This third evening he watched her jealously, testing her dealings with him by her behaviour to the boarders, and notably to Spinks and Soper.  For Lucia, whether she was afraid of hurting the feelings of these people, or whether she hesitated to establish herself altogether in Mr. Rickman’s study, had determined to spend the first hours after dinner in the drawing-room.  Miss Roots protested against these weak concessions to the social order.  “You’ll never be able to stand them, dear,” she said; “they’re terrible.”

But Lucia had her way.  “You’ve stood them for five years,” said she.

“Yes, but I’ve had my work, and I’m used to it; and in any case I’m not Miss Lucia Harden.”

“Mr. Rickman stands them.”

“Does he?  You wouldn’t say so if you’d known him for five years.”

“I wonder why he stayed.”

“Do you?  Perhaps Miss Flossie could enlighten you.”

“Of course.  I was forgetting her.”

“Don’t forget her,” said Miss Roots drily; “she’s important.”

Miss Roots went up to the study, and Lucia turned into the drawing-room.  She owned to herself that what took her there was not so much an impulse of politeness as an irresistible desire to know what manner of people Keith Rickman had had to live among.  In those evenings the scene had grown familiar to her; the long room with the three tall windows looking on the street; the Nottingham lace curtains tied with yellow sashes in the middle; the vivid blue-green painting of the wood-work, a bad match for the wall paper; the oleographs and pier-glasses in their gilded frames; the carpet, with its monstrous meaningless design in brown and amber; the table, secretary, and cabinet of walnut wood whose markings simulated some horrible discoloration of decay; the base company of chairs, and the villainous little maroon velvet ottoman, worn by the backs of many boarders; and beyond the blue-green folding doors the dim little chamber looking on a mews.  And the boarders, growing familiar, too, to her sensitive impressionable brain; Miss Bramble, upright in her morning gown and poor little lace cap and collar; Mrs. Downey sitting, flushed and weary, in the most remote and most uncomfortable chair; Mr. Spinks reading the paper with an air of a man engaged in profound literary research; the two girls sitting together on the ottoman under the gaselier; Mr. Soper wandering uneasily among them, with his insignificant smile and his offerings of bon-bons; and Keith Rickman sitting apart, staring at his hands, or looking at Flossie with his blue, deep-set, profoundly pathetic eyes.  For that pretty lady’s sake, how he must have suffered in those five years.

Rickman, from his retreat in the back drawing-room, watched her ways.  She was kind to Miss Bramble.  She was kind to that old ruffian Partridge whose neck he would willingly have wrung.  She was kind, good Heavens! yes, she was kind to Soper.  When the commercial gentleman approached her with his infernal box of bon-bons, she took one.  He could have murdered Soper.  He was profoundly depressed by the spectacle of Lucia’s ways.  If she behaved like that to every one, what had he to go upon?  Nothing, nothing; it was just her way.  And yet, he did not exactly see her sending messages to Soper.