"Help you?" said Judith to her brother. "Am I such a terrible burden, then?"
"No," Thorne exclaimed. "Bertie is a clever fellow: he lets me share his privileges first, that I mayn't back out of sharing any troubles later."
"Are you going to save him trouble by making his pretty speeches for him, too?" Judith inquired with a smile. "You are indeed a friend in need."
They had turned back, and were walking toward Bellevue street. As they went into No. 13 they encountered Miss Bryant in the passage. She glanced loftily at Miss Lisle as she swept by, but she turned and fixed a look of reproachful tenderness on Percival Thorne. He knew that he was guiltless in the matter, and yet in Judith's presence he felt guilty and humiliated beneath Lydia's ostentatiously mournful gaze. The idea that she would probably be jealous of Miss Lisle flashed into his mind, to his utter disgust and dismay. He turned into his own room and flung himself into a chair, only to find, a few minutes later, that he was staring blankly at Lydia's blue vase. But for the Lisles, he might almost have been driven from Bellevue street by its mere presence on the table. It was beginning to haunt him: it mingled in his dreams, and he had drawn its hideous shape absently on the edge of his blotting-paper. Let him be where he might, it lay, a light-blue burden, on his mind. It was not the vase only, but he felt that it implied Lydia herself, curl, turquoise earrings, smile and all, and on the evening of his meeting with Judith Lisle the thought was doubly hateful.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
LYDIA REARRANGES HER CAP.
Thus, as the days lengthened, and the winter, bitter though it was, began to give faint promise of sunlight to come, Percival entered on his new life and felt the gladness of returning spring. At the beginning of winter our glances are backward: we are like spendthrifts who have wasted all in days of bygone splendor. We sit, pinched and poverty-stricken, by our little light of fire and candle, remembering how the whole land was full of warmth and golden gladness in our lavish prime. But our feelings change as the days grow clear and keen and long. This very year has yet to wear its crown of blossom. Its inheritance is to come, and all is fresh and wonderful. We would not ask the bygone summer for one day more, for we have the beauty of promise, instead of that beauty of long triumph which is heavy and over-ripe, and with March at hand we cannot desire September.
Percival's new life was cold and stern as the February weather, but it had its flitting gleams of grace and beauty in brief words or passing looks exchanged with Judith Lisle. He was no lover, to pine for more than Fate vouchsafed. It seemed to him that the knowledge that he might see her was almost enough; and it was well it should be so, for he met her very seldom. She went regularly to Standon Square, and came home late and tired. She had one half-holiday in the week, but Miss Crawford had recommended her to a lady whose eldest girl was dull and backward at her music, and she spent a great part of that afternoon in teaching Janie Barton. Bertie was indignant: "Why should you, who have an ear and a soul for music, be tortured by such an incapable as that? Let them find some one else to teach her."
"And some one else to take the money! Besides, Mrs. Barton is so kind—"