I had been sent upstairs from the tea-table to wash my hands—though they were only comfortably soiled—and after I had dipped them in a basin of water that had done service for both Angel and The Seraph, I gave them a good rub on my trouser legs, as I tip-toed to the foot of the attic stairs. Cautiously, with fast-beating heart, I mounted, and tried the door. It was locked fast. I pressed my eye against the keyhole, and made out in the gloom the dark shape of the trunk, sinister, forbidding, inaccessible. No rustle of lilac silk, no faintest perfume, no appealing sigh from the gentle Lucy greeted me. All was dark and quiet. "Bide the time!" Who knew but that some day I might set her free?
Yet my throat ached as I slowly made my way back to the table, presented my hands for a rather sceptical inspection by Mrs. Handsomebody, and dropped languidly into my seat.
The Seraph gave me a look of sympathy—even understanding—perhaps he had heard me mount the distant attic stairs; his hearing was wonderfully acute. He chewed in silence for a moment and then he made one of those seemingly irrelevant remarks of his that, somehow, always set our little world a-rocking.
"One fing about Lucy," he said, "she was always sweet-tempud."
"Who?" snapped Mrs. Handsomebody.
[97]
