All day Ivy listened for a voice and a footstep. She longed not to see Sên King-lo again. But her pride told her she must; and, more than she wished not to face him again, she longed to do so and get it well over. She’d carry her head high to the last. And she’d find an excuse to go back to England after Easter. She never had promised to stay with Emma and Charles forever. Whatever she’d do there, however she’d contrive to live there, she did not know. But that did not matter.
Sên King-lo did not come that day. But he sent flowers in his stead—although he had sent her some only yesterday.
Today—for the first time since he had sent them—he sent her no lilies. When Ivy opened the florist’s box it held only roses—deep-scented, red roses the color of rubies.
Ivy tucked two or three in her belt; it would look less strange, perhaps, to Sên, if he came, than if she did not, she thought.
She and Lady Snow lunched alone that day, and Emma wondered who had sent those roses—but didn’t ask or look at them particularly. But at dinner the Duke had no such scruple.
“You have changed your flowers,” he remarked. “I thought you always wore lilies-of-the-valley.”
“Not always. A friend gives me lilies sometimes.”
“Rather often,” the Duke observed slyly.
“I bought my red roses,” Ivy continued, “and I paid dear for them.”
“Flowers are a scandalous price in winter,” the Duke agreed.