an unobstructed view of Miss Elliott's School, he boldly rang the bell. He had no idea who might live there. The house was on a lot adjoining Miss Wolcott's and, like her house, it overlooked the back windows and the grounds of the School. It was in a position that suited his needs. For the rest, he trusted to the star which had more than once favored his quiet audacity.
His ring was answered by a servant of a peculiarly uncheerful cast of countenance.
"Is your mistress at home?" Lyon asked.
"There ain't no mistress," the woman protested, in an aggrieved tone.
"Well, your master, then. Will you take up my card? I want to see him on business."
She took it and departed, with that same querulous air of dissatisfaction with the world in general.
That there was no mistress in the house was very evident, even to Lyon's uninstructed masculine sense. The reception room where he waited was dusty and musty, bearing unmistakable signs of having been closed for the summer and since left untouched. There was an echoing hollowness about the halls that seemed to proclaim the house uninhabited, in spite of the servant. While Lyon was speculating upon the situation, a thin dark middle-aged man entered the room silently and yet with an alertness that was noticeable. He looked at Lyon with sharp inquiry--almost, it struck the intruder, with distrust.