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diff --git a/old/6491.txt b/old/6491.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5b89edc..0000000 --- a/old/6491.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13320 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Head of the House of Coombe, by -Frances Hodgson Burnett - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Head of the House of Coombe - -Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett - -Posting Date: September 1, 2012 [EBook #6491] -Release Date: September, 2004 -First Posted: December 22, 2002 -Last Updated: January 10, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE *** - - - - -Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team. - - - - - - - - - - - -THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE - -BY - -FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT - -NEW YORK - - - - - - -CHAPTER I - - - - - -The history of the circumstances about to be related began many -years ago--or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, years -before the world being rocked to and fro revealed in the pause -between each of its heavings some startling suggestion of a new -arrangement of its kaleidoscopic particles, and then immediately -a re-arrangement, and another and another until all belief in a -permanency of design seemed lost, and the inhabitants of the earth -waited, helplessly gazing at changing stars and colours in a degree -of mental chaos. - -Its opening incidents may be dated from a period when people -still had reason to believe in permanency and had indeed many of -them--sometimes through ingenuousness, sometimes through stupidity -of type--acquired a singular confidence in the importance and -stability of their possessions, desires, ambitions and forms of -conviction. - -London at the time, in common with other great capitals, felt -itself rather final though priding itself on being much more fluid -and adaptable than it had been fifty years previously. In speaking -of itself it at least dealt with fixed customs, and conditions -and established facts connected with them--which gave rise to -brilliant--or dull--witticisms. - -One of these, heard not infrequently, was to the effect that--in -London--one might live under an umbrella if one lived under it in -the right neighbourhood and on the right side of the street, which -axiom is the reason that a certain child through the first six -years of her life sat on certain days staring out of a window -in a small, dingy room on the top floor of a slice of a house on -a narrow but highly fashionable London street and looked on at -the passing of motors, carriages and people in the dull afternoon -grayness. - -The room was exalted above its station by being called The Day -Nursery and another room equally dingy and uninviting was known as -The Night Nursery. The slice of a house was inhabited by the very -pretty Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, its inordinate rent being reluctantly -paid by her--apparently with the assistance of those "ravens" who -are expected to supply the truly deserving. The rent was inordinate -only from the standpoint of one regarding it soberly in connection -with the character of the house itself which was a gaudy little -kennel crowded between two comparatively stately mansions. On one -side lived an inordinately rich South African millionaire, and -on the other an inordinately exalted person of title, which facts -combined to form sufficient grounds for a certain inordinateness -of rent. - -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was also, it may be stated, of the fibre -which must live on the right side of the street or dissolve into -nothingness--since as nearly nothingness as an embodied entity can -achieve had Nature seemingly created her at the outset. So light -and airy was the fair, slim, physical presentation of her being -to the earthly vision, and so almost impalpably diaphanous the -texture and form of mind and character to be observed by human -perception, that among such friends--and enemies--as so slight a -thing could claim she was prettily known as "Feather". Her real -name, "Amabel", was not half as charming and whimsical in its -appropriateness. "Feather" she adored being called and as it was -the fashion among the amazing if amusing circle in which she spent -her life, to call its acquaintances fantastic pet names selected -from among the world of birds, beasts and fishes or inanimate -objects--"Feather" she floated through her curious existence. And -it so happened that she was the mother of the child who so often -stared out of the window of the dingy and comfortless Day Nursery, -too much a child to be more than vaguely conscious in a chaotic way -that a certain feeling which at times raged within her and made her -little body hot and restless was founded on something like actual -hate for a special man who had certainly taken no deliberate steps -to cause her detestation. - - * * * * * - -"Feather" had not been called by that delicious name when she married -Robert Gareth-Lawless who was a beautiful and irresponsibly rather -than deliberately bad young man. She was known as Amabel Darrel -and the loveliest girl in the lovely corner of the island of Jersey -where her father, a country doctor, had begotten a large family of -lovely creatures and brought them up on the appallingly inadequate -proceeds of his totally inadequate practice. Pretty female things -must be disposed of early lest their market value decline. Therefore -a well-born young man even without obvious resources represents a -sail in the offing which is naturally welcomed as possibly belonging -to a bark which may at least bear away a burden which the back -carrying it as part of its pack will willingly shuffle on to other -shoulders. It is all very well for a man with six lovely daughters -to regard them as capital if he has money or position or generous -relations or if he has energy and an ingenious unfatigued mind. But -a man who is tired and neither clever nor important in any degree -and who has reared his brood in one of the Channel Islands with a -faded, silly, unattractive wife as his only aid in any difficulty, -is wise in leaving the whole hopeless situation to chance and luck. -Sometimes luck comes without assistance but--almost invariably--it -does not. - -"Feather"--who was then "Amabel"--thought Robert Gareth-Lawless -incredible good luck. He only drifted into her summer by merest -chance because a friend's yacht in which he was wandering about -"came in" for supplies. A girl Ariel in a thin white frock and with -big larkspur blue eyes yearning at you under her flapping hat as -she answers your questions about the best road to somewhere will -not be too difficult about showing the way herself. And there you -are at a first-class beginning. - -The night after she met Gareth-Lawless in a lane whose banks were -thick with bluebells, Amabel and her sister Alice huddled close -together in bed and talked almost pantingly in whispers over the -possibilities which might reveal themselves--God willing--through -a further acquaintance with Mr. Gareth-Lawless. They were eager and -breathlessly anxious but they were young--YOUNG in their eagerness -and Amabel was full of delight in his good looks. - -"He is SO handsome, Alice," she whispered actually hugging her, not -with affection but exultation. "And he can't be more than twenty-six -or seven. And I'm SURE he liked me. You know that way a man has of -looking at you--one sees it even in a place like this where there -are only curates and things. He has brown eyes--like dark bright -water in pools. Oh, Alice, if he SHOULD!" - -Alice was not perhaps as enthusiastic as her sister. Amabel had -seen him first and in the Darrel household there was a sort of -unwritten, not always observed code flimsily founded on "First come -first served." Just at the outset of an acquaintance one might -say "Hands off" as it were. But not for long. - -"It doesn't matter how pretty one is they seldom do," Alice -grumbled. "And he mayn't have a farthing." - -"Alice," whispered Amabel almost agonizingly, "I wouldn't -CARE a farthing--if only he WOULD! Have I a farthing--have you a -farthing--has anyone who ever comes here a farthing? He lives in -London. He'd take me away. To live even in a back street IN LONDON -would be Heaven! And one MUST--as soon as one possibly can.--One -MUST! And Oh!" with another hug which this time was a shudder, -"think of what Doris Harmer had to do! Think of his thick red old -neck and his horrid fatness! And the way he breathed through his -nose. Doris said that at first it used to make her ill to look at -him." - -"She's got over it," whispered Alice. "She's almost as fat as he -is now. And she's loaded with pearls and things." - -"I shouldn't have to 'get over' anything," said Amabel, "if this -one WOULD. I could fall in love with him in a minute." - -"Did you hear what Father said?" Alice brought out the words -rather slowly and reluctantly. She was not eager on the whole to -yield up a detail which after all added glow to possible prospects -which from her point of view were already irritatingly glowing. -Yet she could not resist the impulse of excitement. "No, you didn't -hear. You were out of the room." - -"What about? Something about HIM? I hope it wasn't horrid. How -could it be?" - -"He said," Alice drawled with a touch of girlishly spiteful -indifference, "that if he was one of the poor Gareth-Lawlesses he -hadn't much chance of succeeding to the title. His uncle--Lord -Lawdor--is only forty-five and he has four splendid healthy -boys--perfect little giants." - -"Oh, I didn't know there was a title. How splendid," exclaimed Amabel -rapturously. Then after a few moments' innocent maiden reflection -she breathed with sweet hopefulness from under the sheet, "Children -so often have scarlet fever or diphtheria, and you know they -say those very strong ones are more likely to die than the other -kind. The Vicar of Sheen lost FOUR all in a week. And the Vicar -died too. The doctor said the diphtheria wouldn't have killed him -if the shock hadn't helped." - -Alice--who had a teaspoonful more brain than her sister--burst -into a fit of giggling it was necessary to smother by stuffing -the sheet in her mouth. - -"Oh! Amabel!" she gurgled. "You ARE such a donkey! You would have -been silly enough to say that even if people could have heard you. -Suppose HE had!" - -"Why should he care," said Amabel simply. "One can't help thinking -things. If it happened he would be the Earl of Lawdor and--" - -She fell again into sweet reflection while Alice giggled a little -more. Then she herself stopped and thought also. After all perhaps--! -One had to be practical. The tenor of her thoughts was such that -she did not giggle again when Amabel broke the silence by whispering -with tremulous, soft devoutness. - -"Alice--do you think that praying REALLY helps?" - -"I've prayed for things but I never got them," answered Alice. -"But you know what the Vicar said on Sunday in sermon about 'Ask -and ye shall receive'." - -"Perhaps you haven't prayed in the right spirit," Amabel suggested -with true piety. "Shall we--shall we try? Let us get out of bed -and kneel down." - -"Get out of bed and kneel down yourself," was Alice's sympathetic -rejoinder. "You wouldn't take that much trouble for ME." - -Amabel sat up on the edge of the bed. In the faint moonlight and -her white night-gown she was almost angelic. She held the end of -the long fair soft plait hanging over her shoulder and her eyes -were full of reproach. - -"I think you ought to take SOME interest," she said plaintively. -"You know there would be more chances for you and the others--if -I were not here." - -"I'll wait until you are not here," replied the unstirred Alice. - -But Amabel felt there was no time for waiting in this particular -case. A yacht which "came in" might so soon "put out". She knelt -down, clasping her slim young hands and bending her forehead upon -them. In effect she implored that Divine Wisdom might guide Mr. -Robert Gareth-Lawless in the much desired path. She also made -divers promises because nothing is so easy as to promise things. -She ended with a gently fervent appeal that--if her prayer -were granted--something "might happen" which would result in her -becoming a Countess of Lawdor. One could not have put the request -with greater tentative delicacy. - -She felt quite uplifted and a trifle saintly when she rose from -her knees. Alice had actually fallen asleep already and she sighed -quite tenderly as she slipped into the place beside her. Almost -as her lovely little head touched the pillow her own eyes closed. -Then she was asleep herself--and in the faintly moonlit room with -the long soft plait trailing over her shoulder looked even more -like an angel than before. - -Whether or not as a result of this touching appeal to the Throne -of Grace, Robert Gareth-Lawless DID. In three months there was -a wedding at the very ancient village church, and the flowerlike -bridesmaids followed a flower of a bride to the altar and later in -the day to the station from where Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless -went on their way to London. Perhaps Alice and Olive also knelt by -the side of their white beds the night after the wedding, for on -that propitious day two friends of the bridegroom's--one of them -the owner of the yacht--decided to return again to the place where -there were to be found the most nymphlike of pretty creatures a man -had ever by any chance beheld. Such delicate little fair crowned -heads, such delicious little tip-tilted noses and slim white throats, -such ripples of gay chatter and nonsense! When a man has fortune -enough of his own why not take the prettiest thing he sees? So -Alice and Olive were borne away also and poor Mr. and Mrs. Darrel -breathed sighs of relief and there were not only more chances but -causes for bright hopefulness in the once crowded house which now -had rooms to spare. - -A certain inattention on the part of the Deity was no doubt -responsible for the fact that "something" did not "happen" to the -family of Lord Lawdor. On the contrary his four little giants of -sons throve astonishingly and a few months after the Gareth-Lawless -wedding Lady Lawdor--a trifle effusively, as it were--presented her -husband with twin male infants so robust that they were humorously -known for years afterwards as the "Twin Herculeses." - -By that time Amabel had become "Feather" and despite Robert's -ingenious and carefully detailed method of living upon nothing -whatever, had many reasons for knowing that "life is a back street -in London" is not a matter of beds of roses. Since the back street -must be the "right street" and its accompaniments must wear an aspect -of at least seeming to belong to the right order of detachment and -fashionable ease, one was always in debt and forced to keep out of -the way of duns, and obliged to pretend things and tell lies with -aptness and outward gaiety. Sometimes one actually was so far driven -to the wall that one could not keep most important engagements and -the invention of plausible excuses demanded absolute genius. The -slice of a house between the two big ones was a rash feature of -the honeymoon but a year of giving smart little dinners in it and -going to smart big dinners from it in a smart if small brougham -ended in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of balancing oneself -on the edge of a sword. - -Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity of course. -Nobody had contemplated her for a moment. Feather cried for a week -when she first announced the probability of her advent. Afterwards -however she managed to forget the approaching annoyance and went -to parties and danced to the last hour continuing to be a great -success because her prettiness was delicious and her diaphanous -mentality was no strain upon the minds of her admirers male and -female. - -That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light -weight when Robin in the form of a bundle of lace was carried down -by her nurse to be exhibited in the gaudy crowded little drawing-room -in the slice of a house in the Mayfair street. - -It was the Head of the House of Coombe who asked the first question -about her. - -"What will you DO with her?" he inquired detachedly. - -The frequently referred to "babe unborn" could not have presented -a gaze of purer innocence than did the lovely Feather. Her eyes of -larkspur blueness were clear of any thought or intention as spring -water is clear at its unclouded best. - -Her ripple of a laugh was clear also--enchantingly clear. - -"Do!" repeated. "What is it people 'do' with babies? I suppose -the nurse knows. I don't. I wouldn't touch her for the world. She -frightens me." - -She floated a trifle nearer and bent to look at her. - -"I shall call her Robin," she said. "Her name is really Roberta -as she couldn't be called Robert. People will turn round to look -at a girl when they hear her called Robin. Besides she has eyes -like a robin. I wish she'd open them and let you see." - -By chance she did open them at the moment--quite slowly. They were -dark liquid brown and seemed to be all lustrous iris which gazed -unmovingly at the object in of focus. That object was the Head of -the House of Coombe. - -"She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze," he said, -and stared back unmovingly also, but with a sort of cold interest. - - - - - - -CHAPTER II - - - - - -The Head of the House of Coombe was not a title to be found in -Burke or Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head's own and having -been accepted by his acquaintances was not infrequently used by -them in their light moments in the same spirit. The peerage recorded -him as a Marquis and added several lesser attendant titles. - -"When English society was respectable, even to stodginess at times," -was his point of view, "to be born 'the Head of the House' was a -weighty and awe-inspiring thing. In fearful private denunciatory -interviews with one's parents and governors it was brought up against -one as a final argument against immoral conduct such as debt and -not going to church. As the Head of the House one was called upon -to be an Example. In the country one appeared in one's pew and -announced oneself a 'miserable sinner' in loud tones, one had to -invite the rector to dinner with regularity and 'the ladies' of -one's family gave tea and flannel petticoats and baby clothes to -cottagers. Men and women were known as 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' -in those halcyon days. One Represented things--Parties in -Parliament--Benevolent Societies, and British Hospitality in the -form of astounding long dinners at which one drank healths and -made speeches. In roseate youth one danced the schottische and the -polka and the round waltz which Lord Byron denounced as indecent. -To recall the vigour of his poem gives rise to a smile--when one -chances to sup at a cabaret." - -He was considered very amusing when he analyzed his own mental -attitude towards his world in general. - -"I was born somewhat too late and somewhat too early," he explained -in his light, rather cold and detached way. "I was born and educated -at the closing of one era and have to adjust myself to living in -another. I was as it were cradled among treasured relics of the -ethics of the Georges and Queen Charlotte, and Queen Victoria in -her bloom. _I_ was in my bloom in the days when 'ladies' were -reproved for wearing dresses cut too low at Drawing Rooms. Such -training gives curious interest to fashions in which bodices are -unconsidered trifles and Greek nymphs who dance with bare feet -and beautiful bare legs may be one's own relations. I trust I do -not seem even in the shadowiest way to comment unfavourably. I -merely look on at the rapidities of change with unalloyed interest. -As the Head of the House of Coombe I am not sure WHAT I am an -Example of--or to. Which is why I at times regard myself in that -capacity with a slightly ribald lightness." - -The detachment of his question with regard to the newborn infant -of the airily irresponsible Feather was in entire harmony with his -attitude towards the singular incident of Life as illustrated by -the World, the Flesh and the Devil by none of which he was--as far -as could be observed--either impressed, disturbed or prejudiced. -His own experience had been richly varied and practically unlimited -in its opportunities for pleasure, sinful or unsinful indulgence, -mitigated or unmitigated wickedness, the gathering of strange -knowledge, and the possible ignoring of all dull boundaries. This -being the case a superhuman charity alone could have forborne to -believe that his opportunities had been neglected in the heyday -of his youth. Wealth and lack of limitations in themselves would -have been quite enough to cause the Nonconformist Victorian mind -to regard a young--or middle-aged--male as likely to represent a -fearsome moral example, but these three temptations combined with -good looks and a certain mental brilliance were so inevitably the -concomitants of elegant iniquity that the results might be taken -for granted. - -That the various worlds in which he lived in various lands accepted -him joyfully as an interesting and desirable of more or less -abominably sinful personage, the Head of the House of Coombe--even -many years before he became its head--regarded with the detachment -which he had, even much earlier, begun to learn. Why should it be -in the least matter what people thought of one? Why should it in -the least matter what one thought of oneself--and therefore--why -should one think at all? He had begun at the outset a brilliantly -happy young pagan with this simple theory. After the passing of -some years he had not been quite so happy but had remained quite -as pagan and retained the theory which had lost its first fine -careless rapture and gained a secret bitterness. He had not married -and innumerable stories were related to explain the reason why. -They were most of them quite false and none of them quite true. -When he ceased to be a young man his delinquency was much discussed, -more especially when his father died and he took his place as the -head of his family. He was old enough, rich enough, important enough -for marriage to be almost imperative. But he remained unmarried. -In addition he seemed to consider his abstinence entirely an affair -of his own. - -"Are you as wicked as people say you are?" a reckless young woman -once asked him. She belonged to the younger set which was that -season trying recklessness, in a tentative way, as a new fashion. - -"I really don't know. It is so difficult to decide," he answered. -"I could tell better if I knew exactly what wickedness is. When -I find out I will let you know. So good of you to take an interest." - -Thirty years earlier he knew that a young lady who had heard he was -wicked would have perished in flames before immodestly mentioning -the fact to him, but might have delicately attempted to offer "first -aid" to reformation, by approaching with sweetness the subject of -going to church. - -The reckless young woman looked at him with an attention which -he was far from being blind enough not to see was increased by his -answer. - -"I never know what you mean," she said almost wistfully. - -"Neither do I," was his amiable response. "And I am sure it would -not be worth while going into. Really, we neither of us know what -we mean. Perhaps I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may -have painful limitations--or I may not." - -After his father's death he spent rather more time in London and -rather less in wandering over the face of the globe. But by the -time he was forty he knew familiarly far countries and near and -was intimate with most of the peoples thereof. He could have found -his way about blind-folded in the most distinctive parts of most -of the great cities. He had seen and learned many things. The -most absorbing to his mind had been the ambitions and changes of -nations, statesmen, rulers and those they ruled or were ruled by. -Courts and capitals knew him, and his opportunities were such as -gave him all ease as an onlooker. He was outwardly of the type -which does not arouse caution in talkers and he heard much which -was suggestive even to illumination, from those to whom he remained -unsuspected of being a man who remembered things long and was -astute in drawing conclusions. The fact remained however that -he possessed a remarkable memory and one which was not a rag-bag -filled with unassorted and parti-coloured remnants, but a large and -orderly space whose contents were catalogued and filed and well -enclosed from observation. He was also given to the mental argument -which follows a point to its conclusion as a mere habit of mind. -He saw and knew well those who sat and pondered with knit brows and -cautiously hovering hand at the great chess-board which is formed -by the Map of Europe. He found an enormous interest in watching -their play. It was his fortune as a result of his position to know -persons who wore crowns and a natural incident in whose lives it -was to receive the homage expressed by the uncovering of the head -and the bending of the knee. At forty he looked back at the time -when the incongruousness, the abnormality and the unsteadiness of -the foundations on which such personages stood first struck him. -The realization had been in its almost sacrilegious novelty and -daring, a sort of thunderbolt passing through his mind. He had -at the time spoken of it only to one person. - -"I have no moral or ethical views to offer," he had said. "I only -SEE. The thing--as it is--will disintegrate. I am so at sea as -to what will take its place that I feel as if the prospect were -rather horrible. One has had the old landmarks and been impressed -by the old pomp and picturesqueness so many centuries, that one -cannot see the earth without them. There have been kings even in -the Cannibal Islands." - -As a statesman or a diplomat he would have seen far but he had been -too much occupied with Life as an entertainment, too self-indulgent -for work of any order. He freely admitted to himself that he was -a worthless person but the fact did not disturb him. Having been -born with a certain order of brain it observed and worked in spite -of him, thereby adding flavour and interest to existence. But that -was all. - -It cannot be said that as the years passed he quite enjoyed the -fact that he knew he was rarely spoken of to a stranger without -its being mentioned that he was the most perfectly dressed man in -London. He rather detested the idea though he was aware that the -truth was unimpeachable. The perfection of his accompaniments had -arisen in his youth from a secret feeling for fitness and harmony. -Texture and colour gave him almost abnormal pleasure. His expression -of this as a masculine creature had its limits which resulted in -a concentration on perfection. Even at five-and-twenty however he -had never been called a dandy and even at five-and-forty no one -had as yet hinted at Beau Brummel though by that time men as well -as women frequently described to each other the cut and colour -of the garments he wore, and tailors besought him to honour them -with crumbs of his patronage in the ambitious hope that they might -mention him as a client. And the simple fact that he appeared in -a certain colour or cut set it at once on its way to become a -fashion to be seized upon, worn and exaggerated until it was -dropped suddenly by its originator and lost in the oblivion of -cheap imitations and cheap tailor shops. The first exaggeration -of the harmony he had created and the original was seen no more. - -Feather herself had a marvellous trick in the collecting of her -garments. It was a trick which at times barely escaped assuming the -proportions of absolute creation. Her passion for self-adornment -expressed itself in ingenious combination and quite startling -uniqueness of line now and then. Her slim fairness and ash-gold -gossamer hair carried airily strange tilts and curves of little -or large hats or daring tints other women could not sustain -but invariably strove to imitate however disastrous the results. -Beneath soft drooping or oddly flopping brims hopelessly unbecoming -to most faces hers looked out quaintly lovely as a pictured child's -wearing its grandmother's bonnet. Everything draped itself about -or clung to her in entrancing folds which however whimsical were -never grotesque. - -"Things are always becoming to me," she said quite simply. "But -often I stick a few pins into a dress to tuck it up here and there, -or if I give a hat a poke somewhere to make it crooked, they are -much more becoming. People are always asking me how I do it but -I don't know how. I bought a hat from Cerise last week and I gave -it two little thumps with my fist--one in the crown and one in -the brim and they made it wonderful. The maid of the most grand -kind of person tried to find out from my maid where I bought it. -I wouldn't let her tell of course." - -She created fashions and was imitated as was the Head of the House -of Coombe but she was enraptured by the fact and the entire power -of such gray matter as was held by her small brain cells was -concentrated upon her desire to evolve new fantasies and amazements -for her world. - -Before he had been married for a year there began to creep into the -mind of Bob Gareth-Lawless a fearsome doubt remotely hinting that -she might end by becoming an awful bore in the course of -time--particularly if she also ended by being less pretty. She -chattered so incessantly about nothing and was such an empty-headed, -extravagant little fool in her insistence on clothes--clothes--clothes--as -if they were the breath of life. After watching her for about two -hours one morning as she sat before her mirror directing her maid -to arrange and re-arrange her hair in different styles--in delicate -puffs and curls and straying rings--soft bands and loops--in braids -and coils--he broke forth into an uneasy short laugh and expressed -himself--though she did not know he was expressing himself and -would not have understood him if she had. - -"If you have a soul--and I'm not at all certain you have--" he -said, "it's divided into a dressmaker's and a hairdresser's and -a milliner's shop. It's full of tumbled piles of hats and frocks -and diamond combs. It's an awful mess, Feather." - -"I hope it's a shoe shop and a jeweller's as well," she laughed -quite gaily. "And a lace-maker's. I need every one of them." - -"It's a rag shop," he said. "It has nothing but CHIFFONS in it." - -"If ever I DO think of souls I think of them as silly gauzy things -floating about like little balloons," was her cheerful response. - -"That's an idea," he answered with a rather louder laugh. "Yours -might be made of pink and blue gauze spangled with those things -you call paillettes." - -The fancy attracted her. - -"If I had one like that"--with a pleased creative air, "it would -look rather ducky floating from my shoulder--or even my hat--or my -hair in the evenings, just held by a tiny sparkling chain fastened -with a diamond pin--and with lovely little pink and blue streamers." -With the touch of genius she had at once relegated it to its place -in the scheme of her universe. And Robert laughed even louder than -before. - -"You mustn't make me laugh," she said holding up her hand. "I am -having my hair done to match that quakery thin pale mousey dress -with the tiny poke bonnet--and I want to try my face too. I must -look sweet and demure. You mustn't really laugh when you wear a -dress and hat like that. You must only smile." - -Some months earlier Bob would have found it difficult to believe -that she said this entirely without any touch of humour but he -realized now that it was so said. He had some sense of humour of -his own and one of his reasons for vaguely feeling that she might -become a bore was that she had none whatever. - -It was at the garden party where she wore the thin quakery mousey -dress and tiny poke bonnet that the Head of the House of Coombe -first saw her. It was at the place of a fashionable artist who -lived at Hampstead and had a garden and a few fine old trees. It -had been Feather's special intention to strike this note of delicate -dim colour. Every other woman was blue or pink or yellow or white -or flowered and she in her filmy coolness of unusual hue stood out -exquisitely among them. Other heads wore hats broad or curved or -flopping, hers looked like a little nun's or an imaginary portrait -of a delicious young great-grandmother. She was more arresting -than any other female creature on the emerald sward or under the -spreading trees. - -When Coombe's eyes first fell upon her he was talking to a group -of people and he stopped speaking. Someone standing quite near him -said afterwards that he had for a second or so become pale--almost -as if he saw something which frightened him. - -"Who is that under the copper beech--being talked to by Harlow?" -he inquired. - -Feather was in fact listening with a gentle air and with her eyelids -down drooped to the exact line harmonious with the angelic little -poke bonnet. - -"It is Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless--'Feather' we call her," he was -answered. "Was there ever anything more artful than that startling -little smoky dress? If it was flame colour one wouldn't see it as -quickly." - -"One wouldn't look at it as long," said Coombe. "One is in danger -of staring. And the little hat--or bonnet--which pokes and is -fastened under her pink ear by a satin bow held by a loose pale -bud! Will someone rescue me from staring by leading me to her. It -won't be staring if I am talking to her. Please." - -The paleness appeared again as on being led across the grass he -drew nearer to the copper beech. He was still rather pale when -Feather lifted her eyes to him. Her eyes were so shaped by Nature -that they looked like an angel's when they were lifted. There are -eyes of that particular cut. But he had not talked to her fifteen -minutes before he knew that there was no real reason why he should -ever again lose his colour at the sight of her. He had thought at -first there was. With the perception which invariably marked her -sense of fitness of things she had begun in the course of the -fifteen minutes--almost before the colour had quite returned to -his face--the story of her husband's idea of her soul, as a balloon -of pink and blue gauze spangled with paillettes. And of her own -inspiration of wearing it floating from her shoulder or her hair -by the light sparkling chain--and with delicate ribbon streamers. -She was much delighted with his laugh--though she thought it had a -rather cracked, harsh sound. She knew he was an important person -and she always felt she was being a success when people laughed. - -"Exquisite!" he said. "I shall never see you in the future without -it. But wouldn't it be necessary to vary the colour at times?" - -"Oh! Yes--to match things," seriously. "I couldn't wear a pink and -blue one with this--" glancing over the smoky mousey thing "--or -paillettes." - -"Oh, no--not paillettes," he agreed almost with gravity, the harsh -laugh having ended. - -"One couldn't imagine the exact colour in a moment. One would have -to think," she reflected. "Perhaps a misty dim bluey thing--like -the edge of a rain-cloud--scarcely a colour at all." - -For an instant her eyes were softly shadowed as if looking into -a dream. He watched her fixedly then. A woman who was a sort of -angel might look like that when she was asking herself how much -her pure soul might dare to pray for. Then he laughed again and -Feather laughed also. - -Many practical thoughts had already begun to follow each other -hastily through her mind. It would be the best possible thing -for them if he really admired her. Bob was having all sorts of -trouble with people they owed money to. Bills were sent in again -and again and disagreeable letters were written. Her dressmaker -and milliner had given her most rude hints which could indeed -be scarcely considered hints at all. She scarcely dared speak to -their smart young footman who she knew had only taken the place -in the slice of a house because he had been told that it might be -an opening to better things. She did not know the exact summing -up at the agency had been as follows: - -"They're a good looking pair and he's Lord Lawdor's nephew. -They're bound to have their fling and smart people will come to -their house because she's so pretty. They'll last two or three -years perhaps and you'll open the door to the kind of people who -remember a well set-up young fellow if he shows he knows his work -above the usual." - -The more men of the class of the Head of the House of Coombe who -came in and out of the slice of a house the more likely the owners -of it were to get good invitations and continued credit, Feather -was aware. Besides which, she thought ingenuously, if he was rich -he would no doubt lend Bob money. She had already known that certain -men who liked her had done it. She did not mind it at all. One -was obliged to have money. - -This was the beginning of an acquaintance which gave rise to much -argument over tea-cups and at dinner parties and in boudoirs--even -in corners of Feather's own gaudy little drawing-room. The argument -regarded the degree of Coombe's interest in her. There was always -curiosity as to the degree of his interest in any woman--especially -and privately on the part of the woman herself. Casual and shallow -observers said he was quite infatuated if such a thing were possible -to a man of his temperament; the more concentrated of mind said it -was not possible to a man of his temperament and that any attraction -Feather might have for him was of a kind special to himself and -that he alone could explain it--and he would not. - -Remained however the fact that he managed to see a great deal of -her. It might be said that he even rather followed her about and -more than one among the specially concentrated of mind had seen him -on occasion stand apart a little and look at her--watch her--with -an expression suggesting equally profound thought and the profound -intention to betray his private meditations in no degree. There -was no shadow of profundity of thought in his treatment of her. -He talked to her as she best liked to be talked to about herself, -her successes and her clothes which were more successful than -anything else. He went to the little but exceedingly lively dinners -the Gareth-Lawlesses gave and though he was understood not to be -fond of dancing now and then danced with her at balls. - -Feather was guilelessly doubtless concerning him. She was quite sure -that he was in love with her. Her idea of that universal emotion -was that it was a matter of clothes and propinquity and loveliness -and that if one were at all clever one got things one wanted as a -result of it. Her overwhelming affection for Bob and his for her -had given her life in London and its entertaining accompaniments. -Her frankness in the matter of this desirable capture when she -talked to her husband was at once light and friendly. - -"Of course you will be able to get credit at his tailor's as you -know him so well," she said. "When I persuaded him to go with me -to Madame Helene's last week she was quite amiable. He helped me -to choose six dresses and I believe she would have let me choose -six more." - -"Does she think he is going to pay for them?" asked Bob. - -"It doesn't matter what she thinks"; Feather laughed very prettily. - -"Doesn't it?" - -"Not a bit. I shall have the dresses. What's the matter, Rob? You -look quite red and cross." - -"I've had a headache for three days," he answered, "and I feel -hot and cross. I don't care about a lot of things you say, Feather." - -"Don't be silly," she retorted. "I don't care about a lot of things -you say--and do, too, for the matter of that." - -Robert Gareth-Lawless who was sitting on a chair in her dressing-room -grunted slightly as he rubbed his red and flushed forehead. - -"There's a--sort of limit," he commented. He hesitated a little -before he added sulkily "--to the things one--SAYS." - -"That sounds like Alice," was her undisturbed answer. "She used -to squabble at me because I SAID things. But I believe one of -the reasons people like me is because I make them laugh by SAYING -things. Lord Coombe laughs. He is a very good person to know," -she added practically. "Somehow he COUNTS. Don't you recollect -how before we knew him--when he was abroad so long--people used -to bring him into their talk as if they couldn't help remembering -him and what he was like. I knew quite a lot about him--about -his cleverness and his manners and his way of keeping women off -without being rude--and the things he says about royalties and the -aristocracy going out of fashion. And about his clothes. I adore -his clothes. And I'm convinced he adores mine." - -She had in fact at once observed his clothes as he had crossed the -grass to her seat under the copper beech. She had seen that his -fine thinness was inimitably fitted and presented itself to the -eye as that final note of perfect line which ignores any possibility -of comment. He did not wear things--they were expressions of his -mental subtleties. Feather on her part knew that she wore her -clothes--carried them about with her--however beautifully. - -"I like him," she went on. "I don't know anything about political -parties and the state of Europe so I don't understand the things -he says which people think are so brilliant, but I like him. He -isn't really as old as I thought he was the first day I saw him. -He had a haggard look about his mouth and eyes then. He looked -as if a spangled pink and blue gauze soul with little floating -streamers was a relief to him." - -The child Robin was a year old by that time and staggered about -uncertainly in the dingy little Day Nursery in which she passed her -existence except on such occasions as her nurse--who had promptly -fallen in love with the smart young footman--carried her down to -the kitchen and Servants' Hall in the basement where there was an -earthy smell and an abundance of cockroaches. The Servants' Hall -had been given that name in the catalogue of the fashionable -agents who let the home and it was as cramped and grimy as the -two top-floor nurseries. - -The next afternoon Robert Gareth-Lawless staggered into his wife's -drawing-room and dropped on to a sofa staring at her and breathing -hard. - -"Feather!" he gasped. "Don't know what's up with me. I believe -I'm--awfully ill! I can't see straight. Can't think." - -He fell over sidewise on to the cushions so helplessly that Feather -sprang at him. - -"Don't, Rob, don't!" she cried in actual anguish. "Lord Coombe -is taking us to the opera and to supper afterwards. I'm going to -wear--" She stopped speaking to shake him and try to lift his head. -"Oh! do try to sit up," she begged pathetically. "Just try. DON'T -give up till afterwards." But she could neither make him sit up nor -make him hear. He lay back heavily with his mouth open, breathing -stertorously and quite insensible. - -It happened that the Head of the House of Coombe was announced -at that very moment even as she stood wringing her hands over the -sofa. - -He went to her side and looked at Gareth-Lawless. - -"Have you sent for a doctor?" he inquired. - -"He's--only just done it!" she exclaimed. "It's more than I can -bear. You said the Prince would be at the supper after the opera -and--" - -"Were you thinking of going?" he put it to her quietly. - -"I shall have to send for a nurse of course--" she began. He went -so far as to interrupt her. - -"You had better not go--if you'll pardon my saying so," he suggested. - -"Not go? Not go at all?" she wailed. - -"Not go at all," was his answer. And there was such entire lack -of encouragement in it that Feather sat down and burst into sobs. - -In few than two weeks Robert was dead and she was left a lovely -penniless widow with a child. - - - - - - -CHAPTER III - - - - - -Two or three decades earlier the prevailing sentiment would have -been that "poor little Mrs. Gareth-Lawless" and her situation were -pathetic. Her acquaintances would sympathetically have discussed -her helplessness and absolute lack of all resource. So very pretty, -so young, the mother of a dear little girl--left with no income! -How very sad! What COULD she do? The elect would have paid her visits -and sitting in her darkened drawing-room earnestly besought her -to trust to her Maker and suggested "the Scriptures" as suitable -reading. Some of them--rare and strange souls even in their -time--would have known what they meant and meant what they said in -a way they had as yet only the power to express through the medium -of a certain shibboleth, the rest would have used the same forms -merely because shibboleth is easy and always safe and creditable. - -But to Feather's immediate circle a multiplicity of engagements, -fevers of eagerness in the attainment of pleasures and ambitions, -anxieties, small and large terrors, and a whirl of days left no time -for the regarding of pathetic aspects. The tiny house up whose -staircase--tucked against a wall--one had seemed to have the effect of -crowding even when one went alone to make a call, suddenly ceased -to represent hilarious little parties which were as entertaining -as they were up to date and noisy. The most daring things London -gossiped about had been said and done and worn there. Novel social -ventures had been tried--dancing and songs which seemed almost -startling at first--but which were gradually being generally adopted. -There had always been a great deal of laughing and talking of -nonsense and the bandying of jokes and catch phrases. And Feather -fluttering about and saying delicious, silly things at which her -hearers shouted with glee. Such a place could not suddenly become -pathetic. It seemed almost indecent for Robert Gareth-Lawless to -have dragged Death nakedly into their midst--to have died in his -bed in one of the little bedrooms, to have been put in his coffin -and carried down the stairs scraping the wall, and sent away in a -hearse. Nobody could bear to think of it. - -Feather could bear it less than anybody else. It seemed incredible -that such a trick could have been played her. She shut herself -up in her stuffy little bedroom with its shrimp pink frills and -draperies and cried lamentably. At first she cried as a child might -who was suddenly snatched away in the midst of a party. Then she -began to cry because she was frightened. Numbers of cards "with -sympathy" had been left at the front door during the first week -after the funeral, they had accumulated in a pile on the salver -but very few people had really come to see her and while she knew -they had the excuse of her recent bereavement she felt that it made -the house ghastly. It had never been silent and empty. Things had -always been going on and now there was actually not a sound to be -heard--no one going up and down stairs--Rob's room cleared of all -his belongings and left orderly and empty--the drawing-room like a -gay little tomb without an occupant. How long WOULD it be before -it would be full of people again--how long must she wait before -she could decently invite anyone?