“These were!” Ivy laughed.
Lady Snow shot her a covert glance. Why had Ivy told that lie? There was no need for her to have said anything. She had not bought those roses. The house was full of flowers always, and Ivy always was free of them all. Ivy’s money went, almost to a dollar, on clothes. How had they cost her dear? That much had sounded true to Emma Snow’s quick ears.
“By the way,” Sir Charles asked presently, “what was Blanche crying so hard over this afternoon?”
Ivy flushed and answered. “She was in a temper because I would not give her one of my roses.”
The two men looked surprised. How unlike Ivy, Sir Charles thought, and was puzzled.
Lady Snow crumbled her bread. She was not puzzled. She knew now. Sên King-lo had sent those roses. But how had Ivy paid dear for them—the flowers of which she would not spare Blanche even one? Had she refused Sên King-lo last night? She—Emma—feared not.
CHAPTER XXVI
Two more days passed, and then Sên came.
Ivy met him gaily, bearing herself so naturally, her gaiety so unexaggerated, that she almost deceived herself and must have deceived him completely, if it ever had entered his head that she cared for him at all beyond friendliness—which it never had. He knew the signs of open and almost-open infatuation; these signs had been hurled at him too hard and too persistently not to have driven their flagrant message in. But the signs of a rapprochement that gave no sign and offered or asked no approach were hidden from his sharp eyes. And the warming inclination of an essentially modest girl, who also was both proud and self-in-hand, showed not at all to Sên, who not only was not vain, but even was modest.
Their camaraderie went on as it had. Ivy was too proud to check it at all, and after a little, even to her shocked sensitiveness, much of the gnawing bitterness wore away, and all the pleasure and sweetness stayed.