Free Royal Purple by Susan Barrie

looking on at you having it!”
    She beamed at her companion.
    “And now take the dogs for their usual walk, and don’t look so upset. This question of where we shall go will take some little time to decide, and in the meantime you may go on seeing your waiter ... so long as you remember that I cannot allow you to become serious about him! And most definitely I could never allow you to become serious about a waiter !”
    Lucy bit her bottom lip hard, to keep back a retort which might lose her her job and seriously offend the Countess. Instead, she said very quietly:
    “Mr. Avery may be nothing but a hotel waiter, but he is also a Seronian. I thought you might be interested to hear that.”
    The Countess smiled again.
    “Dear child, it wasn’t difficult to guess. He is probably the son of one of my old gamekeepers, full of ambition to become a gentleman.”
    “He is a gentleman,” Lucy insisted.
    The Countess directed at her a shrewd look.
    “Are you old enough to be able to tell?” she enquired.
    Lucy went off to exercise the dogs, and on her return Augustine met her with a conspiratorial look in her face. She was also unusually flushed and excited.
    “These came for you soon after you went out,” she said, and produced a carton of spring flowers. There were jonquils and narcissi, violets and scillas, white lilac and hyacinths, and at sight of them Lucy looked utterly astonished. She allowed Augustine to po u nce upon the card that was lightly attached to the pale green stems, and she even allowed the o ld servant to read aloud the message that was written above the signature.
    ‘ I can’t make up my mind about the colour of your eyes, but each one of these flowers is like you. Paul Avery .’
    “ We-ell !” said Augustine, regarding her employer’s young companion with entirely new eyes, as it were.
    “I—I can’t believe that they’re really for me!” Lucy exclaimed, eyes shining as she gathered the flowers into her arms. The scent of them, the coolness, the moisture that clung to them, was a combined wonder. And what such a profusion must have cost she couldn’t even begin to think.
    But Augustine, more practical, examined the lid of the box, and at sight of the florist’s name she expressed the opinion that Lucy’s gentleman friend must be made of money. And if he wasn’t made of money then she must have made an extraordinary impression, for such a tribute must have cost far more than they expended on fruit and vegetables in one month.
    Lucy couldn’t help smiling at Augustine’s preoccupation with housekeeping, and she pointed out that the last time they bought fruit in the luxury class was when the Countess had a bout of influenza, and she insisted on a very large and succulent pineapple being procured for her. And as for Mr. Avery being made of money...
    She shook her head.
    “Well, he isn’t,” she said.
    Augustine appeared surprised.
    “ In that case you have indeed made an impression! ”
    She offered to help Lucy arrange the flowers, and a large number of containers was brought out from various cupboards. The Countess, when she saw the display in the sitting-room, arched her eyebrows but made no enquiries, and she merely suggested that Lucy should take one of the vases to her own room.
    “Your admirer, I feel sure, would like it if you did,” she remarked with some dryness.
    The following morning the telephone rang for Lucy. It was Paul Avery, and he asked her whether she could lunch with him the following day, which was Saturday.
    “Your—day off?” she enquired, a trifle breathlessly. She could almost see him smile.
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll have to ask the Countess,” she said, the same breathless note in her voice.
    “Then do you mind running away and doing so now, while I hang on? I haven’t got a great deal of time, and if I say I’ll ring you later I may not get the opportunity.”
    She approached the Countess with a certain amount of timidity, for the old lady was not in