--It was really at this point that -fright seized upon her. Her brain was not given to activities of -reasoning and followed no thought far. She had not begun to ask -herself questions as to ways and means. Rob had been winning at -cards and had borrowed some money from a new acquaintance so no -immediate abyss had yawned at her feet. But when the thought of -future festivities rose before her a sudden check made her involuntarily -clutch at her throat. She had no money at all, bills were piled -everywhere, perhaps now Robert was dead none of the shops would -give her credit. She remembered hearing Rob come into the house -swearing only the day before he was taken ill and it had been -because he had met on the door-step a collector of the rent which -was long over-due and must be paid. She had no money to pay it, -none to pay the servants' wages, none to pay the household bills, -none to pay for the monthly hire of the brougham! Would they turn -her into the street--would the servants go away--would she be left -without even a carriage? What could she do about clothes! She -could not wear anything but mourning now and by the time she was -out of mourning her old clothes would have gone out of fashion. -The morning on which this aspect of things occurred to her, she -was so terrified that she began to run up and down the room like a -frightened little cat seeing no escape from the trap it is caught -in. - -"It's awful--it's awful--it's awful!" broke out between her sobs. -"What can I do? I can't do anything! There's nothing to do! It's -awful--it's awful--it's awful!" She ended by throwing herself on -the bed crying until she was exhausted. She had no mental resources -which would suggest to her that there was anything but crying to -be done. She had cried very little in her life previously because -even in her days of limitation she had been able to get more or -less what she wanted--though of course it had generally been less. -And crying made one's nose and eyes red. On this occasion she -actually forgot her nose and eyes and cried until she scarcely -knew herself when she got up and looked in the glass. - -She rang the bell for her maid and sat down to wait her coming. -Tonson should bring her a cup of beef tea. - -"It's time for lunch," she thought. "I'm faint with crying. And -she shall bathe my eyes with rose-water." - -It was not Tonson's custom to keep her mistress waiting but today -she was not prompt. Feather rang a second time and an impatient -third and then sat in her chair and waited until she began to feel -as she felt always in these dreadful days the dead silence of the -house. It was the thing which most struck terror to her soul--that -horrid stillness. The servants whose place was in the basement -were too much closed in their gloomy little quarters to have -made themselves heard upstairs even if they had been inclined to. -During the last few weeks Feather had even found herself wishing -that they were less well trained and would make a little noise--do -anything to break the silence. - -The room she sat in--Rob's awful little room adjoining--which was -awful because of what she had seen for a moment lying stiff and -hard on the bed before she was taken away in hysterics--were dread -enclosures of utter silence. The whole house was dumb--the very -street had no sound in it. She could not endure it. How dare -Tonson? She sprang up and rang the bell again and again until its -sound came back to her pealing through the place. - -Then she waited again. It seemed to her that five minutes passed -before she heard the smart young footman mounting the stairs slowly. -She did not wait for his knock upon the door but opened it herself. - -"How dare Tonson!" she began. "I have rung four or five times! -How dare she!" - -The smart young footman's manner had been formed in a good school. -It was attentive, impersonal. - -"I don't know, ma'am," he answered. - -"What do you mean? What does SHE mean? Where is she?" Feather felt -almost breathless before his unperturbed good style. - -"I don't know, ma'am," he answered as before. Then with the same -unbiassed bearing added, "None of us know. She has gone away." - -Feather clutched the door handle because she felt herself swaying. - -"Away! Away!" the words were a faint gasp. - -"She packed her trunk yesterday and carried it away with her on a -four-wheeler. About an hour ago, ma'am." Feather dropped her hand -from the knob of the door and trailed back to the chair she had -left, sinking into it helplessly. - -"Who--who will dress me?" she half wailed. - -"I don't know, ma'am," replied the young footman, his excellent -manner presuming no suggestion or opinion whatever. He added -however, "Cook, ma'am, wishes to speak to you." - -"Tell her to come to me here," Feather said. "And I--I want a cup -of beef tea." - -"Yes, ma'am," with entire respect. And the door closed quietly -behind him. - -It was not long before it was opened again. "Cook" had knocked and -Feather had told her to come in. Most cooks are stout, but this -one was not. She was a thin, tall woman with square shoulders and -a square face somewhat reddened by constant proximity to fires. -She had been trained at a cooking school. She carried a pile of -small account books but she brought nothing else. - -"I wanted some beef tea, Cook," said Feather protestingly. - -"There is no beef tea, ma'am," said Cook. "There is neither beef, -nor stock, nor Liebig in the house." - -"Why--why not?" stammered Feather and she stammered because even -her lack of perception saw something in the woman's face which -was new to her. It was a sort of finality. - -She held out the pile of small books. - -"Here are the books, ma'am," was her explanation. "Perhaps as you -don't like to be troubled with such things, you don't know how -far behind they are. Nothing has been paid for months. It's been -an every-day fight to get the things that was wanted. It's not -an agreeable thing for a cook to have to struggle and plead. I've -had to do it because I had my reputation to think of and I couldn't -send up rubbish when there was company." - -Feather felt herself growing pale as she sat and stared at her. -Cook drew near and laid one little book after another on the small -table near her. - -"That's the butcher's book," she said. "He's sent nothing in for -three days. We've been living on leavings. He's sent his last, -he says and he means it. This is the baker's. He's not been for -a week. I made up rolls because I had some flour left. It's done -now--and HE'S done. This is groceries and Mercom & Fees wrote -to Mr. Gareth-Lawless when the last month's supply came, that it -would BE the last until payment was made. This is wines--and coal -and wood--and laundry--and milk. And here is wages, ma'am, which -CAN'T go on any longer." - -Feather threw up her hands and quite wildly. - -"Oh, go away!--go away!" she cried. "If Mr. Lawless were here--" - -"He isn't, ma'am," Cook interposed, not fiercely but in a way more -terrifying than any ferocity could have been--a way which pointed -steadily to the end of things. "As long as there's a gentleman -in a house there's generally a sort of a prospect that things MAY -be settled some way. At any rate there's someone to go and speak -your mind to even if you have to give up your place. But when -there's no gentleman and nothing--and nobody--respectable people -with their livings to make have got to protect themselves." - -The woman had no intention of being insolent. Her simple statement -that her employer's death had left "Nothing" and "Nobody" was -prompted by no consciously ironic realization of the diaphanousness -of Feather. As for the rest she had been professionally trained -to take care of her interests as well as to cook and the ethics -of the days of her grandmother when there had been servants with -actual affections had not reached her. - -"Oh! go away! Go AWA-AY!" Feather almost shrieked. - -"I am going, ma'am. So are Edward and Emma and Louisa. It's no -use waiting and giving the month's notice. We shouldn't save the -month's wages and the trades-people wouldn't feed us. We can't stay -here and starve. And it's a time of the year when places has to -be looked for. You can't hold it against us, ma'am. It's better -for you to have us out of the house tonight--which is when our -boxes will be taken away." - -Then was Feather seized with a panic. For the first time in her -life she found herself facing mere common facts which rose before -her like a solid wall of stone--not to be leapt, or crept under, -or bored through, or slipped round. She was so overthrown and -bewildered that she could not even think of any clever and rapidly -constructed lie which would help her; indeed she was so aghast -that she did not remember that there were such things as lies. - -"Do you mean," she cried out, "that you are all going to LEAVE -the house--that there won't be any servants to wait on me--that -there's nothing to eat or drink--that I shall have to stay here -ALONE--and starve!" - -"We should have to starve if we stayed," answered Cook simply. "And -of course there are a few things left in the pantry and closets. -And you might get in a woman by the day. You won't starve, ma'am. -You've got your family in Jersey. We waited because we thought -Mr. and Mrs. Darrel would be sure to come." - -"My father is ill. I think he's dying. My mother could not leave -him for a moment. Perhaps he's dead now," Feather wailed. - -"You've got your London friends, ma'am--" - -Feather literally beat her hands together. - -"My friends! Can I go to people's houses and knock at their front -door and tell them I haven't any servants or anything to eat! Can -I do that? Can I?" And she said it as if she were going crazy. - -The woman had said what she had come to say as spokeswoman for the -rest. It had not been pleasant but she knew she had been quite -within her rights and dealt with plain facts. But she did not -enjoy the prospect of seeing her little fool of a mistress raving -in hysterics. - -"You mustn't let yourself go, ma'am," she said. "You'd better lie -down a bit and try to get quiet." She hesitated a moment looking -at the pretty ruin who had risen from her seat and stood trembling. - -"It's not my place of course to--make suggestions," she said quietly. -"But--had you ever thought of sending for Lord Coombe, ma'am?" - -Feather actually found the torn film of her mind caught for a -second by something which wore a form of reality. Cook saw that -her tremor appeared to verge on steadying itself. - -"Coombe," she faintly breathed as if to herself and not to Cook. - -"Coombe." - -"His lordship was very friendly with Mr. Lawless and he seemed fond -of--coming to the house," was presented as a sort of added argument. -"If you'll lie down I'll bring you a cup of tea, ma'am--though it -can't be beef." - -Feather staggered again to her bed and dropped flat upon it--flat -as a slim little pancake in folds of thin black stuff which hung -and floated. - -"I can't bring you cream," said Cook as she went out of the room. -"Louisa has had nothing but condensed milk--since yesterday--to -give Miss Robin." - -"Oh-h!" groaned Feather, not in horror of the tea without cream -though that was awful enough in its significance, but because this -was the first time since the falling to pieces of her world that -she had given a thought to the added calamity of Robin. - - - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - - - - -If one were to devote one's mental energies to speculation as -to what is going on behind the noncommittal fronts of any row of -houses in any great city the imaginative mind might be led far. - -Bricks, mortar, windows, doors, steps which lead up to the threshold, -are what are to be seen from the outside. Nothing particular may -be transpiring within the walls, or tragedies, crimes, hideous suffering -may be enclosed. The conclusion is obvious to banality--but as -suggestive as banal--so suggestive in fact that the hyper-sensitive -and too imaginative had better, for their own comfort's sake, leave -the matter alone. In most cases the existing conditions would not be -altered even if one knocked at the door and insisted on entering -with drawn sword in the form of attendant policeman. The outside -of the slice of a house in which Feather lived was still rather -fresh from its last decorative touching up. It had been painted -cream colour and had white doors and windows and green window boxes -with variegated vinca vines trailing from them and pink geraniums, -dark blue lobelia and ferns filling the earth stuffed in by the -florist who provided such adornments. Passers-by frequently -glanced at it and thought it a nice little house whose amusing -diminutiveness was a sort of attraction. It was rather like a new -doll's house. - -No one glancing at it in passing at the closing of this particular -day had reason to suspect that any unaccustomed event was taking -place behind the cream-coloured front. The front door "brasses" -had been polished, the window-boxes watered and no cries for aid -issued from the rooms behind them. The house was indeed quiet both -inside and out. Inside it was indeed even quieter than usual. The -servants' preparation for departure had been made gradually and -undisturbedly. There had been exhaustive quiet discussion of the -subject each night for weeks, even before Robert Gareth-Lawless' -illness. The smart young footman Edward who had means of gaining -practical information had constituted himself a sort of private -detective. He had in time learned all that was to be learned. -This, it had made itself clear to him on investigation, was not -one of those cases when to wait for evolutionary family events -might be the part of discretion. There were no prospects ahead--none -at all. Matters would only get worse and the whole thing would end -in everybody not only losing their unpaid back wages but having to -walk out into the street through the door of a disgraced household -whose owners would be turned out into the street also when their -belongings were sold over their heads. Better get out before -everything went to pieces and there were unpleasantnesses. There -would be unpleasantnesses because there was no denying that the -trades-people had been played tricks with. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -was only one of a lot of pretty daughters whose father was a poor -country doctor in Jersey. He had had "a stroke" himself and his -widow would have nothing to live on when he died. That was what -Mrs. Lawless had to look to. As to Lord Lawdor Edward had learned -from those who DID know that he had never approved of his nephew -and that he'd said he was a fool for marrying and had absolutely -refused to have anything to do with him. He had six boys and -a girl now and big estates weren't what they had been, everyone -knew. There was only one thing left for Cook and Edward and Emma -and Louisa to do and that was to "get out" without any talk or -argument. - -"She's not one that won't find someone to look after her," ended -Edward. "Somebody or other will take her up because they'll be sorry -for her. But us lot aren't widows and orphans. No one's going to -be sorry for us or care a hang what we've been let in for. The longer -we stay, the longer we won't be paid." He was not a particularly -depraved or cynical young footman but he laughed a little at the -end of his speech. "There's the Marquis," he added. "He's been -running in and out long enough to make a good bit of talk. Now's -his time to turn up." - -After she had taken her cup of tea without cream Feather had fallen -asleep in reaction from her excited agitation. It was in accord -with the inevitable trend of her being that even before her eyes -closed she had ceased to believe that the servants were really -going to leave the house. It seemed too ridiculous a thing to -happen. She was possessed of no logic which could lead her to a -realization of the indubitable fact that there was no reason why -servants who could neither be paid nor provided with food should -remain in a place. The mild stimulation of the tea also gave rise -to the happy thought that she would not give them any references -if they "behaved badly". It did not present itself to her that -references from a house of cards which had ignominiously fallen -to pieces and which henceforth would represent only shady failure, -would be of no use. So she fell asleep. - - * * * * * - -When she awakened the lights were lighted in the streets and one -directly across the way threw its reflection into her bedroom. It -lit up the little table near which she had sat and the first thing -she saw was the pile of small account books. The next was that the -light which revealed them also fell brightly on the glass knob of -the door which led into Robert's room. - -She turned her eyes away quickly with a nervous shudder. She had -a horror of the nearness of Rob's room. If there had been another -part of the house in which she could have slept she would have fled -to it as soon as he was taken ill. But the house was too small to -have "parts". The tiny drawing-rooms piled themselves on top of the -dining-room, the "master's bedrooms" on top of the drawing-rooms, -and the nurseries and attics where Robin and the servants slept -one on the other at the top of the house. So she had been obliged -to stay and endure everything. Rob's cramped quarters had always -been full of smart boots and the smell of cigars and men's clothes. -He had moved about a good deal and had whistled and laughed and -sworn and grumbled. They had neither of them had bad tempers -so that they had not quarrelled with each other. They had talked -through the open door when they were dressing and they had invented -clever tricks which helped them to get out of money scrapes and -they had gossiped and made fun of people. And now the door was -locked and the room was a sort of horror. She could never think of -it without seeing the stiff hard figure on the bed, the straight -close line of the mouth and the white hard nose sharpened and -narrowed as Rob's had never been. Somehow she particularly could -not bear the recollection of the sharp unnatural modeling of -the hard, white nose. She could not BEAR it! She found herself -recalling it the moment she saw the light on the door handle and -she got up to move about and try to forget it. - -It was then that she went to the window and looked down into the -street, probably attracted by some slight noise though she was not -exactly aware that she had heard anything. - -She must have heard something however. Two four-wheeled cabs were -standing at the front door and the cabman assisted by Edward were -putting trunks on top of them. They were servants' trunks and -Cook was already inside the first cab which was filled with paper -parcels and odds and ends. Even as her mistress watched Emma got -in carrying a sedate band-box. She was the house-parlourmaid and -a sedate person. The first cab drove away as soon as its door was -closed and the cabman mounted to his seat. Louisa looking wholly -unprofessional without her nurse's cap and apron and wearing a -tailor-made navy blue costume and a hat with a wing in it, entered -the second cab followed by Edward intensely suggesting private -life and possible connection with a Bank. The second cab followed -the first and Feather having lost her breath looked after them as -they turned the corner of the street. - -When they were quite out of sight she turned back into the room. -The colour had left her skin, and her eyes were so wide stretched -and her face so drawn and pinched with abject terror that her -prettiness itself had left her. - -"They've gone--all of them!" she gasped. She stopped a moment, her -chest rising and falling. Then she added even more breathlessly, -"There's no one left in the house. It's--empty!" - -This was what was going on behind the cream-coloured front, the -white windows and green flower-boxes of the slice of a house as -motors and carriages passed it that evening on their way to dinner -parties and theatres, and later as the policeman walked up and down -slowly upon his beat. - -Inside a dim light in the small hall showed a remote corner where -on a peg above a decorative seat hung a man's hat of the highest -gloss and latest form; and on the next peg a smart evening overcoat. -They had belonged to Robert Gareth-Lawless who was dead and needed -such things no more. The same dim light showed the steep narrowness -of the white-railed staircase mounting into gruesome little corners -of shadows, while the miniature drawing-rooms illumined only from -the street seemed to await an explanation of dimness and chairs -unfilled, combined with unnatural silence. - -It would have been the silence of the tomb but that it was now and -then broken by something like a half smothered shriek followed by -a sort of moaning which made their way through the ceiling from -the room above. - -Feather had at first run up and down the room like a frightened -cat as she had done in the afternoon. Afterwards she had had -something like hysterics, falling face downward upon the carpet -and clutching her hair until it fell down. She was not a person to -be judged--she was one of the unexplained incidents of existence. -The hour has passed when the clearly moral can sum up the -responsibilities of a creature born apparently without brain, or -soul or courage. Those who aspire to such morals as are expressed -by fairness--mere fairness--are much given to hesitation. Courage -had never been demanded of Feather so far. She had none whatever -and now she only felt panic and resentment. She had no time to -be pathetic about Robert, being too much occupied with herself. -Robert was dead--she was alive--here--in an empty house with no -money and no servants. She suddenly and rather awfully realized -that she did not know a single person whom it would not be frantic -to expect anything from. - -Nobody had money enough for themselves, however rich they were. -The richer they were the more they needed. It was when this thought -came to her that she clutched her hands in her hair. The pretty -and smart women and agreeable more or less good looking men who -had chattered and laughed and made love in her drawing-rooms were -chattering, laughing and making love in other houses at this very -moment--or they were at the theatre applauding some fashionable -actor-manager. At this very moment--while she lay on the carpet in -the dark and every little room in the house had horror shut inside -its closed doors--particularly Robert's room which was so hideously -close to her own, and where there seemed still to lie moveless -on the bed, the stiff hard figure. It was when she recalled this -that the unnatural silence of the drawing-rooms was intruded upon -by the brief half-stifled hysteric shriek, and the moaning which -made its way through the ceiling. She felt almost as if the door -handle might turn and something stiff and cold try to come in. - -So the hours went on behind the cream-coloured outer walls and -the white windows and gay flower-boxes. And the street became more -and more silent--so silent at last that when the policeman walked -past on his beat his heavy regular footfall seemed loud and almost -resounding. - -To even vaguely put to herself any question involving action would not -have been within the scope of her mentality. Even when she began to -realize that she was beginning to feel faint for want of food she -did not dare to contemplate going downstairs to look for something -to eat. What did she know about downstairs? She had never there -and had paid no attention whatever to Louisa's complaints that the -kitchen and Servants' Hall were small and dark and inconvenient -and that cockroaches ran about. She had cheerfully accepted the -simple philosophy that London servants were used to these things -and if they did their work it did not really matter. But to go -out of one's room in the horrible stillness and creep downstairs, -having to turn up the gas as one went, and to face the basement -steps and cockroaches scuttling away, would be even more impossible -than to starve. She sat upon the floor, her hair tumbling about -her shoulders and her thin black dress crushed. - -"I'd give almost ANYTHING for a cup of coffee," she protested -feebly. "And there's no USE in ringing the bell!" - -Her mother ought to have come whether her father was ill or not. -He wasn't dead. Robert was dead and her mother ought to have come -so that whatever happened she would not be quite alone and SOMETHING -could be done for her. It was probably this tender thought of -her mother which brought back the recollection of her wedding day -and a certain wedding present she had received. It was a pretty -silver travelling flask and she remembered that it must be in her -dressing-bag now, and there was some cognac left in it. She got up -and went to the place where the bag was kept. Cognac raised your -spirits and made you go to sleep, and if she could sleep until -morning the house would not be so frightening by daylight--and -something might happen. The little flask was almost full. Neither -she nor Robert had cared much about cognac. She poured some into -a glass with water and drank it. - -Because she was unaccustomed to stimulant it made her feel quite -warm and in a few minutes she forgot that she had been hungry -and realized that she was not so frightened. It was such a relief -not to be terrified; it was as if a pain had stopped. She actually -picked up one or two of the account books and glanced at the -totals. If you couldn't pay bills you couldn't and nobody was -put in prison for debt in these days. Besides she would not have -been put in prison--Rob would--and Rob was dead. Something would -happen--something. - -As she began to arrange her hair for the night she remembered what -Cook had said about Lord Coombe. She has cried until she did not -look as lovely as usual, but after she had bathed her eyes with -cold rose-water they began to seem only shadowy and faintly flushed. -And her fine ash-gold hair was wonderful when it hung over each -shoulder in wide, soft plaits. She might be a school-girl of -fifteen. A delicate lacy night-gown was one of the most becoming -things one wore. It was a pity one couldn't wear them to parties. -There was nothing the least indecent about them. Millicent Hardwicke -had been photographed in one of hers and no one had suspected -what it was. Yes; she would send a little note to Coombe. She -knew Madame Helene had only let her have her beautiful mourning -because--. The things she had created were quite unique--thin, -gauzy, black, floating or clinging. She had been quite happy the -morning she gave Helene her orders. Tomorrow when she had slept -through the night and it was broad daylight again she would be -able to think of things to say in her letter to Lord Coombe. She -would have to be a little careful because he did not like things -to bore him.--Death and widows might--a little--at first. She had -heard him say once that he did not wish to regard himself in the -light of a charitable institution. It wouldn't do to frighten him -away. Perhaps if he continued coming to the house and seemed very -intimate the trades-people might be managed. - -She felt much less helpless and when she was ready for bed she -took a little more cognac. The flush had faded from her eye-lids -and bloomed in delicious rose on her cheeks. As she crept between -the cool sheets and nestled down on her pillow she had a delightful -sense of increasing comfort--comfort. What a beautiful thing it -was to go to sleep! - -And then she was disturbed--started out of the divine doze stealing -upon her--by a shrill prolonged wailing shriek! - -It came from the Night Nursery and at the moment it seemed almost -worse than anything which had occurred all through the day. It -brought everything back so hideously. She had of course forgotten -Robin again--and it was Robin! And Louisa had gone away with -Edward. She had perhaps put the child to sleep discreetly before -she went. And now she had wakened and was screaming. Feather had -heard that she was a child with a temper but by fair means or foul -Louisa had somehow managed to prevent her from being a nuisance. - -The shrieks shocked her into sitting upright in bed. Their -shrillness tearing through the utter soundlessness of the empty -house brought back all her terrors and set her heart beating at -a gallop. - -"I--I WON'T!" she protested, fairly with chattering teeth. "I won't! -I WON'T!" - -She had never done anything for the child since its birth, she did -not know how to do anything, she had not wanted to know. To reach -her now she would be obliged to go out in the dark--the gas-jet -she would have to light was actually close to the outer door of -Robert's bedroom--THE room! If she did not die of panic while she -was trying to light it she would have to make her way almost in -the dark up the steep crooked little staircase which led to the -nurseries. And the awful little creature's screams would be going -on all the time making the blackness and dead silence of the house -below more filled with horror by contrast--more shut off and at the -same time more likely to waken to some horror which was new. - -"I-I couldn't--even if I wanted to!" she quaked. "I daren't! -I daren't! I wouldn't do it--for A MILLION POUNDS?" And she flung -herself down again shuddering and burrowing her head under the -coverings and pillows she dragged over her ears to shut out the -sounds. - -The screams had taken on a more determined note and a fiercer -shrillness which the still house heard well and made the most of, -but they were so far deadened for Feather that she began beneath -her soft barrier to protest pantingly. - -"I shouldn't know what to do if I went. If no one goes near her -she'll cry herself to sleep. It's--it's only temper. Oh-h! what -a horrible wail! It--it sounds like a--a lost soul!" - -But she did not stir from the bed. She burrowed deeper under the -bed clothes and held the pillow closer to her ears. - - * * * * * - -It did sound like a lost soul at times. What panic possesses -a baby who cries in the darkness alone no one will ever know and -one may perhaps give thanks to whatever gods there be that the baby -itself does not remember. What awful woe of sudden unprotectedness -when life exists only through protection--what piteous panic in -the midst of black unmercifulness, inarticulate sound howsoever -wildly shrill can neither explain nor express. - -Robin knew only Louisa, warmth, food, sleep and waking. Or if she -knew more she was not yet aware that she did. She had reached the -age when she generally slept through the night. She might not have -disturbed her mother until daylight but Louisa had with forethought -given her an infant sleeping potion. It had disagreed with and -awakened her. She was uncomfortable and darkness enveloped her. -A cry or so and Louisa would ordinarily have come to her sleepy, -and rather out of temper, but knowing what to do. In this strange -night the normal cry of warning and demand produced no result. - -No one came. The discomfort continued--the blackness remained -black. The cries became shrieks--but nothing followed; the shrieks -developed into prolonged screams. No Louisa, no light, no milk. -The blackness drew in closer and became a thing to be fought -with wild little beating hands. Not a glimmer--not a rustle--not -a sound! Then came the cries of the lost soul--alone--alone--in -a black world of space in which there was not even another lost -soul. And then the panics of which there have been no records -and never will be, because if the panic stricken does not die in -mysterious convulsions he or she grows away from the memory of -a formless past--except that perhaps unexplained nightmares from -which one wakens quaking, with cold sweat, may vaguely repeat the -long hidden thing. - -What the child Robin knew in the dark perhaps the silent house -which echoed her might curiously have known. But the shrieks wore -themselves out at last and sobs came--awful little sobs shuddering -through the tiny breast and shaking the baby body. A baby's sobs -are unspeakable things--incredible things. Slower and slower -Robin's came--with small deep gasps and chokings between--and when -an uninfantile druglike sleep came, the bitter, hopeless, beaten -little sobs went on. - -But Feather's head was still burrowed under the soft protection -of the pillow. - - - - - - -CHAPTER V - - - - - -The morning was a brighter one than London usually indulges in -and the sun made its way into Feather's bedroom to the revealing -of its coral pink glow and comfort. She had always liked her bedroom -and had usually wakened in it to the sense of luxuriousness it -is possible a pet cat feels when it wakens to stretch itself on -a cushion with its saucer of cream awaiting it. - -But she did not awaken either to a sense of brightness or luxury -this morning. She had slept it was true, but once or twice when -the pillow had slipped aside she had found herself disturbed by -the far-off sound of the wailing of some little animal which had -caused her automatically and really scarcely consciously to replace -the pillow. It had only happened at long intervals because it is -Nature that an exhausted baby falls asleep when it is worn out. -Robin had probably slept almost as much as her mother. - -Feather staring at the pinkness around her reached at last, with -the assistance of a certain physical consciousness, a sort of -spiritless intention. - -"She's asleep now," she murmured. "I hope she won't waken for a -long time. I feel faint. I shall have to find something to eat--if -it's only biscuits." Then she lay and tried to remember what Cook -had said about her not starving. "She said there were a few things -left in the pantry and closets. Perhaps there's some condensed -milk. How do you mix it up? If she cries I might go and give her -some. It wouldn't be so awful now it's daylight." - -She felt shaky when she got out of bed and stood on her feet. She -had not had a maid in her girlhood so she could dress herself, -much as she detested to do it. After she had begun however she -could not help becoming rather interested because the dress she -had worn the day before had become crushed and she put on a fresh -one she had not worn at all. It was thin and soft also, and black -was quite startlingly becoming to her. She would wear this one -when Lord Coombe came, after she wrote to him. It was silly of -her not to have written before though she knew he had left town -after the funeral. Letters would be forwarded. - -"It will be quite bright in the dining-room now," she said -to encourage herself. "And Tonson once said that the only places -the sun came into below stairs were the pantry and kitchen and it -only stayed about an hour early in the morning. I must get there -as soon as I can." - -When she had so dressed herself that the reflection the mirror -gave back to her was of the nature of a slight physical stimulant -she opened her bedroom door and faced exploration of the deserted -house below with a quaking sense of the proportions of the -inevitable. She got down the narrow stairs casting a frightened -glance at the emptiness of the drawing-rooms which seemed to stare -at her as she passed them. There was sun in the dining-room and -when she opened the sideboard she found some wine in decanters and -some biscuits and even a few nuts and some raisins and oranges. -She put them on the table and sat down and ate some of them and -began to feel a little less shaky. - -If she had been allowed time to sit longer and digest and reflect -she might have reached the point of deciding on what she would write -to Lord Coombe. She had not the pen of a ready writer and it must -be thought over. But just when she was beginning to be conscious -of the pleasant warmth of the sun which shone on her shoulders from -the window, she was almost startled our of her chair by hearing -again stealing down the staircase from the upper regions that faint -wail like a little cat's. - -"Just the moment--the very MOMENT I begin to feel a little -quieted--and try to think--she begins again!" she cried out. "It's -worse then ANYTHING!" - -Large crystal tears ran down her face and upon the polished table. - -"I suppose she would starve to death if I didn't give her some -food--and then _I_ should be blamed! People would be horrid about -it. I've got nothing to eat myself." - -She must at any rate manage to stop the crying before she could -write to Coombe. She would be obliged to go down into the pantry -and look for some condensed milk. The creature had no teeth but -perhaps she could mumble a biscuit or a few raisins. If she could -be made to swallow a little port wine it might make her sleepy. The -sun was paying its brief morning visit to the kitchen and pantry -when she reached there, but a few cockroaches scuttled away before -her and made her utter a hysterical little scream. But there WAS -some condensed milk and there was a little warm water in a kettle -because the fire was not quite out. She imperfectly mixed a decoction -and filled a bottle which ought not to have been downstairs but -had been brought and left there by Louisa as a result of tender -moments with Edward. - -When she put the bottle and some biscuits and scraps of cold ham -on a tray because she could not carry them all in her hands, her -sense of outrage and despair made her almost sob. - -"I am just like a servant--carrying trays upstairs," she wept. -"I--I might be Edward--or--or Louisa." And her woe increased when -she added in the dining-room the port wine and nuts and raisins -and macaroons as viands which MIGHT somehow add to infant diet -and induce sleep. She was not sure of course--but she knew they -sucked things and liked sweets. - -A baby left unattended to scream itself to sleep and awakening -to scream itself to sleep again, does not present to a resentful -observer the flowerlike bloom and beauty of infancy. When Feather -carried her tray into the Night Nursery and found herself confronting -the disordered crib on which her offspring lay she felt the child -horrible to look at. Its face was disfigured and its eyes almost -closed. She trembled all over as she put the bottle to its mouth -and saw the fiercely hungry clutch of its hands. It was old enough -to clutch, and clutch it did, and suck furiously and starvingly--even -though actually forced to stop once or twice at first to give vent -to a thwarted remnant of a scream. - -Feather had only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in -Louisa's arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid -and brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked as they passed. - -"Who will give her a bath?" wailed Feather. "Who will change her -clothes? Someone must! Could a woman by the day do it? Cook said -I could get a woman by the day." - -And then she remembered that one got servants from agencies. And -where were the agencies? And even a woman "by the day" would demand -wages and food to eat. - -And then the front door bell rang. - -What could she do--what could she do? Go downstairs and open the -door herself and let everyone know! Let the ringer go on ringing -until he was tired and went away? She was indeed hard driven, -even though the wail had ceased as Robin clutched her bottle to -her breast and fed with frenzy. Let them go away--let them! And -then came the wild thought that it might be Something--the Something -which must happen when things were at their worst! And if it had -come and the house seemed to be empty! She did not walk down the -stairs, she ran. Her heart beat until she reached the door out of -breath and when she opened it stood their panting. - -The people who waited upon the steps were strangers. They were -very nice looking and quite young--a man and a woman very perfectly -dressed. The man took a piece of paper out of his pocketbook and -handed it to her with an agreeable apologetic courtesy. - -"I hope we have not called early enough to disturb you," he said. -"We waited until eleven but we are obliged to catch a train at -half past. It is an 'order to view' from Carson & Bayle." He added -this because Feather was staring at the paper. - -Carson & Bayle were the agents they had rented the house from. -It was Carson & Bayle's collector Robert had met on the threshold -and sworn at two days before he had been taken ill. They were -letting the house over her head and she would be turned out into -the street? - -The young man and woman finding themselves gazing at this exquisitely -pretty creature in exquisite mourning, felt themselves appallingly -embarrassed. She was plainly the widow Carson had spoken of. But -why did she open the door herself? And why did she look as if she -did not understand? Indignation against Carson & Bayle began to -stir the young man. - -"Beg pardon! So sorry! I am afraid we ought not to have come," he -protested. "Agents ought to know better. They said you were giving -up the house at once and we were afraid someone might take it." - -Feather held the "order to view" in her hand and snared at them -quite helplessly. - -"There--are no--no servants to show it to you," she said. "If you -could wait--a few days--perhaps--" - -She was so lovely and Madame Helene's filmy black creation was in -itself such an appeal, that the amiable young strangers gave up -at once. - -"Oh, certainly--certainly! Do excuse us! Carson and Bayle ought -not to have--! We are so sorry. Good morning, GOOD morning," they -gave forth in discomfited sympathy and politeness, and really -quite scurried away. - -Having shut the door on their retreat Feather stood shivering. - -"I am going to be turned out of the house! I shall have to live -in the street!" she thought. "Where shall I keep my clothes if I -live in the street!" - -Even she knew that she was thinking idiotically. Of course if -everything was taken from you and sold, you would have no clothes -at all, and wardrobes and drawers and closets would not matter. -The realization that scarcely anything in the house had been paid -for came home to her with a ghastly shock. She staggered upstairs -to the first drawing-room in which there was a silly pretty little -buhl writing table. - -She felt even more senseless when she sank into a chair before -it and drew a sheet of note-paper towards her. Her thoughts would -not connect themselves with each other and she could not imagine -what she ought to say in her letter to Coombe. In fact she seemed -to have no thoughts at all. She could only remember the things -which had happened, and she actually found she could write nothing -else. There seemed nothing else in the world. - -"Dear Lord Coombe," trailed tremulously over the page--"The house -is quite empty. The servants have gone away. I have no money. And -there is not any food. And I am going to be turned out into the -street--and the baby is crying because it is hungry." - -She stopped there, knowing it was not what she ought to say. And -as she stopped and looked at the words she began herself to wail -somewhat as Robin had wailed in the dark when she would not listen -or go to her. It was like a beggar's letter--a beggar's! Telling -him that she had no money and no food--and would be turned out for -unpaid rent. And that the baby was crying because it was starving! - -"It's a beggar's letter--just a beggar's," she cried out aloud -to the empty room. "And it's tru-ue!" Robin's wail itself had not -been more hopeless than hers was as she dropped her head and let -it lie on the buhl table. - -She was not however even to be allowed to let it lie there, for -the next instant there fell on her startled ear quite echoing -through the house another ring at the doorbell and two steely raps -on the smart brass knocker. It was merely because she did not know -what else to do, having just lost her wits entirely that she got -up and trailed down the staircase again. - -When she opened the door, Lord Coombe--the apotheosis of exquisite -fitness in form and perfect appointment as also of perfect -expression--was standing on the threshold. - - - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - - - - -If he had meant to speak he changed his mind after his first sight -of her. He merely came in and closed the door behind him. Curious -experiences with which life had provided him had added finish to -an innate aptness of observation, and a fine readiness in action. - -If she had been of another type he would have saved both her and -himself a scene and steered ably through the difficulties of the -situation towards a point where they could have met upon a normal -plane. A very pretty woman with whose affairs one has nothing -whatever to do, and whose pretty home has been the perfection of -modern smartness of custom, suddenly opening her front door in -the unexplained absence of a footman and confronting a visitor, -plainly upon the verge of hysteria, suggests the necessity of -promptness. - -But Feather gave him not a breath's space. She was in fact not -merely on the verge of her hysteria. She had gone farther. And -here he was. Oh, here he was! She fell down upon her knees and -actually clasped his immaculateness. - -"Oh, Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!" She said it three -times because he presented to her but the one idea. - -He did not drag himself away from her embrace but he distinctly -removed himself from it. - -"You must not fall upon your knees, Mrs. Lawless," he said. "Shall -we go into the drawing-room?" - -"I--was writing to you. I am starving--but it seemed too silly when -I wrote it. And it's true!" Her broken words were as senseless in -their sound as she had thought them when she saw them written. - -"Will you come up into the drawing-room and tell me exactly what -you mean," he said and he made her release him and stand upon her -feet. - -As the years had passed he had detached himself from so many -weaknesses and their sequelae of emotion that he had felt himself -a safely unreachable person. He was not young and he knew enough -of the disagreeableness of consequences to be adroit in keeping out -of the way of apparently harmless things which might be annoying. -Yet as he followed Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and watched her stumbling -up the stairs like a punished child he was aware that he was -abnormally in danger of pitying her as he did not wish to pity -people. The pity was also something apart from the feeling that it -was hideous that a creature so lovely, so shallow and so fragile -should have been caught in the great wheels of Life. - -He knew what he had come to talk to her about but he had really no -clear idea of what her circumstances actually were. Most people -had of course guessed that her husband had been living on the -edge of his resources and was accustomed to debt and duns, but a -lovely being greeting you by clasping your knees and talking about -"starving"--in this particular street in Mayfair, led one to ask -oneself what one was walking into. Feather herself had not known, -in fact neither had any other human being known, that there was -a special reason why he had drifted into seeming rather to allow -her about--why he had finally been counted among the frequenters -of the narrow house--and why he had seemed to watch her a good -deal sometimes with an expression of serious interest--sometimes -with an air of irritation, and sometimes with no expression at -all. But there existed this reason and this it was and this alone -which had caused him to appear upon her threshold and it had also -been the power which had prevented his disengaging himself with -more incisive finality when he found himself ridiculously clasped -about the knees as one who played the part of an obdurate parent -in a melodrama. - -Once in the familiar surroundings of her drawing-room her ash-gold -blondness and her black gauzy frock heightened all her effects -so extraordinarily that he frankly admitted to himself that she -possessed assets which would have modified most things to most -men. - -As for Feather, when she herself beheld him against the background -of the same intimate aspects, the effect of the sound of his voice, -the manner in which he sat down in a chair and a certain remotely -dim hint in the hue of his clothes and an almost concealed note of -some touch of colour which scarcely seemed to belong to anything -worn--were so reminiscent of the days which now seemed past forever -that she began to cry again. - -He received this with discreet lack of melodrama of tone. - -"You mustn't do that, Mrs. Lawless," he said, "or I shall burst -into tears myself. I am a sensitive creature." - -"Oh, DO say 'Feather' instead of Mrs. Lawless," she implored. -"Sometimes you said 'Feather'." - -"I will say it now," he answered, "if you will not weep. It is an -adorable name." - -"I feel as if I should never hear it again," she shuddered, trying -to dry her eyes. "It is all over!" - -"What is all over?" - -"This--!" turning a hopeless gaze upon the two tiny rooms crowded -with knick-knacks and nonsense. "The parties and the fun--and -everything in the world! I have only had some biscuits and raisins -to eat today--and the landlord is going to turn me out." - -It seemed almost too preposterous to quite credit that she was -uttering naked truth.--And yet--! After a second's gaze at her he -repeated what he had said below stairs. - -"Will you tell me exactly what you mean?" - -Then he sat still and listened while she poured it all forth. And -as he listened he realized that it was the mere every day fact that -they were sitting in the slice of a house with the cream-coloured -front and the great lady in her mansion on one side and the -millionaire and his splendours on the other, which peculiarly -added to a certain hint of gruesomeness in the situation. - -It was not necessary to add colour and desperation to the story. -Any effort Feather had made in that direction would only have -detracted from the nakedness of its stark facts. They were quite -enough in themselves in their normal inevitableness. Feather in -her pale and totally undignified panic presented the whole thing -with clearness which had--without being aided by her--an actual -dramatic value. This in spite of her mental dartings to and from -and dragging in of points and bits of scenes which were not connected -with each other. Only a brain whose processes of inclusion and -exclusion were final and rapid could have followed her. Coombe -watched her closely as she talked. No grief-stricken young widowed -loneliness and heart-break were the background of her anguish. She -was her own background and also her own foreground. The strength -of the fine body laid prone on the bed of the room she held in horror, -the white rigid face whose good looks had changed to something she -could not bear to remember, had no pathos which was not concerned -with the fact that Robert had amazingly and unnaturally failed -her by dying and leaving her nothing but unpaid bills. This truth -indeed made the situation more poignantly and finally squalid, -as she brought forth one detail after another. There were bills -which had been accumulating ever since they began their life in -the narrow house, there had been trades-people who had been juggled -with, promises made and supported by adroit tricks and cleverly -invented misrepresentations and lies which neither of the pair had -felt any compunctions about and had indeed laughed over. Coombe -saw it all though he also saw that Feather did not know all she was -telling him. He could realize the gradually increasing pressure -and anger at tricks which betrayed themselves, and the gathering -determination on the part of the creditors to end the matter in the -only way in which it could be ended. It had come to this before -Robert's illness, and Feather herself had heard of fierce interviews -and had seen threatening letters, but she had not believed they -could mean all they implied. Since things had been allowed to go on -so long she felt that they would surely go on longer in the same -way. There had been some serious threatening about the rent and -the unpaid-for furniture. Robert's supporting idea had been that -he might perhaps "get something out of Lawdor who wouldn't enjoy -being the relation of a fellow who was turned into the street!" - -"He ought to have done something," Feather complained. "Robert would -have been Lord Lawdor himself if his uncle had died before he had -all those disgusting children." - -She was not aware that Coombe frequently refrained from saying -things to her--but occasionally allowed himself NOT to refrain. -He did not refrain now from making a simple comment. - -"But he is extremely robust and he has the children. Six stalwart -boys and a stalwart girl. Family feeling has apparently gone out -of fashion." - -As she wandered on with her story he mentally felt himself actually -dragged into the shrimp-pink bedroom and standing an onlooker when -the footman outside the door "did not know" where Tonson had gone. -For a moment he felt conscious of the presence of some scent which -would have been sure to exhale itself from draperies and wardrobe. -He saw Cook put the account books on the small table, he heard her, -he also comprehended her. And Feather at the window breathlessly -watching the two cabs with the servants' trunks on top, and -the servants respectably unprofessional in attire and going away -quietly without an unpractical compunction--he saw these also -and comprehended knowing exactly why compunctions had no part in -latter-day domestic arrangements. Why should they? - -When Feather reached the point where it became necessary to refer -to Robin some fortunate memory of Alice's past warnings caused her -to feel--quite suddenly--that certain details might be eliminated. - -"She cried a little at first," she said, "but she fell asleep -afterwards. I was glad she did because I was afraid to go to her -in the dark." - -"Was she in the dark?" - -"I think so. Perhaps Louisa taught her to sleep without a light. -There was none when I took her some condensed milk this morning. -There was only c-con-d-densed milk to give her." - -She shed tears and choked as she described her journey into the -lower regions and the cockroaches scuttling away before her into -their hiding-places. - -"I MUST have a nurse! I MUST have one!" she almost sniffed. "Someone -must change her clothes and give her a bath!" - -"You can't?" Coombe said. - -"I!" dropping her handkerchief. "How--how CAN I?" - -"I don't know," he answered and picked up the handkerchief with -an aloof grace of manner. - -It was really Robin who was for Feather the breaking-point. - -He thought she was in danger of flinging herself upon him again. -She caught at his arm and her eyes of larkspur blue were actually -wild. - -"Don't you see where I am! How there is nothing and nobody--Don't -you SEE?" - -"Yes, I see," he answered. "You are quite right. There is nothing -AND nobody. I have been to Lawdor myself." - -"You have been to TALK to him?" - -"Yesterday. That was my reason for coming here. He will not see -you or be written to. He says he knows better than to begin that sort -of thing. It may be that family feeling has not the vogue it once -had, but you may recall that your husband infuriated him years -ago. Also England is a less certain quantity than it once was--and -the man has a family. He will allow you a hundred a year but there -he draws the line." - -"A hundred a year!" Feather breathed. From her delicate shoulders -hung floating scarf-like sleeves of black transparency and she lifted -one of them and held it out like a night moth's wing--"This cost -forty pounds," she said, her voice quite faint and low. "A good -nurse would cost forty! A cook--and a footman and a maid--and a -coachman--and the brougham--I don't know how much they would cost. -Oh-h!" - -She drooped forward upon her sofa and laid face downward on a -cushion--slim, exquisite in line, lost in despair. - -The effect produced was that she gave herself into his hands. He -felt as well as saw it and considered. She had no suggestion to -offer, no reserve. There she was. - -"It is an incredible sort of situation," he said in an even, -low-pitched tone rather as if he were thinking aloud, "but it is -baldly real. It is actually simple. In a street in Mayfair a woman -and child might--" He hesitated a second and a wailed word came -forth from the cushion. - -"Starve!" - -He moved slightly and continued. - -"Since their bills have not been paid the trades-people will not -send in food. Servants will not stay in a house where they are -not fed and receive no wages. No landlord will allow a tenant to -occupy his property unless he pays rent. It may sound inhuman--but -it is only human." - -The cushion in which Feather's face was buried retained a faint -scent of Robert's cigar smoke and the fragrance brought back to her -things she had heard him say dispassionately about Lord Coombe as -well as about other men. He had not been a puritanic or condemnatory -person. She seemed to see herself groveling again on the floor -of her bedroom and to feel the darkness and silence through which -she had not dared to go to Robin. - -Not another night like that! No! No! - -"You must go to Jersey to your mother and father," Coombe said. -"A hundred a year will help you there in your own home." - -Then she sat upright and there was something in her lovely little -countenance he had never seen before. It was actually determination. - -"I have heard," she said, "of poor girls who were driven--by -starvation to--to go on the streets. I--would go ANYWHERE before -I would go back there." - -"Anywhere!" he repeated, his own countenance expressing--or rather -refusing to express something as new as the thing he had seen in -her own. - -"Anywhere!" she cried and then she did what he had thought her on -the verge of doing a few minutes earlier--she fell at his feet and -embraced his knees. She clung to him, she sobbed, her pretty hair -loosened itself and fell about her in wild but enchanting disorder. - -"Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe!" she cried as -she had cried in the hall. - -He rose and endeavoured to disengage himself as he had done before. -This time with less success because she would not let him go. He -had the greatest possible objection to scenes. - -"Mrs. Lawless--Feather--I beg you will get up," he said. - -But she had reached the point of not caring what happened if she -could keep him. He was a gentleman--he had everything in the world. -What did it matter? - -"I have no one but you and--and you always seemed to like me, I -would do anything--ANYONE asked me, if they would take care of me. -I have always liked you very much--and I did amuse you--didn't I? -You liked to come here." - -There was something poignant about her delicate distraught loveliness -and, in the remoteness of his being, a shuddering knowledge that -it was quite true that she would do anything for any man who would -take care of her, produced an effect on him nothing else would -have produced. Also a fantastic and finely ironic vision of Joseph -and Potiphar's wife rose before him and the vision of himself as -Joseph irked a certain complexness of his mentality. Poignant as -the thing was in its modern way, it was also faintly ridiculous. - -Then Robin awakened and shrieked again. The sound which had gained -strength through long sleep and also through added discomfort -quite rang through the house. What that sound added to the moment -he himself would not have been able to explain until long afterwards. -But it singularly and impellingly added. - -"Listen!" panted Feather. "She has begun again. And there is no -one to go to her." - -"Get up, Mrs. Lawless," he said. "Do I understand that you are -willing that _I_ arrange this for you!" - -He helped her to her feet. - -"Do you mean--really!" she faltered. "Will you--will you--?" - -Her uplifted eyes were like a young angel's brimming with crystal -drops which slipped--as a child's tears slip--down her cheeks. -She clasped her hands in exquisite appeal. He stood for a moment -quite still, his mind fled far away and he forgot where he was. -And because of this the little simpleton's shallow discretion -deserted her. - -"If you were a--a marrying man--?" she said foolishly--almost in -a whisper. - -He recovered himself. - -"I am not," with a finality which cut as cleanly as a surgical -knife. - -Something which was not the words was of a succinctness which -filled her with new terror. - -"I--I know!" she whimpered, "I only said if you were!" - -"If I were--in this instance--it would make no difference." He saw -the kind of slippery silliness he was dealing with and what it -might transform itself into if allowed a loophole. "There must be -no mistakes." - -In her fright she saw him for a moment more distinctly than she -had ever seen him before and hideous dread beset her lest she had -blundered fatally. - -"There shall be none," she gasped. "I always knew. There shall be -none at all." - -"Do you know what you are asking me?" he inquired. - -"Yes, yes--I'm not a girl, you know. I've been married. I won't -go home. I can't starve or live in awful lodgings. SOMEBODY must -save me!" - -"Do you know what people will say?" his steady voice was slightly -lower. - -"It won't be said to me." Rather wildly. "Nobody minds--really." - -He ceased altogether to look serious. He smiled with the light -detached air his world was most familiar with. - -"No--they don't really," he answered. "I had, however, a slight -preference for knowing whether you would or not. You flatter me -by intimating that you would not." - -He knew that if he had held out an arm she would have fallen upon -his breast and wept there, but he was not at the moment in the mood -to hold out an arm. He merely touched hers with a light pressure. - -"Let us sit down and talk it over," he suggested. - -A hansom drove up to the door and stopped before he had time to -seat himself. Hearing it he went to the window and saw a stout -businesslike looking man get out, accompanied by an attendant. -There followed a loud, authoritative ringing of the bell and an -equally authoritative rap of the knocker. This repeated itself. -Feather, who had run to the window and caught sight of the stout -man, clutched his sleeve. - -"It's the agent we took the house from. We always said we were -out. It's either Carson or Bayle. I don't know which." - -Coombe walked toward the staircase. - -"You can't open the door!" she shrilled. - -"He has doubtless come prepared to open it himself." he answered -and proceeded at leisure down the narrow stairway. - -The caller had come prepared. By the time Coombe stood in the hall -a latchkey was put in the keyhole and, being turned, the door -opened to let in Carson--or Bayle--who entered with an air of -angered determination, followed by his young man. - -The physical presence of the Head of the House of Coombe was always -described as a subtly impressive one. Several centuries of rather -careful breeding had resulted in his seeming to represent things -by silent implication. A man who has never found the necessity of -explaining or excusing himself inevitably presents a front wholly -unsuggestive of uncertainty. The front Coombe presented merely -awaited explanations from others. - -Carson--or Bayle--had doubtless contemplated seeing a frightened -servant trying to prepare a stammering obvious lie. He confronted -a tall, thin man about whom--even if his clothes had been totally -different--there could be no mistake. He stood awaiting an apology -so evidently that Carson--or Bayle--began to stammer himself -even before he had time to dismiss from his voice the suggestion -of bluster. It would have irritated Coombe immensely if he had -known that he--and a certain overcoat--had been once pointed out -to the man at Sandown and that--in consequence of the overcoat--he -vaguely recognized him. - -"I--I beg pardon," he began. - -"Quite so," said Coombe. - -"Some tenants came to look at the house this morning. They had an -order to view from us. They were sent away, my lord--and decline -to come back. The rent has not been paid since the first half -year. There is no one now who can even PRETEND it's going to be -paid. Some step had to be taken." - -"Quite so," said Coombe. "Suppose you step into the dining-room." - -He led the pair into the room and pointed to chairs, but neither -the agent nor his attendant was calm enough to sit down. - -Coombe merely stood and explained himself. - -"I quite understand," he said. "You are entirely within your -rights. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is, naturally, not able to attend to -business. For the present--as a friend of her late husband's--I -will arrange matters for her. I am Lord Coombe. She does not wish -to give up the house. Don't send any more possible tenants. Call -at Coombe House in an hour and I will give you a cheque." - -There were a few awkward apologetic moments and then the front door -opened and shut, the hansom jingled away and Coombe returned to -the drawing-room. Robin was still shrieking. - -"She wants some more condensed milk," he said. "Don't be frightened. -Go and give her some. I know an elderly woman who understands -children. She was a nurse some years ago. I will send her here at -once. Kindly give me the account books. My housekeeper will send -you some servants. The trades-people will come for orders." - -Feather was staring at him. - -"W-will they?" she stammered. "W-will everything--?" - -"Yes--everything," he answered. "Don't be frightened. Go upstairs -and try to stop her. I must go now. I never heard a creature yell -with such fury." - -She turned away and went towards the second flight of stairs with -a rather dazed air. She had passed through a rather tremendous crisis -and she WAS dazed. He made her feel so. She had never understood -him for a moment and she did not understand him now--but then she -never did understand people and the whole situation was a new one -to her. If she had not been driven to the wall she would have been -quite as respectable as she knew how to be. - -Coombe called a hansom and drove home, thinking of many things -and looking even more than usually detached. He had remarked the -facial expression of the short and stout man as he had got into -his cab and he was turning over mentally his own exact knowledge of -the views the business mind would have held and what the business -countenance would have decently covered if he--Coombe--had explained -in detail that he was so far--in this particular case--an entirely -blameless character. - - - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - - - - -The slice of a house from that time forward presented the external -aspect to which the inhabitants of the narrow and fashionable -street and those who passed through it had been accustomed. Such -individuals as had anticipated beholding at some early day notices -conspicuously placed announcing "Sale by Auction. Elegant Modern -Furniture" were vaguely puzzled as well as surprised by the fact -that no such notices appeared even inconspicuously. Also there -did not draw up before the door--even as the weeks went on--huge -and heavy removal vans with their resultant litter, their final -note of farewell a "To Let" in the front windows. - -On the contrary, the florist came and refilled the window boxes -with an admirable arrangement of fresh flowers; new and even more -correct servants were to be seen ascending and descending the area -step; a young footman quite as smart as the departed Edward opened -the front door and attended Mrs. Gareth-Lawless to her perfect -little brougham. The trades-people appeared promptly every day and -were obsequiously respectful in manner. Evidently the household -had not disintegrated as a result of the death of Mr. Gareth-Lawless. - -As it became an established fact that the household had not fallen to -pieces its frequenters gradually returned to it, wearing indeed -the air of people who had never really remained away from it. There -had been natural reasons enough for considerate absence from a -house of bereavement and a desolate widow upon whose grief it would -have been indelicate to intrude. As Feather herself had realized, -the circle of her intimates was not formed of those who could -readily adjust themselves to entirely changed circumstances. If -you dance on a tight rope and the rope is unexpectedly withdrawn, -where are you? You cannot continue dancing until the rope is -restrung. - -The rope, however, being apparently made absolutely secure, it -was not long before the dancing began again. Feather's mourning, -wonderfully shading itself from month to month, was the joy of all -beholders. Madame Helene treated her as a star gleaming through -gradually dispersing clouds. Her circle watched her with secretly -humorous interest as each fine veil of dimness was withdrawn. - -"The things she wears are priceless," was said amiably in her own -drawing-room. "Where does she get them? Figure to yourself Lawdor -paying the bills." - -"She gets them from Helene," said a long thin young man with -a rather good-looking narrow face and dark eyes, peering through -pince nez, "But I couldn't." - -In places where entertainment as a means of existence proceed so -to speak, fast and furiously, questions of taste are not dwelt -upon at leisure. You need not hesitate before saying anything you -liked in any one's drawing-room so long as it was amusing enough -to make somebody--if not everybody--laugh. Feather had made people -laugh in the same fashion in the past. The persons she most admired -were always making sly little impudent comments and suggestions, -and the thwarted years on the island of Jersey had, in her case, -resulted in an almost hectic desire to keep pace. Her efforts had -usually been successes because Nature's self had provided her with -the manner of a silly pretty child who did not know how far she -went. Shouts of laughter had often greeted her, and the first time -she had for a moment doubted her prowess was on an occasion when -she had caught a glimpse of Coombe who stared at her with an -expression which she would--just for one second--have felt might -be horror, if she had not been so sure it couldn't be, and must of -course be something else--one of the things nobody ever understood -in him. - -By the time the softly swathing veils of vaporous darkness were -withdrawn, and the tight rope assuring everyone of its permanent -security became a trusted support, Feather at her crowded little -parties and at other people's bigger ones did not remain wholly -unaware of the probability that even people who rather liked -her made, among themselves, more or less witty comments upon her -improved fortunes. They were improved greatly. Bills were paid, -trades-people were polite, servants were respectful; she had no -need to invent excuses and lies. She and Robert had always kept out -of the way of stodgy, critical people, so they had been intimate -with none of the punctilious who might have withdrawn themselves -from a condition of things they chose to disapprove: accordingly, -she found no gaps in her circle. Those who had formed the habit of -amusing themselves at her house were as ready as before to amuse -themselves again. - -The fact remained, however,--curiously, perhaps, in connection with -the usual slightness of all impressions made on her--that there -was a memory which never wholly left her. Even when she tried to -force it so far into the background of her existence that it might -almost be counted as forgotten, it had a trick of rising before -her. It was the memory of the empty house as its emptiness had -struck to the centre of her being when she had turned from her -bedroom window after watching the servants drive away in their -cabs. It was also the memory of the hours which had followed--the -night in which nobody had been in any of the rooms--no one had gone -up or down the stairs--when all had seemed dark and hollow--except -the Night Nursery where Robin screamed, and her own room where she -herself cowered under the bed clothes and pulled the pillow over -her head. But though the picture would not let itself be blotted -out, its effect was rather to intensify her sense of relief because -she had slipped so safely from under the wheels of destiny. - -"Sometimes," she revealed artlessly to Coombe, "while I am driving -in the park on a fine afternoon when every one is out and the -dresses look like the flower beds, I let myself remember it just -to make myself enjoy everything more by contrast." - -The elderly woman who had been a nurse in her youth and who had -been sent by Lord Coombe temporarily to replace Louisa had not -remained long in charge of Robin. She was not young and smart -enough for a house on the right side of the right street, and -Feather found a young person who looked exactly as she should when -she pushed the child's carriage before her around the square. - -The square--out of which the right street branches--and the "Gardens" -in the middle of the square to which only privileged persons were -admitted by private key, the basement kitchen and Servants' Hall, -and the two top floor nurseries represented the world to the -child Robin for some years. When she was old enough to walk in the -street she was led by the hand over the ground she had travelled -daily in her baby carriage. Her first memory of things was a memory -of standing on the gravel path in the Square Gardens and watching -some sparrows quarrel while Andrews, her nurse, sat on a bench -with another nurse and talked in low tones. They were talking in -a way Robin always connected with servants and which she naturally -accepted as being the method of expression of their species--much -as she accepted the mewing of cats and the barking of dogs. As -she grew older, she reached the stage of knowing that they were -generally saying things they did not wish her to hear. - -She liked watching the sparrows in the Gardens because she liked -watching sparrows at all times. They were the only friends she had -ever known, though she was not old enough to call them friends, -or to know what friends meant. Andrews had taught her, by means -of a system of her own, to know better than to cry or to make any -protesting noise when she was left alone in her ugly small nursery. -Andrews' idea of her duties did not involve boring herself to death -by sitting in a room on the top floor when livelier entertainment -awaited her in the basement where the cook was a woman of wide -experience, the housemaid a young person who had lived in gay -country houses, and the footman at once a young man of spirit -and humour. So Robin spent many hours of the day--taking them -altogether--quite by herself. She might have more potently resented -her isolations if she had ever known any other condition than -that of a child in whom no one was in the least interested and -in whom "being good" could only mean being passive under neglect -and calling no one's attention to the fact that she wanted anything -from anybody. As a bird born in captivity lives in its cage and -perhaps believes it to be the world, Robin lived in her nursery -and knew every square inch of it with a deadly if unconscious -sense of distaste and fatigue. She was put to bed and taken up, -she was fed and dressed in it, and once a day--twice perhaps if -Andrews chose--she was taken out of it downstairs and into the -street. That was all. And that was why she liked the sparrows so -much. - -And sparrows are worth watching if you live in a nursery where -nothing ever happens and where, when you look out, you are so high -up that it is not easy to see the people in the world below, in -addition to which it seems nearly always raining. Robin used to -watch them hopping about on the slate roofs of the homes on the -other side of the street. They fluttered their wings, they picked -up straws and carried them away. She thought they must have houses -of their own among the chimneys--in places she could not see. She -fancied it would be nice to hop about on the top of a roof oneself -if one were not at all afraid of falling. She liked the chippering -and chirping sounds the birds made became it sounded like talking -and laughing--like the talking and laughing she sometimes wakened -out of her sleep to lie and listen to when the Lady Downstairs had -a party. She often wondered what the people were doing because it -sounded as if they liked doing it very much. - -Sometimes when it had rained two or three days she had a feeling -which made her begin to cry to herself--but not aloud. She had -once had a little black and blue mark on her arm for a week where -Andrews had pinched her because she had cried loud enough to be -heard. It had seemed to her that Andrews twisted and pinched the -bit of flesh for five minutes without letting it go and she had -held her large hand over her mouth as she did it. - -"Now you keep that in your mind," she had said when she had finished -and Robin had almost choked in her awful little struggle to keep -back all sound. - -The one thing Andrews was surest of was that nobody would come -upstairs to the Nursery to inquire the meaning of any cries which -were not unearthly enough to disturb the household. So it was easy -to regulate the existence of her charge in such a manner as best -suited herself. - -"Just give her food enough and keep her from making silly noises -when she wants what she doesn't get," said Andrews to her companions -below stairs. "That one in the drawing-room isn't going to interfere -with the Nursery. Not her! I know my business and I know how to -manage her kind. I go to her politely now and then and ask her -permission to buy things from Best's or Liberty's or some other -good place. She always stares a minute when I begin, as if she -scarcely understood what I was talking about and then she says -'Oh, yes, I suppose she must have them.' And I go and get them. I -keep her as well dressed as any child in Mayfair. And she's been -a beauty since she was a year old so she looks first rate when I -wheel her up and down the street, so the people can see she's well -taken care of and not kept hidden away. No one can complain of her -looks and nobody is bothered with her. That's all that's wanted -of ME. I get good wages and I get them regular. I don't turn up -my nose at a place like this, whatever the outside talk is. Who -cares in these days anyway? Fashionable people's broader minded -than they used to be. In Queen Victoria's young days they tell -me servants were no class that didn't live in families where they -kept the commandments." - -"Fat lot the commandments give any one trouble in these times," -said Jennings, the footman, who was a wit. "There's one of 'em I -could mention that's been broken till there's no bits of it left -to keep. If I smashed that plate until it was powder it'd have -to be swept into the dust din. That's what happened to one or two -commandments in particular." - -"Well," remarked Mrs. Blayne, the cook, "she don't interfere and -he pays the bills prompt. That'll do ME instead of commandments. -If you'll believe me, my mother told me that in them Queen Victoria -days ladies used to inquire about cold meat and ask what was done -with the dripping. Civilisation's gone beyond that--commandments -or no commandments." - -"He's precious particular about bills being paid," volunteered -Jennings, with the air of a man of the world. "I heard him having -a row with her one day about some bills she hadn't paid. She'd -spent the money for some nonsense and he was pretty stiff in that -queer way of his. Quite right he was too. I'd have been the same -myself," pulling up his collar and stretching his neck in a manner -indicating exact knowledge of the natural sentiments of a Marquis -when justly annoyed. "What he intimated was that if them bills -was not paid with the money that was meant to pay them, the -money wouldn't be forthcoming the next time." Jennings was rather -pleased by the word "forthcoming" and therefore he repeated it -with emphasis, "It wouldn't be FORTHCOMING." - -"That'd frighten her," was Andrews' succinct observation. - -"It did!" said Jennings. "She'd have gone in hysterics if he hadn't -kept her down. He's got a way with him, Coombe has." - -Andrews laughed, a brief, dry laugh. - -"Do you know what the child calls her?" she said. "She calls her -the Lady Downstairs. She's got a sort of fancy for her and tries -to get peeps at her when we go out. I notice she always cranes -her little neck if we pass a room she might chance to be in. It's -her pretty clothes and her laughing that does it. Children's drawn -by bright colours and noise that sounds merry." - -"It's my belief the child doesn't know she IS her mother!" said -Mrs. Blayne as she opened an oven door to look at some rolls. - -"It's my belief that if I told her she was she wouldn't know what -the word meant. It was me she got the name from," Andrews still -laughed as she explained. "I used to tell her about the Lady -Downstairs would hear if she made a noise, or I'd say I'd let her -have a peep at the Lady Downstairs if she was very good. I saw -she had a kind of awe of her though she liked her so much, so it -was a good way of managing her. You mayn't believe me but for -a good bit I didn't take in that she didn't know there was such -things as mothers and, when I did take it in, I saw there wasn't -any use in trying to explain. She wouldn't have understood." - -"How would you go about to explain a mother, anyway?" suggested -Jennings. "I'd have to say that she was the person that had the -right to slap your head if you didn't do what she told you." - -"I'd have to say that she was the woman that could keep you slaving -at kitchen maid's work fifteen hours a day," said Mrs. Blayne; -"My mother was cook in a big house and trained me under her." - -"I never had one," said Andrews stiffly. The truth was that she -had taken care of eight infant brothers and sisters, while her -maternal parent slept raucously under the influence of beer when -she was not quarrelling with her offspring. - -Jane, the housemaid, had passed a not uncomfortable childhood in -the country and was perhaps of a soft nature. - -"I'd say that a mother's the one that you belong to and that's -fond of you, even if she does keep you straight," she put in. - -"Her mother isn't fond of her and doesn't keep herself straight," -said Jennings. "So that wouldn't do." - -"And she doesn't slap her head or teach her to do kitchen maid's -work," put in Mrs. Blayne, "so yours is no use, Mr. Jennings, and -neither is mine. Miss Andrews 'll have to cook up an explanation -of her own herself when she finds she has to." - -"She can get it out of a Drury Lane melodrama," said Jennings, with -great humour. "You'll have to sit down some night, Miss Andrews, -and say, 'The time has come, me chee-ild, when I must tell you -All'." - -In this manner were Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and her maternal affections -discussed below stairs. The interesting fact remained that to Robin -the Lady Downstairs was merely a radiant and beautiful being who -floated through certain rooms laughing or chattering like a bird, -and always wearing pretty clothes, which were different each time -one beheld her. Sometimes one might catch a glimpse of her through -a door, or, if one pressed one's face against the window pane at -the right moment, she might get into her bright little carnage in -the street below and, after Jennings had shut its door, she might -be seen to give a lovely flutter to her clothes as she settled -back against the richly dark blue cushions. - -It is a somewhat portentous thing to realize that a newborn -human creature can only know what it is taught. The teaching may -be conscious or unconscious, intelligent or idiotic, exquisite -or brutal. The images presented by those surrounding it, as its -perceptions awaken day by day, are those which record themselves -on its soul, its brain, its physical being which is its sole means -of expressing, during physical life, all it has learned. That -which automatically becomes the Law at the dawning of newborn -consciousness remains, to its understanding, the Law of Being, -the Law of the Universe. To the cautious of responsibility this -at times wears the aspect of an awesome thing, suggesting, however -remotely, that it might seem well, perhaps, to remove the shoes -from one's feet, as it were, and tread with deliberate and delicate -considering of one's steps, as do the reverently courteous even -on the approaching of an unknown altar. - -This being acknowledged a scientific, as well as a spiritual truth, -there remains no mystery in the fact that Robin at six years -old--when she watched the sparrows in the Square Gardens--did not -know the name of the feeling which had grown within her as a result -of her pleasure in the chance glimpses of the Lady Downstairs. It -was a feeling which made her eager to see her or anything which -belonged to her; it made her strain her child ears to catch the -sound of her voice; it made her long to hear Andrews or the other -servants speak of her, and yet much too shy to dare to ask any -questions. She had found a place on the staircase leading to the -Nursery, where, by squeezing against the balustrade, she could -sometimes see the Lady pass in and out of her pink bedroom. She -used to sit on a step and peer between the railing with beating -heart. Sometimes, after she had been put to bed for the night and -Andrews was safely entertained downstairs, Robin would be awakened -from her first sleep by sounds in the room below and would creep -out of bed and down to her special step and, crouching in a hectic -joy, would see the Lady come out with sparkling things in her hair -and round her lovely, very bare white neck and arms, all swathed -in tints and draperies which made her seem a vision of colour and -light. She was so radiant a thing that often the child drew in -her breath with a sound like a little sob of ecstasy, and her lip -trembled as if she were going to cry. But she did not know that what -she felt was the yearning of a thing called love--a quite simple -and natural common thing of which she had no reason for having -any personal knowledge. As she was unaware of mothers, so she was -unaware of affection, of which Andrews would have felt it to be -superfluously sentimental to talk to her. - -On the very rare occasions when the Lady Downstairs appeared on -the threshold of the Day Nursery, Robin--always having been freshly -dressed in one of her nicest frocks--stood and stared with immense -startled eyes and answered in a whisper the banal little questions -put to her. The Lady appeared at such rare intervals and remained -poised upon the threshold like a tropic plumaged bird for moments -so brief, that there never was time to do more than lose breath and -gaze as at a sudden vision. Why she came--when she did come--Robin -did not understand. She evidently did not belong to the small, -dingy nurseries which grew shabbier every year as they grew steadily -more grimy under the persistent London soot and fogs. - -Feather always held up her draperies when she came. She would not -have come at all but for the fact that she had once or twice been -asked if the child was growing pretty, and it would have seemed -absurd to admit that she never saw her at all. - -"I think she's rather pretty," she said downstairs. "She's round -and she has a bright colour--almost too bright, and her eyes are -round too. She's either rather stupid or she's shy--and one's as -bad as the other. She's a child that stares." - -If, when Andrews had taken her into the Gardens, she had played -with other children, Robin would no doubt have learned something -of the existence and normal attitude of mothers through the -mere accident of childish chatter, but it somehow happened that -she never formed relations with the charges of other nurses. She -took it for granted for some time that this was because Andrews -had laid down some mysterious law. Andrews did not seem to form -acquaintances herself. Sometimes she sat on a bench and talked -a little to another nurse, but she seldom sat twice with the same -person. It was indeed generally her custom to sit alone, crocheting -or sewing, with a rather lofty and exclusive air and to call Robin -back to her side if she saw her slowly edging towards some other -child. - -"My rule is to keep myself to myself," she said in the kitchen. -"And to look as if I was the one that would turn up noses, if -noses was to be turned up. There's those that would snatch away -their children if I let Robin begin to make up to them. Some -wouldn't, of course, but I'm not going to run risks. I'm going to -save my own pride." - -But one morning when Robin was watching her sparrows, a nurse, -who was an old acquaintance, surprised Andrews by appearing in the -Gardens with two little girls in her charge. They were children -of nine and eleven and quite sufficient for themselves, apart from -the fact that they regarded Robin as a baby and, therefore, took -no notice of her. They began playing with skipping ropes, which -left their nurse free to engage in delighted conversation with -Andrews. - -It was conversation so delightful that Robin was forgotten, even -to the extent of being allowed to follow her sparrows round a -clump of shrubbery and, therefore, out of Andrews' sight, though -she was only a few yards away. The sparrows this morning were -quarrelsome and suddenly engaged in a fight, pecking each other -furiously, beating their wings and uttering shrill, protesting -chipperings. Robin did not quite understand what they were doing -and stood watching them with spellbound interest. - -It was while she watched them that she heard footsteps on the -gravel walk which stopped near her and made her look up to see who -was at her side. A big boy in Highland kilts and bonnet and sporan -was standing by her, and she found herself staring into a pair of -handsome deep blue eyes, blue like the waters of a hillside tarn. -They were wide, glowing, friendly eyes and none like them had ever -looked into hers before. He seemed to her to be a very big boy -indeed, and in fact, he was unusually tall and broad for his age, -but he was only eight years old and a simple enough child pagan. -Robin's heart began to beat as it did when she watched the Lady -Downstairs, but there was something different in the beating. It -was something which made her red mouth spread and curve itself into -a smile which showed all her small teeth. - -So they stood and stared at each other and for some strange, strange -reason--created, perhaps, with the creating of Man and still hidden -among the deep secrets of the Universe--they were drawn to each -other--wanted each other--knew each other. Their advances were, of -course, of the most primitive--as primitive and as much a matter -of instinct as the nosing and sniffing of young animals. He spread -and curved his red mouth and showed the healthy whiteness of his -own handsome teeth as she had shown her smaller ones. Then he began -to run and prance round in a circle, capering like a Shetland pony -to exhibit at once his friendliness and his prowess. He tossed his -curled head and laughed to make her laugh also, and she not only -laughed but clapped her hands. He was more beautiful than anything -she had ever seen before in her life, and he was plainly trying -to please her. No child creature had ever done anything like it -before, because no child creature had ever been allowed by Andrews -to make friends with her. He, on his part, was only doing what -any other little boy animal would have done--expressing his child -masculinity by "showing off" before a little female. But to this -little female it had never happened before. - -It was all beautifully elemental. As does not too often happen, -two souls as well as two bodies were drawn towards each other by -the Magnet of Being. When he had exhibited himself for a minute -or two he came back to her, breathing fast and glowing. - -"My pony in Scotland does that. His name is Chieftain. He is a -Shetland pony and he is only that high," he measured forty inches -from the ground. "I'm called Donal. What are you called?" - -"Robin," she answered, her lips and voice trembling with joy. He -was so beautiful. His hair was bright and curly. His broad forehead -was clear white where he had pushed back his bonnet with the eagle -feather standing upright on it. His strong legs and knees were -white between his tartan kilt and his rolled back stockings. The -clasps which held his feather and the plaid over his shoulder were -set with fine stones in rich silver. She did not know that he was -perfectly equipped as a little Highland chieftain, the head of -his clan, should be. - -They began to play together, and the unknown Fates, which do their -work as they choose, so wrought on this occasion as to cause -Andrews' friend to set forth upon a journey through a story so -exciting in its nature that its hearer was held spellbound and -oblivious to her surroundings themselves. Once, it is true, she -rose as in a dream and walked round the group of shrubs, but the -Fates had arranged for that moment also. Robin was alone and was -busily playing with some leaves she had plucked and laid on the -seat of a bench for some mysterious reason. She looked good for -an hour's safe occupation, and Andrews returned to her friend's -detailed and intimate version of a great country house scandal, -of which the papers were full because it had ended in the divorce -court. - -Donal had, at that special moment, gone to pick some of the biggest -leaves from the lilac bush of which the Gardens contained numerous -sooty specimens. The leaves Robin was playing with were some he -had plucked first to show her a wonderful thing. If you laid a leaf -flat on the seat of the bench and were fortunate enough to possess -a large pin you could prick beautiful patterns on the leaf's -greenness--dots and circles, and borders and tiny triangles of a -most decorative order. Neither Donal nor Robin had a pin but Donal -had, in his rolled down stocking, a little dirk the point of which -could apparently be used for any interesting purpose. It was really -he who did the decoration, but Robin leaned against the bench and -looked on enthralled. She had never been happy before in the entire -course of her brief existence. She had not known or expected any -conditions other than those she was familiar with--the conditions -of being fed and clothed, kept clean and exercised, but totally -unloved and unentertained. She did not even know that this nearness -to another human creature, the exchange of companionable looks, -which were like flashes of sunlight, the mutual outbreaks of child -laughter and pleasure were happiness. To her, what she felt, the -glow and delight of it, had no name but she wanted it to go on -and on, never to be put an end to by Andrews or anyone else. - -The boy Donal was not so unconscious. He had been happy all his -life. What he felt was that he had liked this little girl the -minute he saw her. She was pretty, though he thought her immensely -younger than himself, and, when she had looked up at him with her -round, asking eyes, he had wanted to talk to her and make friends. -He had not played much with boys and he had no haughty objection -to girls who liked him. This one did, he saw at once. - -Through what means children so quickly convey to each other--while -seeming scarcely to do more than play--the entire history of their -lives and surroundings, is a sort of occult secret. It is not a -matter of prolonged conversation. Perhaps images created by the -briefest of unadorned statements produce on the unwritten tablets -of the child mind immediate and complete impressions. Safe as -the locked garden was, Andrews cannot have forgotten her charge -for any very great length of time and yet before Donal, hearing -his attendant's voice from her corner, left Robin to join her and -be taken home, the two children knew each other intimately. Robin -knew that Donal's home was in Scotland--where there are hills and -moors with stags on them. He lived there with "Mother" and he had -been brought to London for a visit. The person he called "Mother" -was a woman who took care of him and he spoke of her quite often. -Robin did not think she was like Andrews, though she did not in -the least know why. On his part Donal knew about the nurseries -and the sparrows who hopped about on the slates of the houses -opposite. Robin did not describe the nurseries to him, but Donal -knew that they were ugly and that there were no toys in them and -nothing to do. Also, in some mystic fashion, he realized that -Andrews would not let Robin play with him if she saw them together, -and that, therefore, they must make the most of their time. Full -of their joy in each other, they actually embarked upon an ingenious -infant intrigue, which involved their trying to meet behind the -shrubs if they were brought to the Gardens the next day. Donal was -sure he could come because his nurse always did what he asked of -her. He was so big now that she was not a real nurse, but she had -been his nurse when he was quite little and "Mother" liked her -to travel with them. He had a tutor but he had stayed behind in -Scotland at Braemarnie, which was their house. Donal would come -tomorrow and he would look for Robin and when she saw him she must -get away from Andrews and they would play together again. - -"I will bring one of my picture books," he said grandly. "Can you -read at all?" - -"No," answered Robin adoring him. "What are picture books?" - -"Haven't you any?" he blurted out. - -"No," said Robin. She looked at the gravel walk, reflecting a -moment thoughtfully on the Day Nursery and the Night Nursery. Then -she lifted her eyes to the glowing blueness of his and said quite -simply, "I haven't anything." - -He suddenly remembered things his Mother had told him about poor -people. Perhaps she was poor. Could she be poor when her frock -and hat and coat were so pretty? It was not polite to ask. But the -thought made him love her more. He felt something warm rush all -over his body. The truth, if he had been old enough to be aware of -it, was that the entire simpleness of her acceptance of things as -they were, and a something which was unconsciousness of any cause -for complaint, moved his child masculinity enormously. His old -nurse's voice came from her corner again. - -"I must go to Nanny," he said, feeling somehow as if he had been -running fast. "I'll come tomorrow and bring two picture books." - -He was a loving, warm blooded child human thing, and the expression -of affection was, to him, a familiar natural impulse. He put his -strong little eight-year-old arms round her and kissed her full -on her mouth, as he embraced her with all his strength. He kissed -her twice. - -It was the first time for Robin. Andrews did not kiss. There was -no one else. It was the first time, and Nature had also made her -a loving, warm blooded, human thing. How beautiful he was--how -big--how strong his arms were--and how soft and warm his mouth -felt. She stood and gazed at him with wide asking eyes and laughed a -little. She had no words because she did not know what had happened. - -"Don't you like to be kissed?" said Donal, uncertain because she -looked so startled and had not kissed him back. - -"Kissed," she repeated, with a small, caught breath, "ye-es." She -knew now what it was. It was being kissed. She drew nearer at once -and lifted up her face as sweetly and gladly, as a flower lifts -itself to the sun. "Kiss me again," she said quite eagerly. As -ingenuously and heartily as before, he kissed her again and, this -time, she kissed too. When he ran quickly away, she stood looking -after him with smiling, trembling lips, uplifted, joyful--wondering -and amazed. - - - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - - - - -When she went back to Andrews she carried the pricked leaves with -her. She could not have left them behind. From what source she -had drawn a characterizing passionate, though silent, strength of -mind and body, it would be difficult to explain. Her mind and her -emotions had been left utterly unfed, but they were not of the inert -order which scarcely needs feeding. Her feeling for the sparrows -had held more than she could have expressed; her secret adoration -of the "Lady Downstairs" was an intense thing. Her immediate -surrender to the desire in the first pair of human eyes--child eyes -though they were--which had ever called to her being for response, -was simple and undiluted rapture. She had passed over her little -soul without a moment's delay and without any knowledge of the -giving. It had flown from her as a bird might fly from darkness -into the sun. Eight-year-old Donal was the sun. - -No special tendency to innate duplicity was denoted by the fact -that she had acquired, through her observation of Andrews, Jennings, -Jane and Mrs. Blayne, the knowledge that there were things it was -best not to let other people know. You were careful about them. -From the occult communications between herself and Donal, which -had resulted in their intrigue, there had of course evolved a -realizing sense of the value of discretion. She did not let Andrews -see the decorated leaves, but put them into a small pocket in her -coat. Her Machiavellian intention was to slip them out when she -was taken up to the Nursery. Andrews was always in a hurry to go -downstairs to her lunch and she would be left alone and could find -a place where she could hide them. - -Andrews' friend started when Robin drew near to them. The child's -cheeks and lips were the colour of Jacqueminot rose petals. Her -eyes glowed with actual rapture. - -"My word! That's a beauty if I ever saw one," said the woman. -"First sight makes you jump. My word!" - -Robin, however, did not know what she was talking about and in -fact scarcely heard her. She was thinking of Donal. She thought -of him as she was taken home, and she did not cease thinking of -him during the whole rest of the day and far into the night. When -Andrews left her, she found a place to hide the pricked leaves and -before she put them away she did what Donal had done to her--she -kissed them. She kissed them several times because they were Donal's -leaves and he had made the stars and lines on them. It was almost -like kissing Donal but not quite so beautiful. - -After she was put to bed at night and Andrews left her she lay -awake for a long time. She did not want to go to sleep because -everything seemed so warm and wonderful and she could think and -think and think. What she thought about was Donal's face, his -delightful eyes, his white forehead with curly hair pushed back -with his Highland bonnet. His plaid swung about when he ran and -jumped. When he held her tight the buttons of his jacket hurt her -a little because they pressed against her body. What was "Mother" -like? Did he kiss her? What pretty stones there were in his clasps -and buckles! How nice it was to hear him laugh and how fond he -was of laughing. Donal! Donal! Donal! He liked to play with her -though she was a girl and so little. He would play with her tomorrow. -His cheeks were bright pink, his hair was bright, his eyes were -bright. He was all bright. She tried to see into the blueness of -his eyes again as it seemed when they looked at each other close -to. As she began to see the clear colour she fell asleep. - -The power which had on the first morning guided Robin to the -seclusion behind the clump of shrubs and had provided Andrews with -an enthralling companion, extended, the next day, an even more -beneficient and complete protection. Andrews was smitten with a -cold so alarming as to confine her to bed. Having no intention of -running any risks, whatsoever, she promptly sent for a younger -sister who, temporarily being "out of place", came into the house -as substitute. She was a pretty young woman who assumed no special -responsibilities and was fond of reading novels. - -"She's been trained to be no trouble, Anne. She'll amuse herself -without bothering you as long as you keep her out," Andrews said -of Robin. - -Anne took "Lady Audley's Secret" with her to the Gardens and, -having led her charge to a shady and comfortable seat which exactly -suited her, she settled herself for a pleasant morning. - -"Now, you can play while I read," she said to Robin. - -As they had entered the Gardens they had passed, not far from the -gate, a bench on which sat a highly respectable looking woman who -was hemming a delicate bit of cambric, and evidently in charge of -two picture books which lay on the seat beside her. A fine boy in -Highland kilts was playing a few yards away. Robin felt something -like a warm flood rush over her and her joy was so great and -exquisite that she wondered if Anne felt her hand trembling. Anne -did not because she was looking at a lady getting into a carriage -across the street. - -The marvel of that early summer morning in the gardens of a -splendid but dingy London square thing was not a thing for which -human words could find expression. It was not an earthly thing, -or, at least, not a thing belonging to an earth grown old. A child -Adam and Eve might have known something like it in the Garden of -Eden. It was as clear and simple as spring water and as warm as -the sun. - -Anne's permission to "play" once given, Robin found her way behind -the group of lilacs and snowballs. Donal would come, not only -because he was so big that Nanny would let him do what he wanted -to do, but because he would do everything and anything in the -world. Donal! Donal! Her heart was a mere baby's heart but it -beat as if she were seventeen--beat with pure rapture. He was all -bright and he would laugh and laugh. - -The coming was easy enough for Donal. He had told his mother and -Nanny rejoicingly about the little girl he had made friends with -and who had no picture books. But he did not come straight to -her. He took his picture books under his arm, and showing all his -white teeth in a joyous grin, set out to begin their play properly -with a surprise. He did not let her see him coming but "stalked" -her behind the trees and bushes until he found where she was -waiting, and then thrust his face between the branches of a tall -shrub near her and laughed the outright laugh she loved. And when -she turned she was looking straight into the clear blue she had -tried to see when she fell asleep. "Donal! Donal!" she cried like -a little bird with but one note. - -The lilac and the snowball were in blossom and there was a big -hawthorn tree which smelt sweet and sweet. They could not see the -drift of smuts on the blossoms, they only smelled the sweetness -and sat under the hawthorn and sniffed and sniffed. The sun was -deliciously warm and a piano organ was playing beautifully not -far away. They sat close to each other, so close that the picture -book could lie open on both pairs of knees and the warmth of each -young body penetrated the softness of the other. Sometimes Donal -threw an arm around her as she bent over the page. Love and -caresses were not amazements to him; he accepted them as parts of -the normal joy of life. To Robin they were absolute wonder. The -pictures were delight and amazement in one. Donal knew all about -them and told her stories. She felt that such splendour could have -emanated only from him. It could not occur to her that he had not -invented them and made the pictures. He showed her Robinson Crusoe -and Robin Hood. The scent of the hawthorn and lilac intoxicated -them and they laughed tremendously because Robin Hood's name was -like Robin's own and he was a man and she was a girl. They could -scarcely stop laughing and Donal rolled over and over on the grass, -half from unconquerable high spirits and half to make Robin laugh -still more. - -He had some beautiful coloured glass marbles in his pocket -and he showed her how to play with them, and gave her two of the -prettiest. He could shoot them over the ground in a way to thrill -the beholder. He could hop on one leg as far as he liked. He could -read out of books. - -"Do you like me?" he said once in a pause between displays of his -prowess. - -Robin was kneeling upon the grass watching him and she clasped -her little hands as if she were uttering a prayer. - -"Oh, yes, yes!" she yearned. "Yes! Yes!" - -"I like you," he answered; "I told my mother all about you." - -He came to her and knelt by her side. - -"Have you a mother?" he asked. - -"No," shaking her head. - -"Do you live with your aunt?" - -"No, I don't live with anybody." - -He looked puzzled. - -"Isn't there any lady in your house?" he put it to her. She -brightened a little, relieved to think she had something to tell -him. - -"There's the Lady Downstairs," she said. "She's so pretty--so -pretty." - -"Is she----" he stopped and shook his head. "She couldn't be your -mother," he corrected himself. "You'd know about HER." - -"She wears pretty clothes. Sometimes they float about and sparkle -and she wears little crowns on her head--or flowers. She laughs," -Robin described eagerly. "A great many people come to see her. -They all laugh. Sometimes they sing. I lie in bed and listen." - -"Does she ever come upstairs to the Nursery?" inquired Donal with -a somewhat reflective air. - -"Yes. She comes and stands near the door and says, 'Is she quite -well, Andrews?' She does not laugh then. She--she LOOKS at me." - -She stopped there, feeling suddenly that she wished very much that -she had more to tell. What she was saying was evidently not very -satisfactory. He seemed to expect more--and she had no more to -give. A sense of emptiness crept upon her and for no reason she -understood there was a little click in her throat. - -"Does she only stand near the door?" he suggested, as one putting -the situation to a sort of crucial test. "Does she never sit on a -big chair and take you on her knee?" - -"No, no," in a dropped voice. "She will not sit down. She says -the chairs are grubby." - -"Doesn't she LOVE you at all?" persisted Donal. "Doesn't she KISS -you?" - -There was a thing she had known for what seemed to her a long -time--God knows in what mysterious fashion she had learned it, -but learned it well she had. That no human being but herself was -aware of her knowledge was inevitable. To whom could she have -told it? But Donal--Donal wanted to know all about her. The little -click made itself felt in her throat again. - -"She--she doesn't LIKE me!" Her dropped voice was the whisper of -one humbled to the dust by confession, "She--doesn't LIKE me!" -And the click became another thing which made her put up her arm -over her eyes--her round, troubled child eyes, which, as she had -looked into Donal's, had widened with sudden, bewildered tears. - -Donal flung his arms round her and squeezed his buttons into her -tender chest. He hugged her close; he kissed her; there was a -choking in his throat. He was hot all over. - -"She does like you. She must like you. I'll make her!" he cried -passionately. "She's not your mother. If she was, she'd LOVE you! -She'd LOVE you!" - -"Do Mothers l-love you?" the small voice asked with a half sob. -"What's--what's LOVE you?" It was not vulgar curiosity. She only -wanted to find out. - -He loosed his embrace, sitting back on his heels to stare. - -"Don't you KNOW?" - -She shook her head with soft meekness. - -"N-no," she answered. - -Big boys like himself did not usually play with such little -girls. But something had drawn him to her at their first moment -of encounter. She wasn't like any other little girls. He felt it -all the time and that was part of the thing which drew him. He -was not, of course, aware that the male thrill at being regarded -as one who is a god had its power over the emotions. She wasn't -making silly fun and pretending. She really didn't know--because -she was different. - -"It's liking very much. It's more," he explained. "My mother loves -ME. I--I LOVE you!" stoutly. "Yes, I LOVE you. That's why I kissed -you when you cried." - -She was so uplifted, so overwhelmed with adoring gratitude that as -she knelt on the grass she worshipped him. - -"I love YOU," she answered him. "I LOVE you--LOVE you!" And she -looked at him with such actual prayerfulness that he caught at her -and, with manly promptness, kissed her again--this being mere Nature. - -Because he was eight years old and she was six her tears flashed -away and they both laughed joyously as they sat down on the grass -again to talk it over. - -He told her all the pleasant things he knew about Mothers. The -world was full of them it seemed--full. You belong to them from -the time you were a baby. He had not known many personally because -he had always lived at Braemarnie, which was in the country in -Scotland. There were no houses near his home. You had to drive -miles and miles before you came to a house or a castle. He had not -seen much of other children except a few who lived at the Manse -and belonged to the minister. Children had fathers as well as -mothers. Fathers did not love you or take care of you quite as -much as Mothers--because they were men. But they loved you too. -His own father had died when he was a baby. His mother loved him -as much as he loved her. She was beautiful but--it seemed to reveal -itself--not like the Lady Downstairs. She did not laugh very much, -though she laughed when they played together. He was too big now -to sit on her knee, but squeezed into the big chair beside her when -she read or told him stories. He always did what his mother told -him. She knew everything in the world and so knew what he ought to -do. Even when he was a big man he should do what his mother told -him. - -Robin listened to every word with enraptured eyes and bated breath. -This was the story of Love and Life and it was the first time she -had ever heard it. It was as much a revelation as the Kiss. She -had spent her days in the grimy Nursery and her one close intimate -had been a bony woman who had taught her not to cry, employing -the practical method of terrifying her into silence by pinching -her--knowing it was quite safe to do it. It had not been necessary -to do it often. She had seen people on the streets, but she had -only seen them in passing by. She had not watched them as she had -watched the sparrows. When she was taken down for a few minutes -into the basement, she vaguely knew that she was in the way and that -Mrs. Blayne's and Andrews' and Jennings' low voices and occasional -sidelong look meant that they were talking about her and did not -want her to hear. - -"I have no mother and no father," she explained quite simply to -Donal. "No one kisses me." - -"No one!" Donal said, feeling curious. "Has no one ever kissed you -but me?" - -"No," she answered. - -Donal laughed--because children always laugh when they do not know -what else to do. - -"Was that why you looked as if you were frightened when I said -good-bye to you yesterday?" - -"I-I didn't know," said Robin, laughing a little too--but not very -much, "I wasn't frightened. I liked you." - -"I'll kiss you as often as you want me to," he volunteered nobly. -"I'm used to it--because of my mother. I'll kiss you again now." -And he did it quite without embarrassment. It was a sort of manly -gratuity. - -Once Anne, with her book in her hand, came round the shrubs to -see how her charge was employing herself, and seeing her looking -at pictures with a handsomely dressed companion, she returned to -"Lady Audley's Secret" feeling entirely safe. - -The lilac and the hawthorn tree continued to breathe forth warmed -scents of paradise in the sunshine, the piano organ went on playing, -sometimes nearer, sometimes farther away, but evidently finding -the neighbourhood a desirable one. Sometimes the children laughed -at each other, sometimes at pictures Donal showed, or stories he -told, or at his own extreme wit. The boundaries were removed from -Robin's world. She began to understand that there was another -larger one containing wonderful and delightful things she had -known nothing about. Donal was revealing it to her in everything -he said even when he was not aware that he was telling her anything. -When Eve was formed from the rib of Adam the information it was -necessary for him to give her regarding her surroundings must have -filled her with enthralling interest and a reverence which adored. -The planted enclosure which was the central feature of the soot -sprinkled, stately London Square was as the Garden of Eden. - - * * * * * - -The Garden of Eden it remained for two weeks. Andrews' cold was -serious enough to require a doctor and her sister Anne continued -to perform their duties. The weather was exceptionally fine and, -being a vain young woman, she liked to dress Robin in her pretty -clothes and take her out because she was a beauty and attracted -attention to her nurse as well as to herself. Mornings spent -under the trees reading were entirely satisfactory. Each morning -the children played together and each night Robin lay awake and -lived again the delights of the past hours. Each day she learned -more wonders and her young mind and soul were fed. There began to -stir in her brain new thoughts and the beginning of questioning. -Scotland, Braemarnie, Donal's mother, even the Manse and the children -in it, combined to form a world of enchantment. There were hills -with stags living in them, there were moors with purple heather and -yellow brome and gorse; birds built their nests under the bushes -and Donal's pony knew exactly where to step even in the roughest -places. There were two boys and two girls at the Manse and they -had a father and a mother. These things were enough for a new heaven -and a new earth to form themselves around. The centre of the whole -Universe was Donal with his strength and his laugh and his eyes -which were so alive and glowing that she seemed always to see them. -She knew nothing about the thing which was their somehow--not-to-be-denied -allure. They were ASKING eyes--and eyes which gave. The boy was -in truth a splendid creature. His body and beauty were perfect life -and joyous perfect living. His eyes asked other eyes for everything. -"Tell me more," they said. "Tell me more! Like me! Answer me! Let -us give each other everything in the world." He had always been -well, he had always been happy, he had always been praised and -loved. He had known no other things. - -During the first week in which the two children played together, -his mother, whose intense desire it was to understand him, observed -in him a certain absorption of mood when he was not talking or -amusing himself actively. He began to fall into a habit of standing -at the windows, often with his chin in his hand, looking out as if -he were so full of thought that he saw nothing. It was not an old -habit, it was a new one. - -"What are you thinking about, Donal?" she asked one afternoon. - -He seemed to awaken, as it were, when he heard her. He turned -about with his alluring smile. - -"I am thinking it is FUNNY," he said. "It is funny that I should -like such a little girl such a lot. She is years and years younger -than I am. But I like her so. It is such fun to tell her things." -He marched over to his mother's writing table and leaned against -it. What his mother saw was that he had an impassioned desire -to talk about this child. She felt it was a desire even a trifle -abnormal in its eagerness. - -"She has such a queer house, I think," he explained. "She has a -nurse and such pretty clothes and she is so pretty herself, but -I don't believe she has any toys or books in her nursery." - -"Where is her mother?" - -"She must be dead. There is no lady in her house but the Lady -Downstairs. She is very pretty and is always laughing. But she is -not her mother because she doesn't like her and she never kisses -her. I think that's the queerest thing of all. No one had EVER -kissed her till I did." - -His mother was a woman given to psychological analysis. Her eyes -began to dwell on his face with slightly anxious questioning. - -"Did you kiss her?" she inquired. - -"Yes. I kissed her when I said good morning the first day. I thought -she didn't like me to do it but she did. It was only because no -one had ever done it before. She likes it very much." - -He leaned farther over the writing table and began to pour forth, -his smile growing and his eyes full of pleasure. His mother was -a trifle alarmedly struck by the feeling that he was talking like -a young man in love who cannot keep his tongue still, though in -his case even the youngest manhood was years away, and he made no -effort to conceal his sentiments which a young man would certainly -have striven to do. - -"She's got such a pretty little face and such a pretty mouth and -cheeks," he touched a Jacqueminot rose in a vase. "They are the -colour of that. Today a robin came with the sparrows and hopped -about near us. We laughed and laughed because her eyes are like -the robin's, and she is called Robin. I wish you would come into -the Gardens and see her, mother. She likes everything I do." - -"I must come, dear," she answered. - -"Nanny thinks she is lovely," he announced. "She says I am in love -with her. Am I, mother?" - -"You are too young to be in love," she said. "And even when you -are older you must not fall in love with people you know nothing -about." - -It was an unconscious bit of Scotch cautiousness which she at once -realized was absurd and quite out of place. But--! - -She realized it because he stood up and squared his shoulders in -an odd young-mannish way. He had not flushed even faintly before -and now a touch of colour crept under his fair skin. - -"But I DO love her," he said. "I DO. I can't stop." And though he -was quite simple and obviously little boy-like, she actually felt -frightened for a moment. - - - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - - - - -On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was -standing in Feather's drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand -and wearing the look of a man who is given up to reflection. - -"I saw Mrs. Muir today for the first time for several years," he -said after a silence. "She is in London with the boy." - -"Is she as handsome as ever?" - -"Quite. Hers is not the beauty that disappears. It is line and -bearing and a sort of splendid grace and harmony." - -"What is the boy like?" - -Coombe reflected again before he answered. - -"He is--amazing. One so seldom sees anything approaching physical -perfection that it strikes one a sort of blow when one comes upon -it suddenly face to face." - -"Is he as beautiful as all that?" - -"The Greeks used to make statues of bodies like his. They often -called them gods--but not always. The Creative Intention plainly -was that all human beings should be beautiful and he is the -expression of it." - -Feather was pretending to embroider a pink flower on a bit of -gauze and she smiled vaguely. - -"I don't know what you mean," she admitted with no abasement of -spirit, "but if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has -not been carried out." Her smile broke into a little laugh as she -stuck her needle into her work. "I'm thinking of Henry," she let -drop in addition. - -"So was I, it happened," answered Coombe after a second or so of -pause. - -Henry was the next of kin who was--to Coombe's great objection--his -heir presumptive, and was universally admitted to be a repulsive -sort of person both physically and morally. He had brought into -the world a weakly and rickety framework and had from mere boyhood -devoted himself to a life which would have undermined a Hercules. -A relative may so easily present the aspect of an unfortunate incident -over which one has no control. This was the case with Henry. His -character and appearance were such that even his connection with -an important heritage was not enough to induce respectable persons -to accept him in any form. But if Coombe remained without issue -Henry would be the Head of the House. - -"How is his cough?" inquired Feather. - -"Frightful. He is an emaciated wreck and he has no physical cause -for remaining alive." - -Feather made three or four stitches. - -"Does Mrs. Muir know?" she said. - -"If Mrs. Muir is conscious of his miserable existence, that is -all," he answered. "She is not the woman to inquire. Of course -she cannot help knowing that--when he is done with--her boy takes -his place in the line of succession." - -"Oh, yes, she'd know that," put in Feather. - -It was Coombe who smiled now--very faintly. - -"You have a mistaken view of her," he said. - -"You admire her very much," Feather bridled. The figure of this -big Scotch creature with her "line" and her "splendid grace and -harmony" was enough to make one bridle. - -"She doesn't admire me," said Coombe. "She is not proud of me as -a connection. She doesn't really want the position for the boy, -in her heart of hearts." - -"Doesn't want it!" Feather's exclamation was a little jeer only -because she would not have dared a big one. - -"She is Scotch Early Victorian in some things and extremely advanced -in others," he went on. "She has strong ideas of her own as to -how he shall be brought up. She's rather Greek in her feeling for -his being as perfect physically and mentally as she can help him -to be. She believes things. It was she who said what you did not -understand--about the Creative Intention." - -"I suppose she is religious," Feather said. "Scotch people often -are but their religion isn't usually like that. Creative Intention's -a new name for God, I suppose. I ought to know all about God. I've -heard enough about Him. My father was not a clergyman but he was -very miserable, and it made him so religious that he was ALMOST -one. We were every one of us christened and catechized and confirmed -and all that. So God's rather an old story." - -"Queer how old--from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral -strand," said Coombe. "It's an ancient search--that for the -Idea--whether it takes form in metal or wood or stone." - -"Well," said Feather, holding her bit of gauze away from her -the better to criticize the pink flower. "As ALMOST a clergyman's -daughter I must say that if there is one thing God didn't do, it -was to fill the world with beautiful people and things as if it -was only to be happy in. It was made to--to try us by suffering -and--that sort of thing. It's a-a--what d'ye call it? Something -beginning with P." - -"Probation," suggested Coombe regarding her with an expression of -speculative interest. Her airy bringing forth of her glib time-worn -little scraps of orthodoxy--as one who fished them out of a bag of -long-discarded remnants of rubbish--was so true to type that it -almost fascinated him for a moment. - -"Yes. That's it--probation," she answered. "I knew it began with -a P. It means 'thorny paths' and 'seas of blood' and, if you are -religious, you 'tread them with bleeding feet--' or swim them as -the people do in hymns. And you praise and glorify all the time -you're doing it. Of course, I'm not religious myself and I can't -say I think it's pleasant--but I do KNOW! Every body beautiful -and perfect indeed! That's not religion--it's being irreligious. -Good gracious, think of the cripples and lepers and hunchbacks!" - -"And the idea is that God made them all--by way of entertaining -himself?" he put it to her quietly. - -"Well, who else did?" said Feather cheerfully. - -"I don't know," he said. "Certain things I heard Mrs. Muir say -suggested to one that it might be interesting to think it out." - -"Did she talk to you about God at afternoon tea?" said Feather. -"It's the kind of thing a religious Scotch woman might do." - -"No, she did not talk to me. Perhaps that was her mistake. She -might have reformed me. She never says more to me than civility -demands. And it was not at tea. I accidentally dropped in on the -Bethunes and found an Oriental had been lecturing there. Mrs. -Muir was talking to him and I heard her. The man seemed to be a -scholar and a deep thinker and as they talked a group of us stood -and listened or asked questions." - -"How funny!" said Feather. - -"It was not funny at all. It was astonishingly calm and serious--and -logical. The logic was the new note. I had never thought of reason -in that connection." - -"Reason has nothing to do with it. You must have faith. You -must just believe what you're told not think at all. Thinking is -wickedness--unless you think what you hear preached." Feather was -even a trifle delicately smug as she rattled off her orthodoxy--but -she laughed after she had done with it. "But it MUST have been -funny--a Turk or a Hindoo in a turban and a thing like a tea gown -and Mrs. Muir in her Edinburgh looking clothes talking about God." - -"You are quite out of it," Coombe did not smile at all as he -said it. "The Oriental was as physically beautiful as Donal Muir -is. And Mrs. Muir--no other woman in the room compared with her. -Perhaps people who think grow beautiful." - -Feather was not often alluring or coquettish in her manner to -Coombe but she tilted her head prettily and looked down at her -flower through lovely lashes. - -"_I_ don't think," she said. "And I am not so bad looking." - -"No," he answered coldly. "You are not. At times you look like a -young angel." - -"If Mrs. Muir is like that," she said after a brief pause, "I -should like to know what she thinks of me?" - -"No, you would not--neither should I--if she thinks at all," was -his answer. "But you remember you said you did not mind that sort -of thing." - -"I don't. Why should I? It can't harm me." Her hint of a pout -made her mouth entrancing. "But, if she thinks good looks are the -result of religiousness I should like to let her see Robin--and -compare her with her boy. I saw Robin in the park last week and -she's a perfect beauty." - -"Last week?" said Coombe. - -"She doesn't need anyone but Andrews. I should bore her to death if -I went and sat in the Nursery and stared at her. No one does that -sort of thing in these days. But I should like to see Mrs. Muir to -see the two children together!" "That could not easily be arranged, -I am afraid," he said. - -"Why not?" - -His answer was politely deliberate. - -"She greatly disapproves of me, I have told you. She is not proud -of the relationship." - -"She does not like ME you mean?" - -"Excuse me. I mean exactly what I said in telling you that she has -her own very strong views of the boy's training and surroundings. -They may be ridiculous but that sort of thing need not trouble -you." - -Feather held up her hand and actually laughed. - -"If Robin meets him in ten years from now--THAT for her very strong -views of his training and surroundings!" - -And she snapped her fingers. - -Mrs. Muir's distaste for her son's unavoidable connection the man -he might succeed had a firm foundation. She had been brought up in -a Scottish Manse where her father dominated as an omnipotent and -almost divine authority. As a child of imagination she had not been -happy but she had been obedient. In her girlhood she had varied -from type through her marriage with a young man who was a dreamer, -an advanced thinker, an impassioned Greek scholar and a lover -of beauty. After he had released her from her terrors of damnation, they had -been profoundly happy. They were young and at ease and they read -and thought together ardently. They explored new creeds and cults -and sometimes found themselves talking nonsense and sometimes -discovering untrodden paths of wisdom. They were youthful enough -to be solemn about things at times, and clever enough to laugh -at their solemnity when they awakened to it. Helen Muir left the -reverent gloom of the life at the Manse far behind despite her -respect for certain meanings they beclouded. - -"I live in a new structure," she said to her husband, "but it is -built on a foundation which is like a solid subterranean chamber. -I don't use the subterranean chamber or go into it. I don't want -to. But now and then echoes--almost noises--make themselves heard -in it. Sometimes I find I have listened in spite of myself." - -She had always been rather grave about her little son and when -her husband's early death left him and his dignified but not large -estate in her care she realized that there lay in her hands the -power to direct a life as she chose, in as far as was humanly -possible. The pure blood and healthy tendencies of a long and -fine ancestry expressing themselves in the boy's splendid body -and unusual beauty had set the minds of two imaginative people -working from the first. One of Muir's deepest interests was the -study of development of the race. It was he who had planted in -her mind that daringly fearless thought of a human perfection as -to the Intention of the Creative Cause. They used to look at the -child as he lay asleep and note the beauty of him--his hands, his -feet, his torso, the tint and texture and line of him. - -"This is what was MEANT--in the plan for every human being--How -could there be scamping and inefficiency in Creation. It is -we ourselves who have scamped and been incomplete in our thought -and life. Here he is. Look at him. But he will only develop as he -is--if living does not warp him." This was what his father said. -His mother was at her gravest as she looked down at the little god -in the crib. - -"It's as if some power had thrust a casket of loose jewels into -our hands and said, 'It is for you to see that not one is lost'," -she murmured. Then the looked up and smiled. - -"Are we being solemn--over a baby?" she said. - -"Perhaps," he was always even readier to smile than she was. "I've -an idea, however, that there's enough to be solemn about--not too -solemn, but just solemn enough. You are a beautiful thing, Fair -Helen! Why shouldn't he be like you? Neither of us will forget -what we have just said." - -Through her darkest hours of young bereavement she remembered -the words many times and felt as if they were a sort of light she -might hold in her hand as she trod the paths of the "Afterwards" -which were in the days before her. She lived with Donal at Braemarnie -and lived FOR him without neglecting her duty of being the head -of a household and an estate and also a good and gracious neighbour -to things and people. She kept watch over every jewel in his -casket, great and small. He was so much a part of her religion -that sometimes she realized that the echoes from the subterranean -chamber were perhaps making her a little strict but she tried to -keep guard over herself. - -He was handsome and radiant with glowing health and vitality. He -was a friendly, rejoicing creature and as full of the joy of life -as a scampering moor pony. He was clever enough but not too clever -and he was friends with the world. Braemarnie was picturesquely -ancient and beautiful. It would be a home of sufficient ease and -luxury to be a pleasure but no burden. Life in it could be perfect -and also supply freedom. Coombe Court and Coombe Keep were huge -and castellated and demanded great things. Even if the Head of the -House had been a man to like and be proud of--the accession of a -beautiful young Marquis would rouse the hounds of war, so to speak, -and set them racing upon his track. Even the totally unalluring -"Henry" had been beset with temptations from his earliest years. -That he promptly succumbed to the first only brought forth others. -It did not seem fair that a creature so different, a splendid -fearless thing, should be dragged from his hills and moors and -fair heather and made to breathe the foul scent of things, of whose -poison he could know nothing. She was not an ignorant childish -woman. In her fine aloof way she had learned much in her stays in -London with her husband and in their explorings of foreign cities. - -This was the reason for her views of her boy's training and -surroundings. She had not asked questions about Coombe himself, -but it had not been necessary. Once or twice she had seen Feather -by chance. In spite of herself she had heard about Henry. Now and -then he was furbished up and appeared briefly at Coombe Court or -at The Keep. It was always briefly because he inevitably began to -verge on misbehaving himself after twenty-four hours had passed. -On his last visit to Coombe House in town, where he had turned -up without invitation, he had become so frightfully drunk that he -had been barely rescued from the trifling faux pas of attempting -to kiss a very young royal princess. There were quite definite -objections to Henry. - -Helen Muir was NOT proud of the Coombe relationship and with -unvaried and resourceful good breeding kept herself and her boy from -all chance of being drawn into anything approaching an intimacy. -Donal knew nothing of his prospects. There would be time enough -for that when he was older, but, in the meantime, there should be -no intercourse if it could be avoided. - -She had smiled at herself when the "echo" had prompted her to the -hint of a quaint caution in connection with his little boy flame -of delight in the strange child he had made friends with. But it -HAD been a flame and, though she, had smiled, she sat very still -by the window later that night and she had felt a touch of weight -on her heart as she thought it over. There were wonderful years -when one could give one's children all the things they wanted, she -was saying to herself--the desires of their child hearts, the joy -of their child bodies, their little raptures of delight. Those -were divine years. They were so safe then. Donal was living -through those years now. He did not know that any happiness could -be taken from him. He was hers and she was his. It would be horrible -if there were anything one could not let him keep--in this early -unshadowed time! - -She was looking out at the Spring night with all its stars lit -and gleaming over the Park which she could see from her window. -Suddenly she left her chair and rang for Nanny. - -"Nanny," she said when the old nurse came, "tell me something about -the little girl Donal plays with in the Square gardens." - -"She's a bonny thing and finely dressed, ma'am," was the woman's -careful answer, "but I don't make friends with strange nurses and -I don't think much of hers. She's a young dawdler who sits novel -reading and if Master Donal were a young pickpocket with the -measles, the child would be playing with him just the same as far -as I can see. The young woman sits under a tree and reads and the -pretty little thing may do what she likes. I keep my eye on them, -however, and they're in no mischief. Master Donal reads out of -his picture books and shows himself off before her grandly and she -laughs and looks up to him as if he were a king. Every lad child -likes a woman child to look up to him. It's pretty to see the -pair of them. They're daft about each other. Just wee things in -love at first sight." - -"Donal has known very few girls. Those plain little things at the -Manse are too dull for him," his mother said slowly. - -"This one's not plain and she's not dull," Nanny answered. "My -word! but she's like a bit of witch fire dancing--with her colour -and her big silk curls in a heap. Donal stares at her like a young -man at a beauty. I wish, ma'am, we knew more of her forbears." - -"I must see her," Mrs. Muir said. "Tomorrow I'll go with you both -to the Gardens." - -Therefore the following day Donal pranced proudly up the path to -his trysting place and with him walked a tall lady at whom people -looked as she passed. She was fair like Donal and had a small head -softly swathed with lovely folds of hair. Also her eyes were very -clear and calm. Donal was plainly proud and happy to be with her -and was indeed prancing though his prance was broken by walking -steps at intervals. - -Robin was waiting behind the lilac bushes and her nurse was already -deep in the mystery of Lady Audley. - -"There she is!" cried Donal, and he ran to her. "My mother has come -with me. She wants to see you, too," and he pulled her forward by -her hand. "This is Robin, Mother! This is Robin." He panted with -elation and stood holding his prize as if she might get away before -he had displayed her; his eyes lifted to his tall mother's were -those of an exultant owner. - -Robin had no desire to run away. To adore anything which belonged -to Donal was only nature. And this tall, fair, wonderful person -was a Mother. No wonder Donal talked of her so much. The child could -only look up at her as Donal did. So they stood hand in hand like -little worshippers before a deity. - -Andrews' sister in her pride had attired the small creature like -a flower of Spring. Her exquisiteness and her physical brilliancy -gave Mrs. Muir something not unlike a slight shock. Oh! no wonder--since -she was like that. She stooped and kissed the round cheek delicately. - -"Donal wanted me to see his little friend," she said. "I always -want to see his playmates. Shall we walk round the Garden together -and you shall show me where you play and tell me all about it." - -She took the small hand and they walked slowly. Robin was at -first too much awed to talk but as Donal was not awed at all and -continued his prancing and the Mother lady said pretty things -about the flowers and the grass and the birds and even about the -pony at Braemarnie, she began now and then to break into a little -hop herself and presently into sudden ripples of laughter like -a bird's brief bubble of song. The tall lady's hand was not like -Andrews, or the hand of Andrews' sister. It did not pull or jerk -and it had a lovely feeling. The sensation she did not know was -happiness again welled up within her. Just one walk round the -Garden and then the tall lady sat down on a seat to watch them play. -It was wonderful. She did not read or work. She sat and watched -them as if she wanted to do that more than anything else. Donal -kept calling out to her and making her smile: he ran backwards -and forwards to her to ask questions and tell her what they were -"making up" to play. When they gathered leaves to prick stars and -circles on, they did them on the seat on which she sat and she -helped them with new designs. Several times, in the midst of -her play, Robin stopped and stood still a moment with a sort of -puzzled expression. It was because she did not feel like Robin. -Two people--a big boy and a lady--letting her play and talk to -them as if they liked her and had time! - -The truth was that Mrs. Muir's eyes followed Robin more than they -followed Donal. Their clear deeps yearned over her. Such a glowing -vital little thing! No wonder! No wonder! And as she grew older she -would be more vivid and compelling with every year. And Donal was -of her kind. His strength, his beauty, his fearless happiness-claiming -temperament. How could one--with dignity and delicacy--find out -why she had this obvious air of belonging to nobody? Donal was -an exact little lad. He had had foundation for his curious scraps -of her story. No mother--no playthings or books--no one had ever -kissed her! And she dressed and soignee like this! Who was the -Lady Downstairs? - -A victoria was driving past the Gardens. It was going slowly because -the two people in it wished to look at the spring budding out of -hyacinths and tulips. Suddenly one of the pair--a sweetly-hued -figure whose early season attire was hyacinth-like itself--spoke -to the coachman. - -"Stop here!" she said. "I want to get out." - -As the victoria drew up near a gate she made a light gesture. - -"What do you think, Starling," she laughed. "The very woman -we are talking about is sitting in the Gardens there. I know her -perfectly though I only saw her portrait at the Academy years ago. -Yes, there she is. Mrs. Muir, you know." She clapped her hands and -her laugh became a delighted giggle. "And my Robin is playing on -the grass near her--with a boy! What a joke! It must be THE boy! -And I wanted to see the pair together. Coombe said couldn't be -done. And more than anything I want to speak to HER. Let's get -out." - -They got out and this was why Helen Muir, turning her eyes a moment -from Robin whose hand she was holding, saw two women coming towards -her with evident intention. At least one of them had evident -intention. She was the one whose light attire produced the effect -of being made of hyacinth petals. - -Because Mrs. Muir's glance turned towards her, Robin's turned -also. She started a little and leaned against Mrs. Muir's knee, -her eyes growing very large and round indeed and filling with a -sudden worshipping light. - -"It is--" she ecstatically sighed or rather gasped, "the Lady -Downstairs!" - -Feather floated near to the seat and paused smiling. - -"Where is your nurse, Robin?" she said. - -Robin being always dazzled by the sight of her did not of course -shine. - -"She is reading under the tree," she answered tremulously. - -"She is only a few yards away," said Mrs. Muir. "She knows Robin -is playing with my boy and that I am watching them. Robin is your -little girl?" amiably. - -"Yes. So kind of you to let her play with your boy. Don't let her -bore you. I am Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." - -There was a little silence--a delicate little silence. - -"I recognized you as Mrs. Muir at once," said Feather, unperturbed -and smiling brilliantly, "I saw your portrait at the Grosvenor." - -"Yes," said Mrs. Muir gently. She had risen and was beautifully -tall,--"the line" was perfect, and she looked with a gracious calm -into Feather's eyes. - -Donal, allured by the hyacinth petal colours, drew near. Robin made -an unconscious little catch at his plaid and whispered something. - -"Is this Donal?" Feather said. - -"ARE you the Lady Downstairs, please?" Donal put in politely, -because he wanted so to know. - -Feather's pretty smile ended in the prettiest of outright laughs. -Her maid had told her Andrews' story of the name. - -"Yes, I believe that's what she calls me. It's a nice name for a -mother, isn't it?" - -Donal took a quick step forward. - -"ARE you her mother?" he asked eagerly. - -"Of course I am." - -Donal quite flushed with excitement. - -"She doesn't KNOW," he said. - -He turned on Robin. - -"She's your Mother! You thought you hadn't one! She's your Mother!" - -"But I am the Lady Downstairs, too." Feather was immensely amused. -She was not subtle enough to know why she felt a perverse kind of -pleasure in seeing the Scotch woman standing so still, and that -it led her into a touch of vulgarity. "I wanted very much to see -your boy," she said. - -"Yes," still gently from Mrs. Muir. - -"Because of Coombe, you know. We are such old friends. How queer -that the two little things have made friends, too. I didn't know. -I am so glad I caught a glimpse of you and that I had seen the -portrait. GOOD morning. Goodbye, children." - -While she strayed airily away they all watched her. She picked up -her friend, the Starling, who, not feeling concerned or needed, -had paused to look at daffodils. The children watched her until -her victoria drove away, the chiffon ruffles of her flowerlike -parasol fluttering in the air. - -Mrs. Muir had sat down again and Donal and Robin leaned against -her. They saw she was not laughing any more but they did not know -that her eyes had something like grief in them. - -"She's her Mother!" Donal cried. "She's lovely, too. But she's--her -MOTHER!" and his voice and face were equally puzzled. - -Robin's little hand delicately touched Mrs. Muir. - -"IS--she?" she faltered. - -Helen Muir took her in her arms and held her quite close. She -kissed her. - -"Yes, she is, my lamb," she said. "She's your mother." - -She was clear as to what she must do for Donal's sake. It was the -only safe and sane course. But--at this age--the child WAS a lamb -and she could not help holding her close for a moment. Her little -body was deliciously soft and warm and the big silk curls all in -a heap were a fragrance against her breast. - - - - - - -CHAPTER X - - - - - -Donal talked a great deal as he pranced home. Feather had excited -as well as allured him. Why hadn't she told Robin she was her -mother? Why did she never show her pictures in the Nursery and -hold her on her knee? She was little enough to be held on knees! -Did some mothers never tell their children and did the children -never find out? This was what he wanted to hear explained. He took -the gloved hand near him and held it close and a trifle authoritatively. - -"I am glad I know you are my mother," he said, "I always knew." - -He was not sure that the matter was explained very clearly. Not as -clearly as things usually were. But he was not really disturbed. -He had remembered a book he could show Robin tomorrow and he thought -of that. There was also a game in a little box which could be -easily carried under his arm. His mother was "thinking" and he was -used to that. It came on her sometimes and of his own volition he -always, on such occasion, kept as quiet as was humanly possible. - -After he was asleep, Helen sent for Nanny. - -"You're tired, ma'am," the woman said when she saw her, "I'm afraid -you've a headache." - -"I have had a good deal of thinking to do since this afternoon," -her mistress answered, "You were right about the nurse. The -little girl might have been playing with any boy chance sent in -her way--boys quite unlike Donal." - -"Yes, ma'am." And because she loved her and knew her face and -voice Nanny watched her closely. - -"You will be as--startled--as I was. By some queer chance the -child's mother was driving by and saw us and came in to speak to -me. Nanny--she is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." - -Nanny did start; she also reddened and spoke sharply. - -"And she came in and spoke to you, ma'am!" - -"Things have altered and are altering every day," Mrs. Muir said. -"Society is not at all inflexible. She has a smart set of her own--and -she is very pretty and evidently well provided for. Easy-going -people who choose to find explanations suggest that her husband -was a relation of Lord Lawdor's." - -"And him a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie," -offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir's hands clasped -strongly as they lay on the table before her. - -"That doesn't come within my bailiewick," she said in her quiet -voice. "Her life is her own and not mine. Words are the wind that -blows." She stopped just a moment and began again. "We must leave -for Scotland by the earliest train." - -"What'll he do?" the words escaped from the woman as if involuntarily. -She even drew a quick breath. "He's a strong feeling bairn--strong!" - -"He'll be stronger when he is a young man, Nanny!" desperately. -"That is why I must act now. There is no half way. I don't want -to be hard. Oh, am I hard--am I hard?" she cried out low as if she -were pleading. - -"No, ma'am. You are not. He's your own flesh and blood." Nanny had -never before seen her mistress as she saw her in the next curious -almost exaggerated moment. - -Her hand flew to her side. - -"He's my heart and my soul--" she said, "--he is the very entrails -of me! And it will hurt him so and I cannot explain to him because -he is too young to understand. He is only a little boy who must -go where he is taken. And he cannot help himself. It's--unfair!" - -Nanny was prone to become more Scotch as she became moved. But -she still managed to look grim. - -"He canna help himsel," she said, "an waur still, YOU canna." - -There was a moment of stillness and then she said: - -"I must go and pack up." And walked out of the room. - - * * * * * - -Donal always slept like a young roe in the bracken, and in deep -and rapturous ease he slept this night. Another perfectly joyful -day had passed and his Mother had liked Robin and kissed her. All -was well with the world. As long as he had remained awake--and it -had not been long--he had thought of delightful things unfeverishly. -Of Robin, somehow at Braemarnie, growing bigger very quickly--big -enough for all sorts of games--learning to ride Chieftain, even -to gallop. His mother would buy another pony and they could ride -side by side. Robin would laugh and her hair would fly behind her -if they went fast. She would see how fast he could go--she would -see him make Chieftain jump. They would have picnics--catch sight -of deer and fawns delicately lifting their feet as they stepped. -She would always look at him with that nice look in her eyes and -the little smile which came and went in a second. She was quite -different from the minister's little girls at the Manse. He liked -her--he liked her! - - * * * * * - -He was wakened by a light in his room and by the sound of moving -about. He sat up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed -and Nanny putting things into a travelling bag. He felt as if his -Mother looked taller than she had looked yesterday--and almost -thin--and her face was anxious and--shy. - -"We let you sleep as late as we could, Donal," she said. "You must -get up quickly now and have breakfast. Something has happened. We -are obliged to go back to Scotland by very early train. There is -not a minute to waste." - -At first he only said: - -"Back!" - -"Yes, dear. Get up." - -"To Braemarnie?" - -"Yes, dear laddie!" - -He felt himself grow hot and cold. - -"Away! Away!" he said again vaguely. - -"Yes. Get up, dear." - -He was as she had said only a little boy and accustomed to do as -he was told. He was also a fine, sturdy little Scot with a pride -of his own. His breeding had been of the sort which did not include -insubordinate scenes, so he got out of bed and began to dress. But -his mother saw that his hands shook. - -"I shall not see Robin," he said in a queer voice. "She won't -find me when she goes behind the lilac bushes. She won't know why -I don't come." - -He swallowed very hard and was dead still for a few minutes, -though he did not linger over his dressing. His mother felt that -the whole thing was horrible. He was acting almost like a young -man even now. She did not know how she could bear it. She spoke to -him in a tone which was actually rather humble. - -"If we knew where she lived you--you could write a little letter -and tell her about it. But we do not where she lives." - -He answered her very low. - -"That's it. And she's little--and she won't understand. She's very -little--really." There was a harrowingly protective note in his -voice. "Perhaps--she'll cry." - -Helen looking down at him with anguished eyes--he was buttoning his -shoes--made an unearthly effort to find words, but, as she said -them, she knew they were not the right ones. - -"She will be disappointed, of course, but she is so little that -she will not feel it as much as if she were bigger. She will get -over it, darling. Very little girls do not remember things long." -Oh, how coarse and crass and stupid it sounded--how coarse and -crass and stupid to say it to this small defiant scrap of what -seemed the inevitable suffering of the world! - -The clear blue of the eyes Robin had dwelt in, lifted itself to -her. There was something almost fierce in it--almost like impotent -hatred of something. - -"She won't," he said, and she actually heard him grind his little -teeth after it. - -He did not look like Donal when he was dressed and sat at the -breakfast table. He did not eat much of his porridge, but she saw -that he determinedly ate some. She felt several times as if he -actually did not look like anybody she had ever seen. And at the -same time his fair hair, his fair cheeks, and the fair sturdy -knees beneath his swinging kilt made him seem as much a little boy -as she had ever known him. It was his hot blue eyes which were -different. - -He obeyed her every wish and followed where she led. When the train -laboured out of the big station he had taken a seat in a corner -and sat with his face turned to the window, so that his back was -towards her. He stared and stared at the passing country and she -could only see part of his cheek and the side of his neck. She -could not help watching them and presently she saw a hot red glow -under the skin as if a flood had risen. It subsided in a few moments, -but presently she saw it rise again. This happened several times -and he was holding his lip with, his teeth. Once she saw his -shoulders more and he coughed obstinately two or three times. She -knew that he would die before he would let himself cry, but she -wished he would descend to it just this once, as the fields and -hedges raced past and he was carried "Away! Away!" It might be -that it was all his manhood she was saving for him. - -He really made her heart stand still for a moment just as she was -thinking this and saying it to herself almost fiercely. He suddenly -turned on her; the blue of his eyes was flaming and the tide had -risen again in his cheeks and neck. It was a thing like rage she -saw before her--a child's rage and impotently fierce. He cried out -as if he were ending a sentence he had not finished when he spoke -as he sat on the floor buttoning his shoes. - -"She has no one but me to remember!" he said. "No one but me had -ever even kissed her. She didn't know!" - -To her amazement he clenched both his savage young fists and shook -them before him. - -"It'll kill me!" he raged. - -She could not hold herself back. She caught at him with her arms -and meant to drag him to her breast. "No! No! Donal!" she cried. -"Darling! No--No!" But, as suddenly as the queer unchildish thing -had broken out, did he remember himself and boy shame at his -fantastic emotion overtook him. He had never spoken like that to -anyone before! It was almost as bad as bursting out crying! The -red tide ebbed away and he withdrew himself awkwardly from her -embrace. He said not another word and sat down in his corner with -his back turned toward the world. - - * * * * * - -That the Lady Downstairs, who was so fond of laughing and who knew -so many persons who seemed to laugh nearly all the time, might -have been joking about being her mother presented itself to Robin -as a vague solution of the problem. The Lady had laughed when she -said it, as people so often laughed at children. Perhaps she had -only been amusing herself as grown-up persons were apparently -entitled to do. Even Donal had not seemed wholly convinced and -though his mother had said the Lady Downstairs WAS--somehow the -subject had been changed at once. Mrs. Muir had so soon begun to -tell them a story. Robin was not in the least aware that she had -swiftly distracted their attention from a question, any discussion -of which would have involved explanations she could not have -produced. It would have been impossible to make it clear to any -child. She herself was helpless before the situation and therefore -her only refuge was to make the two think of other things. She had -so well done this that Robin had gone home later only remembering -the brightly transitory episode as she recalled others as brief and -bright, when she had stared at a light and lovely figure standing -on the nursery threshold and asking careless questions of Andrews, -without coming in and risking the freshness of her draperies by -contact with London top-floor grubbiness. The child was, in fact, -too full of the reality of her happiness with Donal and Donal's -mother to be more than faintly bewildered by a sort of visionary -conundrum. - -Robin, like Donal, slept perfectly through the night. Her sleep -was perhaps made more perfect by fair dreams in which she played -in the Gardens and she and Donal ran to and from the knees of -the Mother lady to ask questions and explain their games. As the -child had often, in the past, looked up at the sky, so she had looked -up into the clear eyes of the Mother lady. There was something in -them which she had never seen before but which she kept wanting to -see again. Then there came a queer bit of a dream about the Lady -Downstairs. She came dancing towards them dressed in hyacinths -and with her arms full of daffodils. She danced before Donal's -Mother--danced and laughed as if she thought they were all funny. -She threw a few daffodils at them and then danced away. The -daffodils lay on the gravel walk and they all looked at them but -no one picked them up. Afterwards--in the dream--Mrs. Muir suddenly -caught her in her arms and kissed her and Robin was glad and felt -warm all over--inside and out. - -She wakened smiling at the dingy ceiling of the dingy room. There -was but one tiny shadow in the world, which was the fear that -Andrews would get well too quickly. She was no longer in bed but -was well enough to sit up and sew a little before the tiny fire -in the atom of a servant's room grate. The doctor would not let -her go out yet; therefore, Anne still remained in charge. Founding -one's hope on previous knowledge of Anne's habits, she might be -trusted to sit and read and show no untoward curiosity. - -From her bed Robin could see the sky was blue. That meant that -she would be taken out. She lay as quiet as a mouse and thought -of the joy before her, until Anne came to dress her and give her -her breakfast. - -"We'll put on your rose-coloured smock this morning," the girl said, -when the dressing began. "I like the hat and socks that match." - -Anne was not quite like Andrews who was not talkative. She made -a conversational sort of remark after she had tied the white shoes. - -"You've got pretty little aristocratic legs of your own," she said -amiably. "I like my children to have nice legs." - -Robin was uplifted in spirit by the commendation, but she hoped -Anne would put on her own things quickly. Sometimes she was rather -a long time. The one course, however, towards which discretion -pointed as entirely safe was the continuance of being as quiet -as a mouse--even quieter, if such thing might be--so that nothing -might interfere with anything any one wanted to do. To interfere -would have been to attract attention and might lead to delay. So -she stood and watched the sparrows inoffensively until Anne called -her. - -When she found herself out on the street her step was so light on -the pavement that she was rather like a rose petal blown fluttering -along by soft vagrant puffs of spring air. Under her flopping -hat her eyes and lips and cheeks were so happy that more than one -passer-by turned head over shoulder to look after her. - -"Your name ought to be Rose," Anne giggled involuntarily as she -glanced down at her because someone had stared. She had not meant -to speak but the words said themselves. - -Because the time was young June even London sky and air were -wonderful. Stray breaths of fragrance came and went. The green of -the trees in the Gardens was light and fresh and in the bedded-out -curves and stars and circles there were more flowers every hour, -so that it seemed as if blooming things with scents grew thick -about one's feet. It was no wonder one felt light and smiled back -at nurses and governesses who looked up. Robin drew eyes became she -was like a summer bloom suddenly appearing in the Spring Garden. - -Nanny was not sitting on the bench near the gate and Donal was -not to be seen amusing himself. But he was somewhere just out of -sight, or, if he had chanced to be late, he would come very soon -even if his Mother could not come with him--though Robin could -not believe she would not. To a child thing both happiness and -despair cannot be conceived of except as lasting forever. - -Anne sat down and opened her book. She had reached an exciting -part and looked forward to a thoroughly enjoyable morning. - -Robin hopped about for a few minutes. Donal had taught her to hop -and she felt it an accomplishment. Entangled in the meshes of the -feathery, golden, if criminal, ringlets of Lady Audley, Anne did -not know when she hopped round the curve of the walk behind the -lilac and snowball bushes. - -Once safe in her bit of enchanted land, the child stood still and -looked about her. There was no kilted figure to be seen, but it -would come towards her soon with swinging plaid and eagle's feather -standing up grandly in its Highland bonnet. He would come soon. -Perhaps he would come running--and the Mother lady would walk -behind more slowly and smile. Robin waited and looked--she waited -and looked. - -She was used to waiting but she had never watched for anyone -before. There had never been any one or anything to watch for. The -newness of the suspense gave it a sort of deep thrill at first. How -long was "at first"? She did not know. She stood--and stood--and -stood--and looked at every creature who entered the gate. She did -not see any one who looked in the least like Donal or his Mother or -Nanny. There were nurses and governesses and children and a loitering -lady or two. There were never many people in the Gardens--only -those who had keys. She knew nothing about time but at length she -knew that on other mornings they had been playing together before -this. - -The small rose-coloured figure stood so still for so long that it -began to look rigid and a nurse sitting at some distance said to -another, - -"What is that child waiting for?" - -What length of time had passed before she found herself looking -slowly down at her feet because of something. The "something" -which had drawn her eyes downward was that she had stood so long -without moving that her tense feet had begun vaguely to hurt her -and the ache attracted her attention. She changed her position -slightly and turned her eyes upon the gate again. He was coming very -soon. He would be sure to run fast now and he would be laughing. -Donal! Donal! She even laughed a little low, quivering laugh -herself. - -"What is that child waiting for? I should really like to know," -the distant nurse said again curiously. - -If she had been eighteen years old she would have said to herself -that she was waiting hours and hours. She would have looked at a -little watch a thousand times; she would have walked up and down -and round and round the garden never losing sight of the gate--or -any other point for that matter--for more than a minute. Each -sound of the church clock striking a few streets away would have -brought her young heart thumping into her throat. - -But a child has no watch, no words out of which to build hopes -and fears and reasons, arguments battling against anguish which -grows--palliations, excuses. Robin, could only wait in the midst -of a slow dark, rising tide of something she had no name for. This -slow rising of an engulfing flood she felt when pins and needles -began to take possession of her feet, when her legs ached, and her -eyes felt as if they had grown big and tightly strained. Donal! -Donal! Donal! - -Who knows but that some echo of the terror against which she had -fought and screamed on the night when she had lain alone in the dark -in her cradle and Feather had hid her head under the pillow--came -back and closed slowly around and over her, filling her inarticulate -being with panic which at last reached its unbearable height? -She had not really stood waiting the entire morning, but she was -young enough to think that she had and that at any moment Anne -might come and take her away. He had not come running--he had not -come laughing--he had not come with his plaid swinging and his -feather standing high! There came a moment when her strained eyes -no longer seemed to see clearly! Something like a big lump crawled -up into her throat! Something of the same sort happened the day -she had burst into a wail of loneliness and Andrews had pinched -her. Panic seized her; she clutched the breast of her rose-coloured -frock and panic-driven turned and fled into a thick clump of bushes -where there was no path and where even Donal had never pierced. - -"That child has run away at last," the distant nurse remarked, -"I'd like to find out what she WAS waiting for." - -The shrubs were part of the enclosing planting of the Gardens. The -children who came to play on the grass and paths felt as if they -formed a sort of forest. Because of this, Robin had made her -frantic dash to their shelter. No one would come--no one would -see her--no one would hear her, beneath them it was almost dark. -Bereft, broken and betrayed, a little mad thing, she pushed her -way into their shadow and threw herself face downward, a small, -writhing, rose-coloured heap, upon the damp mould. She could not -have explained what she was doing or why she had given up all, -as if some tidal wave had overwhelmed her. Suddenly she knew that -all her new world had gone--forever and ever. As it had come so -it had gone. As she had not doubted the permanence of its joy, -so she KNEW that the end had come. Only the wisdom of the occult -would dare to suggest that from her child mate, squaring his sturdy -young shoulders against the world as the flying train sped on its -way, some wave of desperate, inchoate thinking rushed backward. -There was nothing more. He would not come back running. He was -GONE! - -There was no Andrews to hear. Hidden in the shadow under the shrubs, -the rattle and roar of the street outside the railing drowned her -mad little cries. All she had never done before, she did then. Her -hands beat on the damp mould and tore at it--her small feet beat -it and dug into it. She cried, she sobbed; the big lump in her -throat almost strangled her--she writhed and did not know she was -writhing. Her tears pouring forth wet her hair, her face, her dress. -She did not cry out, "Donal! Donal!" because he was nowhere--nowhere. -If Andrews had seen her she would have said she was "in a tantrum," -But she was not. The world had been torn away. - -A long time afterwards, as it seemed to her, she crawled out from -under the shrubs, carrying her pretty flopping hat in her earth-stained -hand. It was not pretty any more. She had been lying on it and it -was crushed and flat. She crept slowly round the curve to Anne. - -Seeing her, Anne sprang to her feet. The rose was a piteous thing -beaten to earth by a storm. The child's face was swollen and stained, -her hair was tangled and damp there were dark marks of mould on -her dress, her hat, her hands, her white cheeks; her white shoes -were earth-stained also, and the feet in the rose-coloured socks -dragged themselves heavily--slowly. - -"My gracious!" the young woman almost shrieked. "What's happened! -Where have you been? Did you fall down? Ah, my good gracious! Mercy -me!" - -Robin caught her breath but did not say a word. - -"You fell down on a flower bed where they'd been watering the -plants!" almost wept Anne. "You must have. There isn't that much -dirt anywhere else in the Gardens." - -And when she took her charge home that was the story she told -Andrews. Out of Robin she could get nothing, and it was necessary -to have an explanation. - -The truth, of which she knew nothing, was but the story of a child's -awful dismay and a child's woe at one of Life's first betrayals. -It would be left behind by the days which came and went--it would -pass--as all things pass but the everlasting hills--but in this way -it was that it came and wrote itself upon the tablets of a child's -day. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - - - - -"The child's always been well, ma'am," Andrews was standing, the -image of exact correctness, in her mistress' bedroom, while Feather -lay in bed with her breakfast on a convenient and decorative little -table. "It's been a thing I've prided myself on. But I should say -she isn't well now." - -"Well, I suppose it's only natural that she should begin sometime," -remarked Feather. "They always do, of course. I remember we all had -things when we were children. What does the doctor say? I hope it -isn't the measles, or the beginning of anything worse?" - -"No, ma'am, it isn't. It's nothing like a child's disease. I could -have managed that. There's good private nursing homes for them in -these days. Everything taken care of exactly as it should be and no -trouble of disinfecting and isolating for the family. I know what -you'd have wished to have done, ma'am." - -"You do know your business, Andrews," was Feather's amiable comment. - -"Thank you, ma'am," from Andrews. "Infectious things are easy -managed if they're taken away quick. But the doctor said you must -be spoken to because perhaps a change was needed." - -"You could take her to Ramsgate or somewhere bracing." said Feather. -"But what did he SAY?" - -"He seemed puzzled, ma'am. That's what struck me. When I told him -about her not eating--and lying awake crying all night--to judge from -her looks in the morning--and getting thin and pale--he examined -her very careful and he looked queer and he said, 'This child hasn't -had a SHOCK of any kind, has she? This looks like what we should -call shock--if she were older'." - -Feather laughed. - -"How could a baby like that have a shock?" - -"That's what I thought myself, ma'am," answered Andrews. "A child -that's had her hours regular and is fed and bathed and sleeps by -the clock, and goes out and plays by herself in the Gardens, well -watched over, hasn't any chance to get shocks. I told him so and -he sat still and watched her quite curious, and then he said very -slow: 'Sometimes little children are a good deal shaken up by a -fall when they are playing. Do you remember any chance fall when -she cried a good deal?'" - -"But you didn't, of course," said Feather. - -"No, ma'am, I didn't. I keep my eye on her pretty strict and -shouldn't encourage wild running or playing. I don't let her play -with other children. And she's not one of those stumbling, falling -children. I told him the only fall I ever knew of her having was a -bit of a slip on a soft flower bed that had just been watered--to -judge from the state her clothes were in. She had cried because -she's not used to such things, and I think she was frightened. But -there wasn't a scratch or a shadow of a bruise on her. Even that -wouldn't have happened if I'd been with her. It was when I was -ill and my sister Anne took my place. Ann thought at first that -she'd been playing with a little boy she had made friends with--but -she found out that the boy hadn't come that morning--" - -"A boy!" Andrews was sharp enough to detect a new and interested -note. "What boy?" - -"She wouldn't have played with any other child if I'd been there" -said Andrews, "I was pretty sharp with Anne about it. But she said -he was an aristocratic looking little fellow--" - -"Was he in Highland costume?" Feather interrupted. - -"Yes, ma'am. Anne excused herself by saying she thought you must -know something about him. She declares she saw you come into the -Gardens and speak to his Mother quite friendly. That was the day -before Robin fell and ruined her rose-coloured smock and things. -But it wasn't through playing boisterous with the boy--because -he didn't come that morning, as I said, and he never has since." - -Andrews, on this, found cause for being momentarily puzzled by the -change of expression in her mistress' face. Was it an odd little -gleam of angry spite she saw? - -"And never has since, has he?" Mrs. Gareth-Lawless said with a -half laugh. - -"Not once, ma'am," answered Andrews. "And Anne thinks it queer -the child never seemed to look for him. As if she'd lost interest. -She just droops and drags about and doesn't try to play at all." - -"How much did she play with him?" - -"Well, he was such a fine little fellow and had such a respectable, -elderly, Scotch looking woman in charge of him that Anne owned up -that she hadn't thought there was any objections to them playing -together. She says they were as well behaved and quiet as children -could be." Andrews thought proper to further justify herself by -repeating, "She didn't think there could be any objection." - -"There couldn't," Mrs. Gareth-Lawless remarked. "I do know the -boy. He is a relation of Lord Coombe's." - -"Indeed, ma'am," with colourless civility, "Anne said he was a -big handsome child." - -Feather took a small bunch of hothouse grapes from her breakfast -tray and, after picking one off, suddenly began to laugh. - -"Good gracious, Andrews!" she said. "He was the 'shock'! How -perfectly ridiculous! Robin had never played with a boy before -and she fell in love with him. The little thing's actually pining -away for him." She dropped the grapes and gave herself up to -delicate mirth. "He was taken away and disappeared. Perhaps she -fainted and fell into the wet flower bed and spoiled her frock, -when she first realized that he wasn't coming." - -"It did happen that morning," admitted Andrews, smiling a little -also. "It does seem funny. But children take to each other in a -queer way now and then. I've seen it upset them dreadful when they -were parted." - -"You must tell the doctor," laughed Feather. "Then he'll see -there's nothing to be anxious about. She'll get over it in a week." - -"It's five weeks since it happened, ma'am," remarked Andrews, with -just a touch of seriousness. - -"Five! Why, so it must be! I remember the day I spoke to Mrs. -Muir. If she's that sort of child you had better keep her away from -boys. HOW ridiculous! How Lord Coombe--how people will laugh when -I tell them!" - -She had paused a second because--for that second--she was not quite -sure that Coombe WOULD laugh. Frequently she was of the opinion -that he did not laugh at things when he should have done so. But -she had had a brief furious moment when she had realized that the -boy had actually been whisked away. She remembered the clearness of -the fine eyes which had looked directly into hers. The woman had -been deciding then that she would have nothing to do with her--or -even with her child. - -But the story of Robin worn by a bereft nursery passion for a little -boy, whose mamma snatched him away as a brand from the burning, -was far too edifying not to be related to those who would find it -delicious. - -It was on the occasion, a night or so later, of a gathering at -dinner of exactly the few elect ones, whose power to find it -delicious was the most highly developed, that she related it. It -was a very little dinner--only four people. One was the long thin -young man, with the good looking narrow face and dark eyes peering -through a pince nez--the one who had said that Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -"got her wondrous clothes from Helene" but that he couldn't. His -name was Harrowby. Another was the Starling who was a Miss March -who had, some years earlier, led the van of the girls who prostrated -their relatives by becoming what was then called "emancipated"; the -sign thereof being the demanding of latchkeys and the setting up -of bachelor apartments. The relatives had astonishingly settled -down, with the unmoved passage of time, and more modern emancipation -had so far left latchkeys and bachelor apartments behind it that -they began to seem almost old-fogeyish. Clara March, however, -had progressed with her day. The third diner was an adored young -actor with a low, veiled voice which, combining itself with almond -eyes and a sentimental and emotional curve of cheek and chin, made -the most commonplace "lines" sound yearningly impassioned. He was -not impassioned at all--merely fond of his pleasures and comforts -in a way which would end by his becoming stout. At present his -figure was perfect--exactly the thing for the uniforms of royal -persons of Ruritania and places of that ilk--and the name by which -programmes presented him was Gerald Vesey. - -Feather's house pleased him and she herself liked being spoken -to in the veiled voice and gazed at by the almond eyes, as though -insuperable obstacles alone prevented soul-stirring things from -being said. That she knew this was not true did not interfere with -her liking it. Besides he adored and understood her clothes. - -Over coffee in the drawing-room, Coombe joined them. He had not -known of the little dinner and arrived just as Feather was on the -point of beginning her story. - -"You are just in time," she greeted him, "I was going to tell them -something to make them laugh." - -"Will it make me laugh?" he inquired. - -"It ought to. Robin is in love. She is five years old and she has -been deserted, and Andrews came to tell me that she can neither -eat nor sleep. The doctor says she has had a shock." - -Coombe did not join in the ripple of amused laughter but, as he -took his cup of coffee, he looked interested. - -Harrowby was interested too. His dark eyes quite gleamed. - -"I suppose she is in bed by now," he said. "If it were not so late, -I should beg you to have her brought down so that we might have a -look at her. I'm by way of taking a psychological interest." - -"I'm psychological myself," said the Starling. "But what do you -mean, Feather? Are you in earnest?" - -"Andrews is," Feather answered. "She could manage measles but she -could not be responsible for shock. But she didn't find out about -the love affair. I found that out--by mere chance. Do you remember -the day we got out of the victoria and went into the Gardens, -Starling?" - -"The time you spoke to Mrs. Muir?" - -Coombe turned slightly towards them. - -Feather nodded, with a lightly significant air. - -"It was her boy," she said, and then she laughed and nodded at -Coombe. - -"He was quite as handsome as you said he was. No wonder poor Robin -fell prostrate. He ought to be chained and muzzled by law when he -grows up." - -"But so ought Robin," threw in the Starling in her brusque, young -mannish way. - -"But Robin's only a girl and she's not a parti," laughed Feather. -Her eyes, lifted to Coombe's, held a sort of childlike malice. -"After his mother knew she was Miss Gareth-Lawless, he was not -allowed to play in the Gardens again. Did she take him back to -Scotland?" - -"They went back to Scotland," answered Coombe, "and, of course, -the boy was not left behind." - -"Have YOU a child five years old?" asked Vesey in his low voice -of Feather. "You?" - -"It seems absurd to ME," said Feather, "I never quite believe in -her." - -"I don't," said Vesey. "She's impossible." - -"Robin is a stimulating name," put in Harrowby. "IS it too late -to let us see her? If she's such a beauty as Starling hints, she -ought to be looked at." - -Feather actually touched the bell by the fireplace. A sudden -caprice moved her. The love story had not gone off quite as well -as she had thought it would. And, after all, the child was pretty -enough to show off. She knew nothing in particular about her -daughter's hours, but, if she was asleep, she could be wakened. - -"Tell Andrews," she said to the footman when he appeared, "I wish -Miss Robin to be brought downstairs." - -"They usually go to bed at seven, I believe," remarked Coombe, -"but, of course, I am not an authority." - -Robin was not asleep though she had long been in bed. Because she -kept her eyes shut Andrews had been deceived into carrying on a -conversation with her sister Anne, who had come to see her. Robin -had been lying listening to it. She had begun to listen because -they had been talking about the day she had spoiled her rose-coloured -smock and they had ended by being very frank about other things. - -"As sure as you saw her speak to the boy's mother the day before, -just so sure she whisked him back to Scotland the next morning," -said Andrews. "She's one of the kind that's particular. Lord -Coombe's the reason. She does not want her boy to see or speak to -him, if it can be helped. She won't have it--and when she found -out--" - -"Is Lord Coombe as bad as they say?" put in Anne with bated breath. -"He must be pretty bad if a boy that's eight years old has to be -kept out of sight and sound of him." - -So it was Lord Coombe who had somehow done it. He had made Donal's -mother take him away. It was Lord Coombe. Who was Lord Coombe? It -was because he was wicked that Donal's mother would not let him -play with her--because he was wicked. All at once there came to -her a memory of having heard his name before. She had heard it -several times in the basement Servants' Hall and, though she had -not understood what was said about him, she had felt the atmosphere -of cynical disapproval of something. They had said "him" and "her" -as if he somehow belonged to the house. On one occasion he had -been "high" in the manner of some reproof to Jennings, who, being -enraged, freely expressed his opinions of his lordship's character -and general reputation. The impression made on Robin then had been -that he was a person to be condemned severely. That the condemnation -was the mere outcome of the temper of an impudent young footman -had not conveyed itself to her, and it was the impression which -came back to her now with a new significance. He was the cause--not -Donal, not Donal's Mother--but this man who was so bad that servants -were angry because he was somehow connected with the house. - -"As to his badness," she heard Andrews answer, "there's some that -can't say enough against him. Badness is smart these days. He's -bad enough for the boy's mother to take him away from. It's what -he is in this house that does it. She won't have her boy playing -with a child like Robin." - -Then--even as there flashed upon her bewilderment this strange -revelation of her own unfitness for association with boys whose -mothers took care of them--Jennings, the young footman, came to -the door. - -"Is she awake, Miss Andrews?" he said, looking greatly edified by -Andrews' astonished countenance. - -"What on earth--?" began Andrews. - -"If she is," Jennings winked humorously, "she's to be dressed up -and taken down to the drawing-room to be shown off. I don't know -whether it's Coombe's idea or not. He's there." - -Robin's eyes flew wide open. She forgot to keep them shut. She -was to go downstairs! Who wanted her--who? - -Andrews had quite gasped. - -"Here's a new break out!" she exclaimed. "I never heard such a -thing in my life. She's been in bed over two hours. I'd like to -know--" - -She paused here because her glance at the bed met the dark liquidity -of eyes wide open. She got up and walked across the room. - -"You are awake!" she said. "You look as if you hadn't been asleep -at all. You're to get up and have your frock put on. The Lady -Downstairs wants you in the drawing-room." - -Two months earlier such a piece of information would have awakened -in the child a delirium of delight. But now her vitality was lowered -because her previously unawakened little soul had soared so high -and been so dashed down to cruel earth again. The brilliancy of -the Lady Downstairs had been dimmed as a candle is dimmed by the -light of the sun. - -She felt only a vague wonder as she did as Andrews told her--wonder -at the strangeness of getting up to be dressed, as it seemed to -her, in the middle of the night. - -"It's just the kind of thing that would happen in a house like -this," grumbled Andrews, as she put on her frock. "Just anything -that comes into their heads they think they've a right to do. I -suppose they have, too. If you're rich and aristocratic enough to -have your own way, why not take it? I would myself." - -The big silk curls, all in a heap, fell almost to the child's hips. -The frock Andrews chose for her was a fairy thing. - -"She IS a bit thin, to be sure," said the girl Anne. "But it points -her little face and makes her eyes look bigger." - -"If her mother's got a Marquis, I wonder what she'll get," said -Andrews. "She's got a lot before her: this one!" - -When the child entered the drawing-room, Andrews made her go in -alone, while she held herself, properly, a few paces back like a -lady in waiting. The room was brilliantly lighted and seemed full -of colour and people who were laughing. There were pretty things -crowding each other everywhere, and there were flowers on all sides. -The Lady Downstairs, in a sheathlike sparkling dress, and only -a glittering strap seeming to hold it on over her fair undressed -shoulders, was talking to a tall thin man standing before the -fireplace with a gold cup of coffee in his hand. - -As the little thing strayed in, with her rather rigid attendant -behind her, suddenly the laughing ceased and everybody involuntarily -drew a half startled breath--everybody but the tall thin man, who -quietly turned and set his coffee cup down on the mantel piece -behind him. - -"Is THIS what you have been keeping up your sleeve!" said Harrowby, -settling his pince nez. - -"I told you!" said the Starling. - -"You couldn't tell us," Vesey's veiled voice dropped in softly. -"It must be seen to be believed. But still--" aside to Feather, -"I don't believe it." - -"Enter, my only child!" said Feather. "Come here, Robin. Come to -your mother." - -Now was the time! Robin went to her and took hold of a very small -piece of her sparkling dress. - -"ARE you my Mother?" she said. And then everybody burst into a -peal of laughter, Feather with the rest. - -"She calls me the Lady Downstairs," she said. "I really believe -she doesn't know. She's rather a stupid little thing." - -"Amazing lack of filial affection," said Lord Coombe. - -He was not laughing like the rest and he was looking down at Robin. -She thought him ugly and wicked looking. Vesey and Harrowby were -beautiful by contrast. Before she knew who he was, she disliked -him. She looked at him askance under her eyelashes, and he saw her -do it before her mother spoke his name, taking her by the tips of -her fingers and leading her to him. - -"Come and let Lord Coombe look at you," she said. So it revealed -itself to her that it was he--this ugly one--who had done it, and -hatred surged up in her soul. It was actually in the eyes she -raised to his face, and Coombe saw it as he had seen the sidelong -glance and he wondered what it meant. - -"Shake hands with Lord Coombe," Feather instructed. - -"If you can make a curtsey, make one." She turned her head over -her shoulders, "Have you taught her to curtsey, Andrews?" - -But Andrews had not and secretly lost temper at finding herself made -to figure as a nurse who had been capable of omission. Outwardly -she preserved rigid calm. - -"I'm afraid not, ma'am. I will at once, if you wish it." - -Coombe was watching the inner abhorrence in the little face. Robin -had put her hand behind her back--she who had never disobeyed since -she was born! She had crossed a line of development when she had -seen glimpses of the new world through Donal's eyes. - -"What are you doing, you silly little thing," Feather reproved -her. "Shake hands with Lord Coombe." - -Robin shook her head fiercely. - -"No! No! No! No!" she protested. - -Feather was disgusted. This was not the kind of child to display. - -"Rude little thing! Andrews, come and make her do it--or take her -upstairs," she said. - -Coombe took his gold coffee cup from the mantel. - -"She regards me with marked antipathy, as she did when she first -saw me," he summed the matter up. "Children and animals don't hate -one without reason. It is some remote iniquity in my character -which the rest of us have not yet detected." To Robin he said, -"I do not want to shake hands with you if you object. I prefer to -drink my coffee out of this beautiful cup." - -But Andrews was seething. Having no conscience whatever, she -had instead the pride of a female devil in her perfection in her -professional duties. That the child she was responsible for should -stamp her with ignominious fourth-ratedness by conducting herself -with as small grace as an infant costermonger was more than -her special order of flesh and blood could bear--and yet she must -outwardly control the flesh and blood. - -In obedience to her mistress' command, she crossed the room and -bent down and whispered to Robin. She intended that her countenance -should remain non-committal, but, when she lifted her head, she -met Coombe's eyes and realized that perhaps it had not. She added -to her whisper nursery instructions in a voice of sugar. - -"Be pretty mannered, Miss Robin, my dear, and shake hands with -his lordship." - -Each person in the little drawing-room saw the queer flame in the -child-face--Coombe himself was fantastically struck by the sudden -thought that its expression might have been that of an obstinate -young martyr staring at the stake. Robin shrilled out her words: - -"Andrews will pinch me--Andrews will pinch me! But--No!--No!" and -she kept her hand behind her back. - -"Oh, Miss Robin, you naughty child!" cried Andrews, with pathos. -"Your poor Andrews that takes such care of you!" - -"Horrid little thing!" Feather pettishly exclaimed. "Take her -upstairs, Andrews. She shall not come down again." - -Harrowby, settling his pince nez a little excitedly in the spurred -novelty of his interest, murmured, - -"If she doesn't want to go, she will begin to shriek. This looks -as if she were a little termagant." - -But she did not shriek when Andrews led her towards the door. -The ugly one with the wicked face was the one who had done it. He -filled her with horror. To have touched him would have been like -touching some wild beast of prey. That was all. She went with -Andrews quite quietly. - -"Will you shake hands with me?" said the Starling, goodnaturedly, -as she passed, "I hope she won't snub me," she dropped aside to -Harrowby. - -Robin put out her hand prettily. - -"Shake mine," suggested Harrowby, and she obeyed him. - -"And mine?" smiled Vesey, with his best allure. She gave him -her hand, and, as a result of the allure probably, a tiny smile -flickered about the corners of her mouth. He did not look wicked. - -"I remain an outcast," remarked Coombe, as the door closed behind -the little figure. - -"I detest an ill-mannered child," said Feather. "She ought to be -slapped. We used to be slapped if we were rude." - -"She said Andrews would pinch her. Is pinching the customary -discipline?" - -"It ought to be. She deserves it." Feather was quite out of temper. -"But Andrews is too good to her. She is a perfect creature and -conducts herself like a clock. There has never been the slightest -trouble in the Nursery. You see how the child looks--though her -face ISN'T quite as round as it was." She laughed disagreeably -and shrugged her white undressed shoulders. "I think it's a little -horrid, myself--a child of that age fretting herself thin about -a boy." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - - - - -But though she had made no protest on being taken out of the -drawing-room, Robin had known that what Andrews' soft-sounding -whisper had promised would take place when she reached the Nursery. -She was too young to feel more than terror which had no defense -whatever. She had no more defense against Andrews than she had -had against the man who had robbed her of Donal. They were both -big and powerful, and she was nothing. But, out of the wonders -she had begun to know, there had risen in her before almost inert -little being a certain stirring. For a brief period she had learned -happiness and love and woe, and, this evening, inchoate rebellion -against an enemy. Andrews led by the hand up the narrow, top-story -staircase something she had never led before. She was quite unaware -of this and, as she mounted each step, her temper mounted also, -and it was the temper of an incensed personal vanity abnormally -strong in this particular woman. When they were inside the Nursery -and the door was shut, she led Robin to the middle of the small -and gloomy room and released her hand. - -"Now, my lady," she said. "I'm going to pay you out for disgracing -me before everybody in the drawing-room." She had taken the child -below stairs for a few minutes before bringing her up for the -night. She had stopped in the kitchen for something she wanted for -herself. She laid her belongings on a chest of drawers and turned -about. - -"I'm going to teach you a lesson you won't forget," she said. - -What happened next turned the woman quite sick with the shock of -amazement. The child had, in the past, been a soft puppet. She -had been automatic obedience and gentleness. Privately Andrews -had somewhat looked down on her lack of spirit, though it had been -her own best asset. The outbreak downstairs had been an abnormality. - -And now she stood before her with hands clenched, her little face -wild with defiant rage. - -"I'll scream! I'll scream! I'll SCREAM!" she shrieked. Andrews -actually heard herself gulp; but she sprang up and forward. - -"You'll SCREAM!" she could scarcely believe her own feelings--not -to mention the evidence of her ears, "YOU'LL scream!" - -The next instant was more astonishing still. Robin threw herself on -her knees and scrambled like a cat. She was under the bed and in -the remotest corner against the wall. She was actually unreachable, -and she lay on her back kicking madly, hammering her heels against -the floor and uttering piercing shrieks. As something had seemed -to let itself go when she writhed under the bushes in the Gardens, -so did something let go now. In her overstrung little mind there -ruled for this moment the feeling that if she was to be pinched, -she would be pinched for a reason. - -Andrews knelt by the side of the bed. She had a long, strong, -thin arm and it darted beneath and clutched. But it was not long -enough to attain the corner where the kicking and screaming was -going on. Her temper became fury before her impotence and her -hideous realization of being made ridiculous by this baby of six. -Two floors below the afterglow of the little dinner was going on. -Suppose even far echoes of the screams should be heard and make -her more ridiculous still. She knew how they would laugh and her -mistress would make some silly joke about Robin's being too much -for her. Her fury rose so high that she had barely sense to realize -that she must not let herself go too far when she got hold of the -child. Get hold of her she would and pay her out--My word! She -would pay her out! - -"You little devil!" she said between her teeth, "Wait till I get -hold of you." And Robin shrieked and hammered more insanely still. - -The bed was rather a low one and it was difficult for any one larger -than a child to find room beneath it. The correct and naturally -rigid Andrews lay flat upon her stomach and wriggled herself partly -under the edge. Just far enough for her long and strong arm, and -equally long and strong clutching fingers to do their work. In her -present state of mind, Andrews would have broken her back rather -than not have reached the creature who so defied her. The strong -fingers clenched a flying petticoat and dragged at it fiercely--the -next moment they clutched a frantic foot, with a power which could -not be broken away from. A jerk and a remorseless dragging over -the carpet and Robin was out of the protecting darkness and in -the gas light again, lying tumbled and in an untidy, torn little -heap on the nursery floor. Andrews was panting, but she did not -loose her hold as she scrambled, without a rag of professional -dignity, to her feet. - -"My word!" she breathlessly gave forth. "I've got you now! I've -got you now." - -She so looked that to Robin she seemed--like the ugly man -downstairs--a sort of wicked wild beast, whose mere touch would -have been horror even if it did not hurt. And the child knew what -was coming. She felt herself dragged up from the floor and also -dragged between Andrew's knees, which felt bony and hard as iron. -There was no getting away from them. Andrews had seated herself -firmly on a chair. - -Holding her between the iron knees, she put her large hand over -her mouth. It was a hand large enough to cover more than her mouth. -Only the panic-stricken eyes seemed to flare wide and lustrous -above it. - -"YOU'LL scream!" she said, "YOU'LL hammer on the floor with your -heels! YOU'LL behave like a wildcat--you that's been like a kitten! -You've never done it before and you'll never do it again! If it -takes me three days, I'll make you remember!" - -And then her hand dropped--and her jaw dropped, and she sat staring -with a furious, sick, white face at the open door--which she had -shut as she came in. The top floor had always been so safe. The -Nursery had been her own autocratic domain. There had been no -human creature to whom it would have occurred to interfere. That -was it. She had been actually SAFE. - -Unheard in the midst of the struggle, the door had been opened -without a knock. There on the threshold, as stiff as a ramrod, -and with his hateful eyes uncovering their gleam, Lord Coombe was -standing--no other than Lord Coombe. - -Having a sharp working knowledge of her world, Andrews knew that -it was all up. He had come upstairs deliberately. She knew what -he had come for. He was as clever as he was bad, and he had seen -something when he glanced at her in the drawing-room. Now he had -heard and seen her as she dragged Robin from under the bed. He'd -come up for that--for some queer evil reason of his own. The -promptings of a remote gutter training made her feel a desire to -use language such as she still had wisdom enough to restrain. - -"You are a very great fool, young woman," he said. "You have -nothing but your character as a nurse to live on. A scene in a -police court would ruin you. There is a Society which interferes -with nursery torture." - -Robin, freed from the iron grasp, had slunk behind a chair. He -was there again. - -Andrews' body, automatically responsive to rule and habit, rose from -its seat and stood before this member of a class which required -an upright position. She knew better than to attempt to excuse or -explain. She had heard about the Society and she knew publicity would -spell ruin and starvation. She had got herself into an appalling -mess. Being caught--there you were. But that this evil-reputationed -swell should actually have been awakened by some whim to notice -and follow her up was "past her," as she would have put it. - -"You were going to pinch her--by instalments, I suppose," he -said. "You inferred that it might last three days. When she said -you would--in the drawing-room--it occurred to me to look into it. -What are your wages?" - -"Thirty pounds a year, my lord." - -"Go tomorrow morning to Benby, who engaged you for Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. -He will be at his office by nine and will pay you what is owed to -you--and a month's wages in lieu of notice." - -"The mistress--" began Andrews. - -"I have spoken to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." It was a lie, serenely -told. Feather was doing a new skirt dance in the drawing-room. -"She is engaged. Pack your box. Jennings will call a cab." - -It was the utter idiotic hopelessness of saying anything to -him which finished her. You might as well talk to a front door or -a street lamp. Any silly thing you might try wouldn't even reach -his ears. He had no ears for you. You didn't matter enough. - -"Shall I leave her here--as she is?" she said, denoting Robin. - -"Undress her and put her to bed before you pack your box," absolutely -certain, fine cold modulations in the voice, which stood for his -special plane of breeding, had their effect on her grovelling -though raging soul. He was so exactly what he was and what she -was not and could never attain. "I will stay here while you do -it. Then go." - -No vocabulary of the Servants' Hall could have encompassed the fine -phrase grand seigneur, but, when Mrs. Blayne and the rest talked -of him in their least resentful and more amiable moods, they -unconsciously made efforts to express the quality in him which -these two words convey. He had ways of his own. Men that paid a -pretty woman's bills and kept her going in luxury, Jennings and -Mrs. Blayne and the others knew something about. They sometimes -began well enough but, as time went on, they forgot themselves -and got into the way of being familiar and showing they realized -that they paid for things and had their rights. Most of them began -to be almost like husbands--speak slighting and sharp and be a bit -stiff about accounts--even before servants. They ran in and out -or--after a while--began to stay away and not show up for weeks. -"He" was different--so different that it was queer. Queer it certainly -was that he really came to the place very seldom. Wherever they -met, it didn't noticeably often happen in the slice of a house. -He came as if he were a visitor. He took no liberties. Everything -was punctiliously referred to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. Mr. Benby, who -did everything, conducted himself outwardly as if he were a sort -of man of business in Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' employ. It was open to -the lenient to believe that she depended on some mysterious private -income. There were people who preferred to try to believe this, -but there were those who, in some occult way, knew exactly where -her income came from. There were, in fact, hypercritical persons -who did not know or notice her, but she had quite an entertaining, -smart circle which neither suspicions nor beliefs prevented from -placing her in their visiting lists. Coombe DID keep it up in the -most perfect manner, some of them said admiringly among themselves. -He showed extraordinarily perfect taste. Many fashionable open -secrets, accepted by a brilliant world, were not half so fastidiously -managed. Andrews knew he had unswervingly lied when he said he -had "spoken to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." But he never failed to place -her in the position of authority. That he should have presented -himself on the nursery floor was amazingly abnormal enough to -mean some state of mind unregulated by all natural rules. "Him," -Andrews thought, "that never steps out of a visitor's place in -the drawing-room turning up on the third floor without a word!" -One thing she knew, and that came first. Behind all the polite show -he was the head of everything. And he was one that you'd better -not give back a sound to if you knew what was good for yourself. -Whatever people said against his character, he was one of the -grand and high ones. A word from him--ever so quiet--and you'd be -done for. - -She was shaking with fear inwardly, but she undressed Robin and -put her in bed, laying everything away and making things tidy for -the night. - -"This is the Night Nursery, I suppose," Coombe had said when she -began. He put up his glasses and looked the uninviting little room -over. He scrutinized it and she wondered what his opinion of it -might be. - -"Yes, my lord. The Day Nursery is through that door." He walked -through the door in question and she could see that he moved slowly -about it, examining the few pieces of furniture curiously, still -with his glass in his eye. She had finished undressing Robin -and had put her in her bed before he came back into the sleeping -apartment. By that time, exhausted by the unknown tempest she had -passed through, the child had dropped asleep in spite of herself. -She was too tired to remember that her enemy was in the next room. - -"I have seen the child with you several times when you have not -been aware of it," Coombe said to her before he went downstairs. -"She has evidently been well taken care of as far as her body -is concerned. If you were not venomous--if you had merely struck -her, when you lost your temper, you might have had another trial. -I know nothing about children, but I know something about the -devil, and if ever the devil was in a woman's face and voice the -devil was in yours when you dragged the little creature from under -the bed. If you had dared, you would have killed her. Look after -that temper, young woman. Benby shall keep an eye on you if you -take another place as nurse, and I shall know where you are." - -"My lord!" Andrews gasped. "You wouldn't overlook a woman and take -her living from her and send her to starvation!" - -"I would take her living from her and send her to starvation -without a shadow of compunction," was the reply made in the fine -gentleman's cultivated voice, "--if she were capable of what you -were capable of tonight. You are, I judge, about forty, and, though -you are lean, you are a powerful woman; the child is, I believe, -barely six." And then, looking down at her through his glass, he -added--to her quite shuddering astonishment--in a tone whose very -softness made it really awful to her, "Damn you! Damn you!" - -"I'll--I swear I'll never let myself go again, my lord!" the woman -broke out devoutly. - -"I don't think you will. It would cost you too much," he said. - -Then he went down the steep, crooked little staircase quite -soundlessly and Andrews, rather white and breathless, went and -packed her trunk. Robin--tired baby as she was--slept warm and -deeply. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - - - - -It was no custom of his to outstay other people; in fact, he -usually went away comparatively early. Feather could not imagine -what his reason could be, but she was sure there was a reason. -She was often disturbed by his reasons, and found it difficult to -adjust herself to them. How--even if one had a logically brilliant -mind--could one calculate on a male being, who seemed not exactly -to belong to the race of men. - -As a result of the skirt dancing, the furniture of the empty -drawing-room was a little scattered and untidy, but Feather had -found a suitable corner among cushions on a sofa, after everyone -had gone leaving Coombe alone with her. She wished he would sit -down, but he preferred to stand in his still, uncomfortable way. - -"I know you are going to tell me something," she broke the silence. - -"I am. When I went out of the room, I did not drive round to my -club as I said I found myself obliged to. I went upstairs to the -third floor--to the Nursery." - -Feather sat quite upright. - -"YOU went up to the Nursery!" If this was the reason for his staying, -what on earth had he come upon in the region of the third floor, -and how ridiculously unlike him to allow himself to interfere. -Could it be Andrews and Jennings? Surely Andrews was too old.--This -passed across her mind in a flash. - -"You called Andrews to use her authority with the child when she -would not shake hands with me. The little creature, for some reason -of her own, evidently feels an antipathy to me. That interested -me and I watched her as Andrews whispered in her ear. The woman's -vanity was stung. I realized that she whispered a threat. A hint -of actual ferocity showed in her eyes in spite of herself. Robin -turned pale." - -"Andrews was quite right. Children must be punished when they are -rude." Feather felt this at once silly and boring. What did he -know about such matters? - -"The child said, 'Andrews will pinch me!' and I caught Andrews' eye -and knew it was true--also that she had done it before. I looked -at the woman's long, thin, strong fingers. They were cruel fingers. -I do not take liberties, as a rule, but I took a liberty. I excused -myself and climbed three flights of stairs." - -Never had Feather been so surprised in her life. She looked like -a bewildered child. - -"But--what COULD it matter to YOU?" she said in soft amaze. - -"I don't know," his answer came after a moment's pause. "I have -caprices of mood. Certain mental images made my temperature rise. -Momentarily it did matter. One is like that at times. Andrews' -feline face and her muscular fingers--and the child's extraordinarily -exquisite flesh--gave me a second's furious shudder." - -Feather quite broke in upon him. - -"Are you--are you FOND of children?" - -"No," he was really abrupt. "I never thought of such a thing in -my life--as being FOND of things." - -"That was what--I mean I thought so." Feather faltered, as if in -polite acquiescence with a quite natural fact. - -Coombe proceeded: - -"As I went up the stairs I heard screams and I thought that -the pinching had begun. I got up quickly and opened the door and -found the woman lying flat on the floor by the bed, dragging out -the child who had hidden under it. The woman's face was devilish, -and so was her voice. I heard her threats. She got on her feet and -dragged the child up and held her between her knees. She clapped -her hand over mouth to stifle her shrieks. There I stopped her. -She had a fright at sight of me which taught her something." He -ended rather slowly. "I took the great liberty of ordering her -to pack her box and leave the house--course," with a slight bow, -"using you as my authority." - -"Andrews!" cried Feather, aghast. "Has she--gone?" - -"Would you have kept her?" he inquired. - -"It's true that--that PINCHING" Feather's voice almost held tears, -"--really HARD pinching is--is not proper. But Andrews has been -invaluable. Everyone says Robin is better dressed and better kept -than other children. And she is never allowed to make the least -noise--" - -"One wouldn't if one were pinched by those devilish, sinewy fingers -every time one raised one's voice. Yes. She has gone. I ordered -her to put her charge to bed before she packed. I did not leave -her alone with Robin. In fact, I walked about the two nurseries -and looked them over." - -He had walked about the Night Nursery and the Day Nursery! He--the -Head of the House of Coombe, whose finely acrid summing up of -things, they were all secretly afraid of, if the truth were known. -"They" stood for her smart, feverishly pleasure-chasing set. In -their way, they half unconsciously tried to propitiate something -in him, always without producing the least effect. Her mental -vision presented to her his image as he had walked about the horrid -little rooms, his somewhat stiffly held head not much below the -low ceilings. He had taken in shabby carpets, furniture, faded -walls, general dim dinginess. - -"It's an unholy den for anything to spend its days in--that third -floor," he made the statement detachedly, in a way. "If she's six, -she has lived six years there--and known nothing else." - -"All London top floors are like it," said Feather, "and they are -all nurseries and school rooms--where there are children." - -His faintly smiling glance took in her girl-child slimness in its -glittering sheath--the zephyr scarf floating from the snow of her -bared loveliness--her delicate soft chin deliciously lifted as she -looked up at him. - -"How would YOU like it?" he asked. - -"But I am not a child," in pretty protest. "Children are--are -different!" - -"You look like a child," he suddenly said, queerly--as if the -aspect of her caught him for an instant and made him absent-minded. -"Sometimes--a woman does. Not often." - -She bloomed into a kind of delighted radiance. - -"You don't often pay me compliments," she said. "That is a beautiful -one. Robin--makes it more beautiful." - -"It isn't a compliment," he answered, still watching her in the -slightly absent manner. "It is--a tragic truth." - -He passed his hand lightly across his eyes as if he swept something -away, and then both looked and spoke exactly as before. - -"I have decided to buy the long lease of this house. It is for -sale," he said, casually. "I shall buy it for the child." - -"For Robin!" said Feather, helplessly. - -"Yes, for Robin." - -"It--it would be an income--whatever happened. It is in the very -heart of Mayfair," she said, because, in her astonishment--almost -consternation--she could think of nothing else. He would not buy -it for her. He thought her too silly to trust. But, if it were -Robin's--it would be hers also. A girl couldn't turn her own -mother into the street. Amid the folds of her narrow being hid -just one spark of shrewdness which came to life where she herself -was concerned. - -"Two or three rooms--not large ones--can be added at the back," -he went on. "I glanced out of a window to see if it could be done." - -Incomprehensible as he was, one might always be sure of a certain -princeliness in his inexplicable methods. He never was personal -or mean. An addition to the slice of a house! That really WAS -generous! Entrancement filled her. - -"That really is kind of you," she murmured, gratefully. "It seems -too much to ask!" - -"You did not ask it," was his answer. - -"But I shall benefit by it. Nothing COULD BE nicer. These rooms -are so much too small," glancing about her in flushed rapture, "And -my bedroom is dreadful. I'm obliged to use Rob's for a dressing-room." - -"The new rooms will be for Robin," he said. An excellent method he -had discovered, of entirely detaching himself from the excitements -and emotions of other persons, removed the usual difficulties -in the way of disappointing--speaking truths to--or embarrassing -people who deserved it. It was this method which had utterly cast -down the defences of Andrews. Feather was so wholly left out of the -situation that she was actually almost saved from its awkwardness. -"When one is six," he explained, "one will soon be seven--nine--twelve. -Then the teens begin to loom up and one cannot be concealed in -cupboards on a top floor. Even before that time a governess is -necessary, and, even from the abyss of my ignorance, I see that no -respectable woman would stand either the Night or the Day Nursery. -Your daughter--" - -"Oh, don't call her THAT!" cried Feather. "My daughter! It sounds -as if she were eighteen!" She felt as if she had a sudden hideous -little shock. Six years HAD passed since Bob died! A daughter! A -school girl with long hair and long legs to keep out of the way. -A grown-up girl to drag about with one. Never would she do it! - -"Three sixes are eighteen," Coombe continued, "as was impressed -upon one in early years by the multiplication table." - -"I never saw you so interested in anything before," Feather faltered. -"Climbing steep, narrow, horrid stairs to her nursery! Dismissing -her nurse!" She paused a second, because a very ugly little idea -had clutched at her. It arose from and was complicated with many -fantastic, half formed, secret resentments of the past. It made -her laugh a shade hysterical. - -"Are you going to see that she is properly brought up and educated, -so that if--anyone important falls in love with her she can make -a good match?" - -Hers was quite a hideous little mind, he was telling himself--fearful -in its latter day casting aside of all such small matters as taste -and feeling. People stripped the garments from things in these -days. He laughed inwardly at himself and his unwitting "these -days." Senile severity mouthed just such phrases. Were they not -his own days and the outcome of a past which had considered itself -so much more decorous? Had not boldly questionable attitudes been -held in those other days? How long was it since the Prince Regent -himself had flourished? It was only that these days brought it -all close against one's eyes. But this exquisite creature had a -hideous little mind of her own whatsoever her day. - -Later, he confessed to himself that he was unprepared to see her -spring to her feet and stand before him absurdly, fantastically -near being impassioned. - -"You think I as too silly to SEE anything," she broke forth. "But -I do see--a long way sometimes. I can't bear it but I do--I do! -I shall have a grown-up daughter. She will be the kind of girl -everyone will look at--and someone--important--may want to marry -her. But, Oh!--" He was reminded of the day when she had fallen -at his feet, and clasped his rigid and reluctant knees. This was -something of the same feeble desperation of mood. "Oh, WHY couldn't -someone like that have wanted to marry ME! See!" she was like -a pathetic fairy as she spread her nymphlike arms, "how PRETTY I -am!" - -His gaze held her a moment in the singular fashion with which she -had become actually familiar, because--at long intervals--she kept -seeing it again. He quite gently took her fingers and returned -her to her sofa. - -"Please sit down again," he requested. "It will be better." - -She sat down without another imbecile word to say. As for him, he -changed the subject. - -"With your permission, Benby will undertake the business of the -lease and the building," he explained. "The plans will be brought -to you. We will go over them together, if you wish. There will be -decent rooms for Robin and her governess. The two nurseries can be -made fit for human beings to live in and used for other purposes. -The house will be greatly improved." - -It was nearly three o'clock when Feather went upstairs to her -dozing maid, because, after he had left her, she sat some time in -the empty, untidy little drawing-room and gazed straight before -her at a painted screen on which shepherdesses and swains were -dancing in a Watteau glade infested by flocks of little Loves. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - - - - - -When, from Robin's embarrassed young consciousness, there had -welled up the hesitating confession, "She--doesn't like me," she -could not, of course, have found words in which to make the reasons -for her knowledge clear, but they had for herself no obscurity. -The fair being who, at rare intervals, fluttered on the threshold -of her world had a way of looking at her with a shade of aloof -distaste in her always transient gaze. - -The unadorned fact was that Feather did NOT like her. She had been -outraged by her advent. A baby was absurdly "out of the picture." -So far as her mind encompassed a future, she saw herself flitting -from flower to flower of "smart" pleasures and successes, -somehow, with more money and more exalted invitations--"something" -vaguely--having happened to the entire Lawdor progeny, and she, -therefore, occupying a position in which it was herself who could -gracefully condescend to others. There was nothing so "stodgy" -as children in the vision. When the worst came to the worst, she -had been consoled by the thought that she had really managed the -whole thing very cleverly. It was easier, of course, to so arrange -such things in modern days and in town. The Day Nursery and the -Night Nursery on the third floor, a smart-looking young woman -who knew her business, who even knew what to buy for a child and -where to buy it, without troubling any one simplified the situation. -Andrews had been quite wonderful. Nobody can bother one about -a healthy, handsome child who is seen meticulously cared for and -beautifully dressed, being pushed or led or carried out in the open -air every day. - -But there had arrived the special morning when she had seen a -child who so stood out among a dozen children that she had been -startled when she recognized that it was Robin. Andrews had taken -her charge to Hyde Park that day and Feather was driving through -the Row on her way to a Knightsbridge shop. First her glance had -been caught by the hair hanging to the little hips--extraordinary -hair in which Andrews herself had a pride. Then she had seen the -slender, exquisitely modeled legs, and the dancing sway of the -small body. A wonderfully cut, stitched, and fagotted smock and hat -she had, of course, taken in at a flash. When the child suddenly -turned to look at some little girls in a pony cart, the amazing -damask of her colour, and form and depth of eye had given her another -slight shock. She realized that what she had thrust lightly away -in a corner of her third floor produced an unmistakable effect when -turned out into the light of a gay world. The creature was tall -too--for six years old. Was she really six? It seemed incredible. -Ten more years and she would be sixteen. - -Mrs. Heppel-Bevill had a girl of fifteen, who was a perfect -catastrophe. She read things and had begun to talk about her "right -to be a woman." Emily Heppel-Bevill was only thirty-seven--three -years from forty. Feather had reached the stage of softening in -her disdain of the women in their thirties. She had found herself -admitting that--in these days--there were women of forty who had -not wholly passed beyond the pale into that outer darkness where -there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But there -was no denying that this six year old baby, with the dancing step, -gave one--almost hysterically--"to think." Her imagination could -not--never had and never would she have allowed it to--grasp any -belief that she herself could change. A Feather, No! But a creature -of sixteen, eighteen--with eyes that shape--with lashes an inch -long--with yards of hair--standing by one's side in ten years! It -was ghastly! - -Coombe, in his cold perfunctory way, climbing the crooked, narrow -stairs, dismissing Andrews--looking over the rooms--dismissing -them, so to speak, and then remaining after the rest had gone -to reveal to her a new abnormal mood--that, in itself alone, was -actually horrible. It was abnormal and yet he had always been more -or less like that in all things. Despite everything--everything--he -had never been in love with her at all. At first she had believed -he was--then she had tried to make him care for her. He had never -failed her, he had done everything in his grand seigneur fashion. -Nobody dare make gross comment upon her, but, while he saw her -loveliness as only such a man could--she had gradually realized -that she had never had even a chance with him. She could not -even think that if she had not been so silly and frightened that -awful day six years ago, and had not lost her head, he might have -admired her more and more and in the end asked her to marry him. -He had said there must be no mistakes, and she had not been allowed -to fall into making one. The fact that she had not, had, finally, -made her feel the power of a certain fascination in him. She thought -it was a result of his special type of looks, his breeding, the -wonderful clothes he wore--but it was, in truth, his varieties of -inaccessibility. - -"A girl might like him," she had said to herself that night--she -sat up late after he left her. "A girl who--who had up-to-date sense -might. Modern people don't grow old as they used to. At fifty-five -he won't be fat, or bald and he won't have lost his teeth. People -have found out they needn't. He will be as thin and straight as -he is today--and nothing can alter his nose. He will be ten years -cleverer than he is now. Buying the house for a child of that -age--building additional rooms for her!" - -In the fevered, rapid, deep-dipping whirl of the life which was -the only one she knew, she had often seen rather trying things -happen--almost unnatural changes in situations. People had overcome -the folly of being afraid to alter their minds and their views -about what they had temporarily believed were permanent bonds and -emotions. Bonds had become old fogeyish. Marriages went to pieces, -the parties in love affairs engaged in a sort of "dance down the -middle" and turn other people's partners. The rearrangement of -figures sometimes made for great witticism. Occasionally people -laughed at themselves as at each other. The admirers of engaging -matrons had been known to renew their youth at the coming-out balls -of lovely daughters in their early teens, and to end by assuming -the flowery chains of a new allegiance. Time had, of course, -been when such a volte face would have aroused condemnation and -indignant discussion, but a humorous leniency spent but little -time in selecting terms of severity. Feather had known of several -such contretemps ending in quite brilliant matches. The enchanting -mothers usually consoled themselves with great ease, and, if the -party of each part was occasionally wittily pungent in her comments -on the other, everybody laughed and nobody had time to criticize. -A man who had had much to bestow and who preferred in youth -to bestow it upon himself was not infrequently more in the mood -for the sharing of marriage when years had revealed to him the -distressing fact that he was not, and had never been, the centre of -the universe, which distressing fact is one so unfairly concealed -from youth in bloom. - -It was, of course, but as a vaguely outlined vision that these -recognitions floated through what could only be alleged to be -Feather's mind because there was no other name for it. The dark -little staircase, the rejected and despised third floor, and Coombe -detachedly announcing his plans for the house, had set the--so to -speak--rather malarious mist flowing around her. A trying thing -was that it did not really dispel itself altogether, but continued -to hang about the atmosphere surrounding other and more cheerful -things. Almost impalpably it added to the familiar feeling--or lack -of feeling--with regard to Robin. She had not at all hated the -little thing; it had merely been quite true that, in an inactive -way, she had not LIKED her. In the folds of the vague mist quietly -floated the truth that she now liked her less. - -Benby came to see and talk to her on the business of the -structural changes to be made. He conducted himself precisely as -though her views on the matter were of value and could not, in -fact, be dispensed with. He brought the architect's plans with him -and explained them with care. They were clever plans which made -the most of a limited area. He did not even faintly smile when -it revealed itself to him, as it unconsciously did, that Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless regarded their adroit arrangement as a singular -misuse of space which could have been much better employed for -necessities of her own. She was much depressed by the ground floor -addition which might have enlarged her dining-room, but which was -made into a sitting-room for Robin and her future governess. - -"And that is in ADDITION to her schoolroom which might have been -thrown into the drawing-room--besides the new bedrooms which I -needed so much," she said. - -"The new nurse, who is a highly respectable person," explained -Benby, "could not have been secured if she had not known that -improvements were being made. The reconstruction of the third floor -will provide suitable accommodations." - -The special forte of Dowson, the new nurse, was a sublimated -respectability far superior to smartness. She had been mystically -produced by Benby and her bonnets and jackets alone would have -revealed her selection from almost occult treasures. She wore -bonnets and "jackets," not hats and coats. - -"In the calm days of Her Majesty, nurses dressed as she does. I do -not mean in the riotous later years of her reign--but earlier--when -England dreamed in terms of Crystal Palaces and Great Exhibitions. -She can only be the result of excavation," Coombe said of her. - -She was as proud of her respectability as Andrews had been of her -smartness. This had, in fact, proved an almost insuperable obstacle -to her engagement. The slice of a house, with its flocking in and -out of chattering, smart people in marvellous clothes was not the -place for her, nor was Mrs. Gareth-Lawless the mistress of her -dreams. But her husband had met with an accident and must be kept -in a hospital, and an invalid daughter must live by the seaside--and -suddenly, when things were at their worst with her, had come -Benby with a firm determination to secure her with wages such as -no other place would offer. Besides which she had observed as she -had lived. - -"Things have changed," she reflected soberly. "You've got to resign -yourself and not be too particular." - -She accepted the third floor, as Benby had said, because it was to -be rearranged and the Night and Day Nurseries, being thrown into -one, repainted and papered would make a decent place to live in. -At the beautiful little girl given into her charge she often looked -in a puzzled way, because she knew a good deal about children, and -about this one there was something odd. Her examination of opened -drawers and closets revealed piles of exquisite garments of all -varieties, all perfectly kept. In these dingy holes, which called -themselves nurseries, she found evidence that money had been spent -like water so that the child, when she was seen, might look like -a small princess. But she found no plaything--no dolls or toys, -and only one picture book, and that had "Donal" written on the -fly leaf and evidently belonged to someone else. - -What exactly she would have done when she had had time to think -the matter over, she never knew, because, a few days after her -arrival, a tall, thin gentleman, coming up the front steps as she -was going out with Robin, stopped and spoke to her as if he knew -who she was. - -"You know the kind of things children like to play with, nurse?" -he said. - -She respectfully replied that she had had long experience with -young desires. She did not know as yet who he was, but there was -that about him which made her feel that, while there was no knowing -what height his particular exaltation in the matter of rank might -reach, one would be safe in setting it high. - -"Please go to one of the toy shops and choose for the child what -she will like best. Dolls--games--you will know what to select. -Send the bill to me at Coombe House. I am Lord Coombe." - -"Thank you, my lord," Dowson answered, with a sketch of a curtsey, -"Miss Robin, you must hold out your little hand and say 'thank -you' to his lordship for being so kind. He's told Dowson to buy -you some beautiful dolls and picture books as a present." - -Robin's eyelashes curled against her under brows in her wide, still -glance upward at him. Here was "the one" again! She shut her hand -tightly into a fist behind her back. - -Lord Coombe smiled a little--not much. - -"She does not like me," he said. "It is not necessary that -she should give me her hand. I prefer that she shouldn't, if she -doesn't want to. Good morning, Dowson." - -To the well-regulated mind of Dowson, this seemed treating too -lightly a matter as serious as juvenile incivility. She remonstrated -gravely and at length with Robin. - -"Little girls must behave prettily to kind gentlemen who are -friends of their mammas. It is dreadful to be rude and not say -'thank you'," she said. - -But as she talked she was vaguely aware that her words passed by -the child's ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a -bit of temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At -the same time, there WAS something queer about the little thing. -She had a listless way of sitting staring out of the window and -seeming to have no desire to amuse herself. She was too young -to be listless and she did not care for her food. Dowson asked -permission to send for the doctor and, when he came, he ordered -sea air. - -"Of course, you can take her away for a few weeks," Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -said. Here she smiled satirically and added, "But I can tell you -what it is all about. The little minx actually fell in love with -a small boy she met in the Square Gardens and, when his mother -took him from London, she began to mope like a tiresome girl in -her teens. It's ridiculous, but is the real trouble." - -"Oh!" said Dowson, the low and respectful interjection expressing -a shade of disapproval, "Children do have fancies, ma'am. She'll -get over it if we give her something else to think of." - -The good woman went to one of the large toy shops and bought a -beautiful doll, a doll's house, and some picture books. When they -were brought up to the Day Nursery, Robin was asleep after a rather -long walk, which Dowson had decided would be good for her. When -she came later into the room, after the things had been unpacked, -she regarded them with an expression of actual dislike. - -"Isn't that a beautiful doll?" said Dowson, good-humouredly. "And -did you ever see such a lovely house? It was kind Lord Coombe who -gave them to you. Just you look at the picture books." - -Robin put her hands behind her back and would not touch them. Dowson, -who was a motherly creature with a great deal of commonsense, was -set thinking. She began to make guesses, though she was not yet -sufficiently familiar with the household to guess from any firm -foundation of knowledge of small things. - -"Come here, dear," she said, and drew the small thing to her knee. -"Is it because you don't love Lord Coombe?" she asked. - -"Yes," she answered. - -"But why?" said Dowson. "When he is such a kind gentleman?" - -But Robin would not tell her why and never did. She never told -any one, until years had passed, how this had been the beginning -of a hatred. The toys were left behind when she was taken to the -seaside. Dowson tried to persuade her to play with them several -times, but she would not touch them, so they were put away. Feeling -that she was dealing with something unusual, and, being a kindly -person, Dowson bought her some playthings on her own account. They -were simple things, but Robin was ready enough to like them. - -"Did YOU give them to me?" she asked. - -"Yes, I did, Miss Robin." - -The child drew near her after a full minute of hesitation. - -"I will KISS you!" she said solemnly, and performed the rite as -whole-souledly as Donal had done. - -"Dear little mite!" exclaimed the surprised Dowson. "Dear me!" And -there was actual moisture in her eyes as she squeezed the small -body in her arms. - -"She's the strangest mite I ever nursed," was her comment to Mrs. -Blayne below stairs. "It was so sudden, and she did it as if she'd -never done it before. I'd actually been thinking she hadn't any -feeling at all." - -"No reason why she should have. She's been taken care of by the -clock and dressed like a puppet, but she's not been treated human!" -broke forth Mrs. Blayne. - -Then the whole story was told--the "upstairs" story with much vivid -description, and the mentioning of many names and the dotting of -many "i's". Dowson had heard certain things only through vague -rumour, but now she knew and began to see her way. She had not -heard names before, and the definite inclusion of Lord Coombe's -suggested something to her. - -"Do you think the child could be JEALOUS of his lordship?" she -suggested. - -"She might if she knew anything about him--but she never saw him -until the night she was taken down into the drawing-room. She's -lived upstairs like a little dog in its kennel." - -"Well," Dowson reflected aloud, "it sounds almost silly to talk -of a child's hating any one, but that bit of a thing's eyes had -fair hate in them when she looked up at him where he stood. That -was what puzzled me." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - - - - -Before Robin had been taken to the seaside to be helped by the -bracing air of the Norfolk coast to recover her lost appetite -and forget her small tragedy, she had observed that unaccustomed -things were taking place in the house. Workmen came in and out -through the mews at the back and brought ladders with them and -tools in queer bags. She heard hammerings which began very early -in the morning and went on all day. As Andrews had trained her not -to ask tiresome questions, she only crept now and then to a back -window and peeped out. But in a few days Dowson took her away. - -When she came back to London, she was not taken up the steep dark -stairs to the third floor. Dowson led her into some rooms she had -never seen before. They were light and airy and had pretty walls -and furniture. A sitting-room on the ground floor had even a round -window with plants in it and a canary bird singing in a cage. - -"May we stay here?" she asked Dowson in a whisper. - -"We are going to live here," was the answer. - -And so they did. - -At first Feather occasionally took her intimates to see the -additional apartments. - -"In perfect splendour is the creature put up, and I with a bedroom -like a coalhole and such drawing-rooms as you see each time you -enter the house!" she broke forth spitefully one day when she -forgot herself. - -She said it to the Starling and Harrowby, who had been simply gazing -about them in fevered mystification, because the new development -was a thing which must invoke some more or less interesting -explanation. At her outbreak, all they could do was to gaze at her -with impartial eyes, which suggested question, and Feather shrugged -pettish shoulders. - -"You knew _I_ didn't do it. How could I?" she said. "It is a queer -whim of Coombe's. Of course, it is not the least like him. I call -it morbid." - -After which people knew about the matter and found it a subject -for edifying and quite stimulating discussion. There was something -fantastic in the situation. Coombe was the last man on earth to -have taken the slightest notice of the child's existence! It was -believed that he had never seen her--except in long clothes--until -she had glared at him and put her hand behind her back the night -she was brought into the drawing-room. She had been adroitly kept -tucked away in an attic somewhere. And now behold an addition of -several wonderful, small rooms built, furnished and decorated for -her alone, where she was to live as in a miniature palace attended -by servitors! Coombe, as a purveyor of nursery appurtenances, was -regarded with humour, the general opinion being that the eruption -of a volcano beneath his feet alone could have awakened his somewhat -chill self-absorption to the recognition of any child's existence. - -"To be exact we none of us really know anything in particular about -his mental processes." Harrowby pondered aloud. "He's capable of -any number of things we might not understand, if he condescended -to tell us about them--which he would never attempt. He has a -remote, brilliantly stored, cynical mind. He owns that he is of an -inhuman selfishness. I haven't a suggestion to make, but it sets one -searching through the purlieus of one's mind for an approximately -reasonable explanation." - -"Why 'purlieus'?" was the Starling's inquiry. Harrowby shrugged -his shoulders ever so lightly. - -"Well, one isn't searching for reasons founded on copy-book axioms," -he shook his head. "Coombe? No." - -There was a silence given to occult thought. - -"Feather is really in a rage and is too Feathery to be able to -conceal it," said Starling. - -"Feather would be--inevitably," Harrowby lifted his near-sighted -eyes to her curiously. "Can you see Feather in the future--when -Robin is ten years older?" - -"I can," the Starling answered. - - * * * * * - -The years which followed were changing years--growing years. Life -and entertainment went on fast and furiously in all parts of London, -and in no part more rapidly than in the slice of a house whose -front always presented an air of having been freshly decorated, -in spite of summer rain and winter soot and fog. The plants in -the window boxes seemed always in bloom, being magically replaced -in the early morning hours when they dared to hint at flagging. -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was said, must be renewed in some such -mysterious morning way, as she merely grew prettier as she neared -thirty and passed it. Women did in these days! Which last phrase -had always been a useful one, probably from the time of the Flood. -Old fogeys, male and female, had used it in the past as a means of -scathingly unfavourable comparison, growing flushed and almost -gobbling like turkey cocks in their indignation. Now, as a phrase, it -was a support and a mollifier. "In these days" one knew better how -to amuse oneself, was more free to snatch at agreeable opportunity, -less in bondage to old fancies which had called themselves beliefs; -everything whirled faster and more lightly--danced, two-stepped, -instead of marching. - -Robin vaguely connected certain changes in her existence with the -changes which took place in the fashion of sleeves and skirts -which appeared to produce radical effects in the world she caught -glimpses of. Sometimes sleeves were closely fitted to people's -arms, then puffs sprang from them and grew until they were enormous -and required delicate manipulation when coats were put on; then -their lavishness of material fell from the shoulder to the wrists -and hung there swaying until some sudden development of skirt seemed -to distract their attention from themselves and they shrank into -unimportance and skirts changed instead. Afterwards, sometimes -figures were slim and encased in sheathlike draperies, sometimes -folds rippled about feet, "fullness" crept here or there or -disappeared altogether, trains grew longer or shorter or wider or -narrower, cashmeres, grosgrain silks and heavy satins were suddenly -gone and chiffon wreathed itself about the world and took possession -of it. Bonnets ceased to exist and hats were immense or tiny, tall -or flat, tilted at the back, at the side, at the front, worn over -the face or dashingly rolled back from it; feathers drooped or -stood upright at heights which rose and fell and changed position -with the changing seasons. No garment or individual wore the same -aspect for more than a month's time. It was necessary to change -all things with a rapidity matching the change of moods and fancies -which altered at the rate of the automobiles which dashed here -and there and everywhere, through country roads, through town, -through remote places with an unsparing swiftness which set a new -pace for the world. - -"I cannot hark back regretfully to stage coaches," said Lord Coombe. -"Even I was not born early enough for that. But in the days of -my youth and innocence express trains seemed almost supernatural. -One could drive a pair of horses twenty miles to make a country -visit, but one could not drive back the same day. One's circle -had its limitations and degrees of intimacy. Now it is possible -motor fifty miles to lunch and home to dine with guests from the -remotest corners of the earth. Oceans are crossed in six days, -and the eager flit from continent to continent. Engagements can be -made by cable and the truly enterprising can accept an invitation -to dine in America on a fortnight's notice. Telephones communicate -in a few seconds and no one is secure from social intercourse for -fifteen minutes. Acquaintances and correspondence have no limitations -because all the inhabitants of the globe can reach one by motor or -electricity. In moments of fatigue I revert to the days of Queen -Anne with pleasure." - -While these changes went on, Robin lived in her own world in her -own quarters at the rear of the slice of a house. During the early -years spent with Dowson, she learned gradually that life was a -better thing than she had known in the dreary gloom of the third -floor Day and Night Nurseries. She was no longer left to spend -hours alone, nor was she taken below stairs to listen blankly to -servants talking to each other of mysterious things with which she -herself and the Lady Downstairs and "him" were somehow connected, -her discovery of this fact being based on the dropping of voices -and sidelong glances at her and sudden warning sounds from Andrews. -She realized that Dowson would never pinch her, and the rooms she -lived in were pretty and bright. - -Gradually playthings and picture books appeared in them, which she -gathered Dowson presented her with. She gathered this from Dowson -herself. - -She had never played with the doll, and, by chance a day arriving -when Lord Coombe encountered Dowson in the street without her -charge, he stopped her again and spoke as before. - -"Is the little girl well and happy, Nurse?" he asked. - -"Quite well, my lord, and much happier than she used to be." - -"Did she," he hesitated slightly, "like the playthings you bought -her?" - -Dowson hesitated more than slightly but, being a sensible woman -and at the same time curious about the matter, she spoke the truth. - -"She wouldn't play with them at all, my lord. I couldn't persuade -her to. What her child's fancy was I don't know." - -"Neither do I--except that it is founded on a distinct dislike," -said Coombe. There was a brief pause. "Are you fond of toys -yourself, Dowson?" he inquired coldly. - -"I am that--and I know how to choose them, your lordship," replied -Dowson, with a large, shrewd intelligence. - -"Then oblige me by throwing away the doll and its accompaniments -and buying some toys for yourself, at my expense. You can present -them to Miss Robin as a personal gift. She will accept them from -you." - -He passed on his way and Dowson looked after him interestedly. - -"If she was his," she thought, "I shouldn't be puzzled. But she's -not--that I've ever heard of. He's got some fancy of his own the -same as Robin has, though you wouldn't think it to look at him. -I'd like to know what it is." - -It was a fancy--an old, old fancy--it harked back nearly thirty -years--to the dark days of youth and passion and unending tragedy -whose anguish, as it then seemed, could never pass--but which, -nevertheless, had faded with the years as they flowed by. And yet -left him as he was and had been. He was not sentimental about it, -he smiled at himself drearily--though never at the memory--when -it rose again and, through its vague power, led him to do strange -things curiously verging on the emotional and eccentric. But even -the child--who quite loathed him for some fantastic infant reason -of her own--even the child had her part in it. His soul oddly -withdrew itself into a far remoteness as he walked away and -Piccadilly became a shadow and a dream. - -Dowson went home and began to pack neatly in a box the neglected -doll and the toys which had accompanied her. Robin seeing her -doing it, asked a question. - -"Are they going back to the shop?" - -"No. Lord Coombe is letting me give them to a little girl who is -very poor and has to lie in bed because her back hurts her. His -lordship is so kind he does not want you to be troubled with them. -He is not angry. He is too good to be angry." - -That was not true, thought Robin. He had done THAT THING she -remembered! Goodness could not have done it. Only badness. - -When Dowson brought in a new doll and other wonderful things, a -little hand enclosed her wrist quite tightly as she was unpacking -the boxes. It was Robin's and the small creature looked at her -with a questioning, half appealing, half fierce. - -"Did he send them, Dowson?" - -"They are a present from me," Dowson answered comfortably, and -Robin said again, - -"I want to kiss you. I like to kiss you. I do." - -To those given to psychical interests and speculations, it might -have suggested itself that, on the night when the creature who had -seemed to Andrews a soft tissued puppet had suddenly burst forth -into defiance and fearless shrillness, some cerebral change had -taken place in her. From that hour her softness had become a thing -of the past. Dowson had not found a baby, but a brooding, little, -passionate being. She was neither insubordinate nor irritable, -but Dowson was conscious of a certain intensity of temperament -in her. She knew that she was always thinking of things of which -she said almost nothing. Only a sensible motherly curiosity, such -as Dowson's could have made discoveries, but a rare question put -by the child at long intervals sometimes threw a faint light. -There were questions chiefly concerning mothers and their habits -and customs. They were such as, in their very unconsciousness, -revealed a strange past history. Lights were most unconsciously -thrown by Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself. Her quite amiable detachment -from all shadow of responsibility, her brilliantly unending -occupations, her goings in and out, the flocks of light, almost -noisy, intimates who came in and out with her revealed much to a -respectable person who had soberly watched the world. - -"The Lady Downstairs is my mother, isn't she?" Robin inquired -gravely once. - -"Yes, my dear," was Dowson's answer. - -A pause for consideration of the matter and then from Robin: - -"All mothers are not alike, Dowson, are they?" - -"No, my dear," with wisdom. - -Though she was not yet seven, life had so changed for her that it -was a far cry back to the Spring days in the Square Gardens. She -went back, however, back into that remote ecstatic past. - -"The Lady Downstairs is not--alike," she said at last, "Donal's -mother loved him. She let him sit in the same chair with her and -read in picture books. She kissed him when he was in bed." - -Jennings, the young footman who was a humourist, had, of course, -heard witty references to Robin's love affair while in attendance, -and he had equally, of course, repeated them below stairs. Therefore, - -Dowson had heard vague rumours but had tactfully refrained from -mentioning the subject to her charge. - -"Who was Donal?" she said now, but quite quietly. Robin did not -know that a confidante would have made her first agony easier to -bear. She was not really being confidential now, but, realizing -Dowson's comfortable kindliness, she knew that it would be safe -to speak to her. - -"He was a big boy," she answered keeping her eyes on Dowson's -face. "He laughed and ran and jumped. His eyes--" she stopped -there because she could not explain what she had wanted to say about -these joyous young eyes, which were the first friendly human ones -she had known. - -"He lives in Scotland," she began again. "His mother loved him. -He kissed me. He went away. Lord Coombe sent him." - -Dawson could not help her start. - -"Lord Coombe!" she exclaimed. - -Robin came close to her and ground her little fist into her knee, -until its plumpness felt almost bruised. - -"He is bad--bad--bad!" and she looked like a little demon. - -Being a wise woman, Dowson knew at once that she had come upon a -hidden child volcano, and it would be well to let it seethe into -silence. She was not a clever person, but long experience had -taught her that there were occasions when it was well to leave -a child alone. This one would not answer if she were questioned. -She would only become stubborn and furious, and no child should -be goaded into fury. Dowson had, of course, learned that the boy -was a relative of his lordship's and had a strict Scottish mother -who did not approve of the slice of a house. His lordship might -have been concerned in the matter--or he might not. But at least -Dowson had gained a side light. And how the little thing had cared! -Actually as if she had been a grown girl, Dowson found herself -thinking uneasily. - -She was rendered even a trifle more uneasy a few days later -when she came upon Robin sitting in a corner on a footstool with -a picture book on her knee, and she recognized it as the one she -had discovered during her first exploitation of the resources -of the third floor nursery. It was inscribed "Donal" and Robin -was not looking at it alone, but at something she held in her -hand--something folded in a crumpled, untidy bit of paper. - -Making a reason for nearing her corner, Dowson saw what the paper -held. The contents looked like the broken fragments of some dried -leaves. The child was gazing at them with a piteous, bewildered -face--so piteous that Dowson was sorry. - -"Do you want to keep those?" she asked. - -"Yes," with a caught breath. "Yes." - -"I will make you a little silk bag to hold them in," Dowson said, -actually feeling rather piteous herself. The poor, little lamb -with her picture book and her bits of broken dry leaves--almost -like senna. - -She sat down near her and Robin left her footstool and came to her. -She laid the picture book on her lap and the senna like fragments -of leaves on its open page. - -"Donal brought it to show me," she quavered. "He made pretty things -on the leaves--with his dirk." She recalled too much--too much all -at once. Her eyes grew rounder and larger with inescapable woe; -"Donal did! Donal!" And suddenly she hid her face deep in Dowson's -skirts and the tempest broke. She was so small a thing--so -inarticulate--and these were her dead! Dowson could only catch -her in her arms, drag her up on her knee, and rock her to and fro. - -"Good Lord! Good Lord!" was her inward ejaculation. "And she not -seven! What'll she do when she's seventeen! She's one of them -there's no help for!" - -It was the beginning of an affection. After this, when Dowson tucked -Robin in bed each night, she kissed her. She told her stories and -taught her to sew and to know her letters. Using some discretion -she found certain little playmates for her in the Gardens. But there -were occasions when all did not go well, and some pretty, friendly -child, who had played with Robin for a few days, suddenly seemed -to be kept strictly by her nurse's side. Once, when she was about -ten years old, a newcomer, a dramatic and too richly dressed little -person, after a day of wonderful imaginative playing appeared in the -Gardens the morning following to turn an ostentatious cold shoulder. - -"What is the matter?" asked Robin. - -"Oh, we can't play with you any more," with quite a flounce -superiority. - -"Why not?" said Robin, becoming haughty herself. - -"We can't. It's because of Lord Coombe." The little person had -really no definite knowledge of how Lord Coombe was concerned, -but certain servants' whisperings of names and mysterious phrases -had conveyed quite an enjoyable effect of unknown iniquity connected -with his lordship. - -Robin said nothing to Dowson, but walked up and down the paths -reflecting and building a slow fire which would continue to burn -in her young heart. She had by then passed the round, soft baby -period and had entered into that phase when bodies and legs grow -long and slender and small faces lose their first curves and begin -to show sharper modeling. - -Accepting the situation in its entirety, Dowson had seen that it -was well to first reach Lord Coombe with any need of the child's. -Afterwards, the form of presenting it to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless must -be gone through, but if she were first spoken to any suggestion -might be forgotten or intentionally ignored. - -Dowson became clever in her calculations as to when his lordship -might be encountered and where--as if by chance, and therefore, -quite respectfully. Sometimes she remotely wondered if he himself -did not make such encounters easy for her. But his manner never -altered in its somewhat stiff, expressionless chill of indifference. -He never was kindly in his manner to the child if he met her. -Dowson felt him at once casual and "lofty." Robin might have been -a bit of unconsidered rubbish, the sight of which slightly bored -him. Yet the singular fact remained that it was to him one must -carefully appeal. - -One afternoon Feather swept him, with one or two others, into the -sitting-room with the round window in which flowers grew. Robin -was sitting at a low table making pothooks with a lead pencil on -a piece of paper Dowson had given her. Dowson had, in fact, set -her at the task, having heard from Jennings that his lordship -and the other afternoon tea drinkers were to be brought into the -"Palace" as Feather ironically chose to call it. Jennings rather -liked Dowson, and often told her little things she wanted to know. -It was because Lord Coombe would probably come in with the rest -that Dowson had set the low, white table in the round windows and -suggested the pothooks. - -In course of time there was a fluttering and a chatter in the -corridor. Feather was bringing some new guests, who had not seen -the place before. - -"This is where my daughter lives. She is much grander than I am," -she said. - -"Stand up, Miss Robin, and make your curtsey," whispered Dowson. -Robin did as she was told, and Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' pretty brows -ran up. - -"Look at her legs," she said. "She's growing like Jack and the -Bean Stalk--though, I suppose, it was only the Bean Stalk that -grew. She'll stick through the top of the house soon. Look at her -legs, I ask you." - -She always spoke as if the child were an inanimate object and she -had, by this time and by this means, managed to sweep from Robin's -mind all the old, babyish worship of her loveliness and had planted -in its place another feeling. At this moment the other feeling -surged and burned. - -"They are beautiful legs," remarked a laughing young man jocularly, -"but perhaps she does not particularly want us to look at them. -Wait until she begins skirt dancing." And everybody laughed at once -and the child stood rigid--the object of their light ridicule--not -herself knowing that her whole little being was cursing them aloud. - -Coombe stepped to the little table and bestowed a casual glance -on the pencil marks. - -"What is she doing?" he asked as casually of Dowson. - -"She is learning to make pothooks, my lord," Dowson answered. -"She's a child that wants to be learning things. I've taught her -her letters and to spell little words. She's quick--and old enough, -your lordship." - -"Learning to read and write!" exclaimed Feather. - -"Presumption, I call it. I don't know how to read and write--least -I don't know how to spell. Do you know how to spell, Collie?" to -the young man, whose name was Colin. "Do you, Genevieve? Do you, -Artie?" - -"You can't betray me into vulgar boasting," said Collie. "Who does -in these days? Nobody but clerks at Peter Robinson's." - -"Lord Coombe does--but that's his tiresome superior way," said -Feather. - -"He's nearly forty years older than most of you. That is the -reason," Coombe commented. "Don't deplore your youth and innocence." - -They swept through the rooms and examined everything in them. -The truth was that the--by this time well known--fact that the -unexplainable Coombe had built them made them a curiosity, and -a sort of secret source of jokes. The party even mounted to the -upper story to go through the bedrooms, and, it was while they -were doing this, that Coombe chose to linger behind with Dowson. - -He remained entirely expressionless for a few moments. Dowson did -not in the least gather whether he meant to speak to her or not. -But he did. - -"You meant," he scarcely glanced at her, "that she was old enough -for a governess." - -"Yes, my lord," rather breathless in her hurry to speak before -she heard the high heels tapping on the staircase again. "And one -that's a good woman as well as clever, if I may take the liberty. -A good one if--" - -"If a good one would take the place?" - -Dowson did not attempt refutation or apology. She knew better. - -He said no more, but sauntered out of the room. - -As he did so, Robin stood up and made the little "charity bob" of -a curtsey which had been part of her nursery education. She was -too old now to have refused him her hand, but he never made any -advances to her. He acknowledged her curtsey with the briefest -nod. - -Not three minutes later the high heels came tapping down the -staircase and the small gust of visitors swept away also. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - - - - -The interview which took place between Feather and Lord Coombe a -few days later had its own special character. - -"A governess will come here tomorrow at eleven o'clock," he said. -"She is a Mademoiselle Valle. She is accustomed to the educating -of young children. She will present herself for your approval. -Benby has done all the rest." - -Feather flushed to her fine-spun ash-gold hair. - -"What on earth can it matter!" she cried. - -"It does not matter to you," he answered; "it chances--for the -time being--to matter to ME." - -"Chances!" she flamed forth--it was really a queer little flame of -feeling. "That's it. You don't really care! It's a caprice--just -because you see she is going to be pretty." - -"I'll own," he admitted, "that has a great deal to do with it." - -"It has everything to do with it," she threw out. "If she had a -snub nose and thick legs you wouldn't care for her at all." - -"I don't say that I do care for her," without emotion. "The situation -interests me. Here is an extraordinary little being thrown into -the world. She belongs to nobody. She will have to fight for her -own hand. And she will have to FIGHT, by God! With that dewy lure -in her eyes and her curved pomegranate mouth! She will not know, -but she will draw disaster!" - -"Then she had better not be taught anything at all," said Feather. -"It would be an amusing thing to let her grow up without learning -to read or write at all. I know numbers of men who would like the -novelty of it. Girls who know so much are a bore." - -"There are a few minor chances she ought to have," said Coombe. -"A governess is one. Mademoiselle Valle will be here at eleven." - -"I can't see that she promises to be such a beauty," fretted -Feather. "She's the kind of good looking child who might grow up -into a fat girl with staring black eyes like a barmaid." - -"Occasionally pretty women do abhor their growing up daughters," -commented Coombe letting his eyes rest on her interestedly. - -"I don't abhor her," with pathos touched with venom. "But a big, -lumping girl hanging about ogling and wanting to be ogled when she -is passing through that silly age! And sometimes you speak to me -as a man speaks to his wife when he is tired of her." - -"I beg your pardon," Coombe said. "You make me feel like a person -who lives over a shop at Knightsbridge, or in bijou mansion off -Regent's Park." - -But he was deeply aware that, as an outcome of the anomalous -position he occupied, he not infrequently felt exactly this. - -That a governess chosen by Coombe--though he would seem not to -appear in the matter--would preside over the new rooms, Feather -knew without a shadow of doubt. - -A certain almost silent and always high-bred dominance over her -existence she accepted as the inevitable, even while she fretted -helplessly. Without him, she would be tossed, a broken butterfly, -into the gutter. She knew her London. No one would pick her up -unless to break her into smaller atoms and toss her away again. -The freedom he allowed her after all was wonderful. It was because -he disdained interference. - -But there was a line not to be crossed--there must not even be an -attempt at crossing it. Why he cared about that she did not know. - -"You must be like Caesar's wife," he said rather grimly, after an -interview in which he had given her a certain unsparing warning. - -"And I am nobody's wife. What did Caesar's wife do?" she asked. - -"Nothing." And he told her the story and, when she had heard him -tell it, she understood certain things clearly. - -Mademoiselle Valle was an intelligent, mature Frenchwoman. She -presented herself to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless for inspection and, in -ten minutes, realized that the power to inspect and sum up existed -only on her own side. This pretty woman neither knew what inquiries -to make nor cared for such replies as were given. Being swift to -reason and practical in deduction, Mademoiselle Valle did not make -the blunder of deciding that this light presence argued that she -would be under no supervision more serious. The excellent Benby, -one was made aware, acted and the excellent Benby, one was made -aware, acted under clearly defined orders. Milord Coombe--among -other things the best dressed and perhaps the least comprehended -man in London--was concerned in this, though on what grounds -practical persons could not explain to themselves. His connection -with the narrow house on the right side of the right street -was entirely comprehensible. The lenient felt nothing blatant or -objectionable about it. Mademoiselle Valle herself was not disturbed -by mere rumour. The education, manner and morals of the little -girl she could account for. These alone were to be her affair, and -she was competent to undertake their superintendence. - -Therefore, she sat and listened with respectful intelligence to -the birdlike chatter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. (What a pretty woman! -The silhouette of a jeune fille!) - -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless felt that, on her part, she had done all that -was required of her. - -"I'm afraid she's rather a dull child, Mademoiselle," she said in -farewell. "You know children's ways and you'll understand what I -mean. She has a trick of staring and saying nothing. I confess I -wish she wasn't dull." - -"It is impossible, madame, that she should be dull," said -Mademoiselle, with an agreeably implicating smile. "Oh, but quite -impossible! We shall see." - -Not many days had passed before she had seen much. At the outset, -she recognized the effect of the little girl with the slender legs -and feet and the dozen or so of points which go to make a beauty. -The intense eyes first and the deeps of them. They gave one -furiously to think before making up one's mind. Then she noted the -perfection of the rooms added to the smartly inconvenient little -house. Where had the child lived before the addition had been -built? Thought and actual architectural genius only could have done -this. Light and even as much sunshine as London will vouchsafe, -had been arranged for. Comfort, convenience, luxury, had been -provided. Perfect colour and excellent texture had evoked actual -charm. Its utter unlikeness to the quarters London usually gives -to children, even of the fortunate class, struck Mademoiselle Valle -at once. Madame Gareth-Lawless had not done this. Who then, had? - -The good Dowson she at once affiliated with. She knew the excellence -of her type as it had revealed itself to her in the best peasant -class. Trustworthy, simple, but of kindly, shrewd good sense and -with the power to observe. Dowson was not a chatterer or given -to gossip, but, as a silent observer, she would know many things -and, in time, when they had become friendly enough to be fully -aware that each might trust the other, gentle and careful talk -would end in unconscious revelation being made by Dowson. - -That the little girl was almost singularly attached to her -nurse, she had marked early. There was something unusual in her -manifestations of her feeling. The intense eyes followed the woman -often, as if making sure of her presence and reality. The first -day of Mademoiselle's residence in the place she saw the little -thing suddenly stop playing with her doll and look at Dowson -earnestly for several moments. Then she left her seat and went to -the kind creature's side. - -"I want to KISS you, Dowie," she said. - -"To be sure, my lamb," answered Dowson, and, laying down her -mending, she gave her a motherly hug. After which Robin went back -contentedly to her play. - -The Frenchwoman thought it a pretty bit of childish affectionateness. -But it happened more than once during the day, and at night -Mademoiselle commented upon it. - -"She has an affectionate heart, the little one," she remarked. "Madame, -her mother, is so pretty and full of gaieties and pleasures that -I should not have imagined she had much time for caresses and the -nursery." - -Even by this time Dowson had realized that with Mademoiselle she -was upon safe ground and was in no danger of betraying herself -to a gossip. She quietly laid down her sewing and looked at her -companion with grave eyes. - -"Her mother has never kissed her in her life that I am aware of," -she said. - -"Has never--!" Mademoiselle ejaculated. "Never!" - -"Just as you see her, she is, Mademoiselle," Dowson said. "Any -sensible woman would know, when she heard her talk about her -child. I found it all out bit by bit when first I came here. I'm -going to talk plain and have done with it. Her first six years -she spent in a sort of dog kennel on the top floor of this house. -No sun, no real fresh air. Two little holes that were dingy and -gloomy to dull a child's senses. Not a toy or a bit of colour -or a picture, but clothes fine enough for Buckingham Palace -children--and enough for six. Fed and washed and taken out every -day to be shown off. And a bad nurse, Miss--a bad one that kept -her quiet by pinching her black and blue." - -"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! That little angel!" cried Mademoiselle, -covering her eyes. - -Dowson hastily wiped her own eyes. She had shed many a motherly -tear over the child. It was a relief to her to open her heart to -a sympathizer. - -"Black and blue!" she repeated. "And laughing and dancing and all -sorts of fast fun going on in the drawing-rooms." She put out her -hand and touched Mademoiselle's arm quite fiercely. "The little -thing didn't know she HAD a mother! She didn't know what the word -meant. I found that out by her innocent talk. She used to call -HER 'The Lady Downstairs'." - -"Mon Dieu!" cried the Frenchwoman again. "What a woman!" - -"She first heard of mothers from a little boy she met in the Square -Gardens. He was the first child she had been allowed to play with. -He was a nice child and he had a good mother. I only got it bit -by bit when she didn't know how much she was telling me. He told -her about mothers and he kissed her--for the first time in her -life. She didn't understand but it warmed her little heart. She's -never forgotten." - -Mademoiselle even started slightly in her chair. Being a clever -Frenchwoman she felt drama and all its subtle accompaniments. - -"Is that why----" she began. - -"It is," answered Dowson, stoutly. "A kiss isn't an ordinary thing -to her. It means something wonderful. She's got into the way of -loving me, bless her, and every now and then, it's my opinion, -she suddenly remembers her lonely days when she didn't know what -love was. And it just wells up in her little heart and she wants -to kiss me. She always says it that way, 'Dowie, I want to KISS -you,' as if it was something strange and, so to say, sacred. She -doesn't know it means almost nothing to most people. That's why -I always lay down my work and hug her close." - -"You have a good heart--a GOOD one!" said Mademoiselle with strong -feeling. - -Then she put a question: - -"Who was the little boy?" - -"He was a relation of--his lordship's." - -"His lordship's?" cautiously. - -"The Marquis. Lord Coombe." - -There was a few minutes' silence. Both women were thinking of a -number of things and each was asking herself how much it would be -wise to say. - -It was Dowson who made her decision first, and this time, as -before, she laid down her work. What she had to convey was the -thing which, above all others, the Frenchwoman must understand if -she was to be able to use her power to its best effect. - -"A woman in my place hears enough talk," was her beginning. "Servants -are given to it. The Servants' Hall is their theatre. It doesn't -matter whether tales are true or not, so that they're spicy. But -it's been my way to credit just as much as I see and know and to -say little about that. If a woman takes a place in a house, let her -go or stay as suits her best, but don't let her stay and either -complain or gossip. My business here is Miss Robin, and I've found -out for myself that there's just one person that, in a queer, -unfeeling way of his own, has a fancy for looking after her. I -say 'unfeeling' because he never shows any human signs of caring -for the child himself. But if there's a thing that ought to be -done for her and a body can contrive to let him know it's needed, -it'll be done. Downstairs' talk that I've seemed to pay no attention -to has let out that it was him that walked quietly upstairs to -the Nursery, where he'd never set foot before, and opened the door -on Andrews pinching the child. She packed her box and left that -night. He inspected the nurseries and, in a few days, an architect -was planning these rooms,--for Miss Robin and for no one else, -though there was others wanted them. It was him that told me to -order her books and playthings--and not let her know it because -she hates him. It was him I told she needed a governess. And he -found you." - -Mademoiselle Valle had listened with profound attention. Here she -spoke. - -"You say continually 'he' or 'him'. He is--?" - -"Lord Coombe. I'm not saying I've seen much of him. Considering--" -Dowson paused--"it's queer how seldom he comes here. He goes -abroad a good deal. He's mixed up with the highest and it's said -he's in favour because he's satirical and clever. He's one that's -gossiped about and he cares nothing for what's said. What business -of mine is it whether or not he has all sorts of dens on the -Continent where he goes to racket. He might be a bishop for all I -see. And he's the only creature in this world of the Almighty's -that remembers that child's a human being. Just him--Lord Coombe. -There, Mademoiselle,--I've said a good deal." - -More and more interestedly had the Frenchwoman listened and with -an increasing hint of curiosity in her intelligent eyes. She -pressed Dowson's needle-roughened fingers warmly. - -"You have not said too much. It is well that I should know this -of this gentleman. As you say, he is a man who is much discussed. -I myself have heard much of him--but of things connected with -another part of his character. It is true that he is in favour -with great personages. It is because they are aware that he has -observed much for many years. He is light and ironic, but he tells -truths which sometimes startle those who hear them." - -"Jennings tells below stairs that he says things it's queer for a -lord to say. Jennings is a sharp young snip and likes to pick up -things to repeat. He believes that his lordship's idea is that -there's a time coming when the high ones will lose their places -and thrones and kings will be done away with. I wouldn't like to -go that far myself," said Dowson, gravely, "but I must say that -there's not that serious respect paid to Royalty that there was -in my young days. My word! When Queen Victoria was in her prime, -with all her young family around her,--their little Royal Highnesses -that were princes in their Highland kilts and the princesses -in their crinolines and hats with drooping ostrich feathers and -broad satin streamers--the people just went wild when she went to -a place to unveil anything!" - -"When the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial appeared, it was -the same thing," said Mademoiselle, a trifle sadly. "One recalls -it now as a dream passed away--the Champs Elysees in the afternoon -sunlight--the imperial carriage and the glittering escort trotting -gaily--the beautiful woman with the always beautiful costumes--her -charming smile--the Emperor, with his waxed moustache and saturnine -face! It meant so much and it went so quickly. One moment," she made -a little gesture, "and it is gone--forever! An Empire and all the -splendour of it! Two centuries ago it could not have disappeared -so quickly. But now the world is older. It does not need toys -so much. A Republic is the people--and there are more people than -kings." - -"It's things like that his lordship says, according to Jennings," -said Dowson. "Jennings is never quite sure he's in earnest. He -has a satirical way--And the company always laugh." - -Mademoiselle had spoken thoughtfully and as if half to her inner -self instead of to Dowson. She added something even more thoughtfully -now. - -"The same kind of people laughed before the French Revolution," -she murmured. - -"I'm not scholar enough to know much about that--that was a long -time ago, wasn't it?" Dowson remarked. - -"A long time ago," said Mademoiselle. - -Dowson's reply was quite free from tragic reminiscence. - -"Well, I must say, I like a respectable Royal Family myself," she -observed. "There's something solid and comfortable about it--besides -the coronations and weddings and procession with all the pictures -in the Illustrated London News. Give me a nice, well-behaved Royal -Family." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - - - - -"A nice, well-behaved Royal Family." There had been several of them -in Europe for some time. An appreciable number of them had prided -themselves, even a shade ostentatiously, upon their domesticity. -The moral views of a few had been believed to border upon the -high principles inscribed in copy books. Some, however, had not. -A more important power or so had veered from the exact following -of these commendable axioms--had high-handedly behaved according -to their royal will and tastes. But what would you? With a nation -making proper obeisance before one from infancy; with trumpets -blaring forth joyous strains upon one's mere appearance on any -scene; with the proudest necks bowed and the most superb curtseys -swept on one's mere passing by, with all the splendour of the Opera -on gala night rising to its feet to salute one's mere entry into -the royal or imperial box, while the national anthem bursts forth -with adulatory and triumphant strains, only a keen and subtle -sense of humour, surely, could curb errors of judgment arising -from naturally mistaken views of one's own importance and value to -the entire Universe. Still there remained the fact that a number -of them WERE well-behaved and could not be complained of as bearing -any likeness to the bloodthirsty tyrants and oppressors of past -centuries. - -The Head of the House of Coombe had attended the Court Functions -and been received at the palaces and castles of most of them. -For in that aspect of his character of which Mademoiselle Valle -had heard more than Dowson, he was intimate with well-known and -much-observed personages and places. A man born among those whose -daily life builds, as it passes, at least a part of that which -makes history and so records itself, must needs find companions, -acquaintances, enemies, friends of varied character, and if he -be, by chance, a keen observer of passing panoramas, can lack no -material for private reflection and the accumulation of important -facts. - -That part of his existence which connected itself with the slice -of a house on the right side of the Mayfair street was but a -small one. A feature of the untranslatableness of his character -was that he was seen there but seldom. His early habit of crossing -the Channel frequently had gradually reestablished itself as years -passed. Among his acquaintances his "Saturday to Monday visits" to -continental cities remote or unremote were discussed with humour. -Possibly, upon these discussions, were finally founded the rumours -of which Dowson had heard but which she had impartially declined -to "credit". Lively conjecture inevitably figured largely in their -arguments and, when persons of unrestrained wit devote their -attention to airy persiflage, much may be included in their points -of view. - -Of these conjectural discussions no one was more clearly aware -than Coombe himself, and the finished facility--even felicity--of -his evasion of any attempt at delicately valued cross examination -was felt to be inhumanly exasperating. - -In one of the older Squares which still remained stately, through -the splendour of modern fashion had waned in its neighbourhood, -there was among the gloomy, though imposing, houses one in particular -upon whose broad doorsteps--years before the Gareth-Lawlesses had -appeared in London--Lord Coombe stood oftener than upon any other. -At times his brougham waited before it for hours, and, at others, -he appeared on foot and lifted the heavy knocker with a special -accustomed knock recognized at once by any footman in waiting in -the hall, who, hearing it, knew that his mistress--the old Dowager -Duchess of Darte--would receive this visitor, if no other. - -The interior of the house was of the type which, having from the -first been massive and richly sombre, had mellowed into a darker -sombreness and richness as it had stood unmoved amid London years -and fogs. The grandeur of decoration and furnishing had been too -solid to depreciate through decay, and its owner had been of no -fickle mind led to waver in taste by whims of fashion. The rooms -were huge and lofty, the halls and stairways spacious, the fireplaces -furnished with immense grates of glittering steel, which held in -winter beds of scarlet glowing coal, kept scarlet glowing by a -special footman whose being, so to speak, depended on his fidelity -to his task. - -There were many rooms whose doors were kept closed because they -were apparently never used; there were others as little used but -thrown open, warmed and brightened with flowers each day, because -the Duchess chose to catch glimpses of their cheerfulness as she -passed them on her way up or downstairs. The house was her own -property, and, after her widowhood, when it was emptied of her -children by their admirable marriages, and she herself became Dowager -and, later, a confirmed rheumatic invalid, it became doubly her -home and was governed by her slightest whim. She was not indeed -an old woman of caprices, but her tastes, not being those of the -later day in which she now lived, were regarded as a shade eccentric -being firmly defined. - -"I will not have my house glaring with electricity as if it were -a shop. In my own rooms I will be lighted by wax candles. Large -ones--as many as you please," she said. "I will not be 'rung up' -by telephone. My servants may if they like. It is not my affair -to deprive them of the modern inconveniences, if they find them -convenient. My senility does not take the form of insisting that -the world shall cease to revolve upon its axis. It formed that -habit without my assistance, and it is to be feared that it would -continue it in the face of my protests." - -It was, in fact, solely that portion of the world affecting herself -alone which she preferred to retain as it had been in the brilliant -early years of her life. She had been a great beauty and also -a wit in the Court over which Queen Victoria had reigned. She had -possessed the delicate high nose, the soft full eyes, the "polished -forehead," the sloping white shoulders from which scarves floated -or India shawls gracefully drooped in the Books of Beauty of the -day. Her carriage had been noble, her bloom perfect, and, when -she had driven through the streets "in attendance" on her Royal -Mistress, the populace had always chosen her as "the pick of -'em all". Young as she had then been, elderly statesmen had found -her worth talking to, not as a mere beauty in her teens, but as a -creature of singular brilliance and clarity of outlook upon a world -which might have dazzled her youth. The most renowned among them -had said of her, before she was twenty, that she would live to be -one of the cleverest women in Europe, and that she had already the -logical outlook of a just man of fifty. - -She married early and was widowed in middle life. In her later -years rheumatic fever so far disabled her as to confine her to her -chair almost entirely. Her sons and daughter had homes and families -of their own to engage them. She would not allow them to sacrifice -themselves to her because her life had altered its aspect. - -"I have money, friends, good servants and a house I particularly -like," she summed the matter up; "I may be condemned to sit by -the fire, but I am not condemned to be a bore to my inoffensive -family. I can still talk and read, and I shall train myself to -become a professional listener. This will attract. I shall not -only read myself, but I will be read to. A strong young man with -a nice voice shall bring magazines and books to me every day, and -shall read the best things aloud. Delightful people will drop in -to see me and will be amazed by my fund of information." - -It was during the first years of her enforced seclusion that -Coombe's intimacy with her began. He had known her during certain -black days of his youth, and she had comprehended things he did not -tell her. She had not spoken of them to him but she had silently -given him of something which vaguely drew him to her side when -darkness seemed to overwhelm him. The occupations of her life -left her in those earlier days little leisure for close intimacies, -but, when she began to sit by her fire letting the busy world pass -by, he gradually became one of those who "dropped in". - -In one of the huge rooms she had chosen for her own daily use, -by the well-tended fire in its shining grate, she had created -an agreeable corner where she sat in a chair marvellous for ease -and comfort, enclosed from draughts by a fire screen of antique -Chinese lacquer, a table by her side and all she required within -her reach. Upon the table stood a silver bell and, at its sound, -her companion, her reader, her maid or her personally trained -footman, came and went quietly and promptly as if summoned by -magic. Her life itself was simple, but a certain almost royal -dignity surrounded her loneliness. Her companion, Miss Brent, an -intelligent, mature woman who had known a hard and pinched life, -found at once comfort and savour in it. - -"It is not I who am expensive,"--this in one of her talks with -Coombe, "but to live in a house of this size, well kept by excellent -servants who are satisfied with their lot, is not a frugal thing. -A cap of tea for those of my friends who run in to warm themselves -by my fire in the afternoon; a dinner or so when I am well enough -to sit at the head of my table, represent almost all I now do for -the world. Naturally, I must see that my tea is good and that my -dinners cannot be objected to. Nevertheless, I sit here in my chair -and save money--for what?" - -Among those who "warmed themselves by her fire" this man had -singularly become her friend and intimate. When they had time -to explore each other's minds, they came upon curious discoveries -of hidden sympathies and mutual comprehensions which were rich -treasures. They talked of absorbing things with frankness. He came -to sit with her when others were not admitted because she was in -pain or fatigued. He added to neither her fatigue nor her pain, -but rather helped her to forget them. - -"For what?" he answered on this day. "Why not for your grandchildren?" - -"They will have too much money. There are only four of them. They -will make great marriages as their parents did," she said. She -paused a second before she added, "Unless our World Revolution has -broken into flame by that time--And there are no longer any great -marriages to make." - -For among the many things they dwelt on in their talks along, was -the Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, over which he had -watched for many years certain hands hover in tentative experimenting -as to the possibilities of the removal of the pieces from one -square to another. She, too, from her youth had watched the game -with an interest which had not waned in her maturity, and which, -in her days of sitting by the fire, had increased with every move -the hovering hands made. She had been familiar with political -parties and their leaders, she had met heroes and statesmen; she -had seen an unimportant prince become an emperor, who, from his -green and boastful youth, aspired to rule the world and whose -theatrical obsession had been the sly jest of unwary nations, too -carelessly sure of the advance of civilization and too indifferently -self-indulgent to realize that a monomaniac, even if treated as a -source of humour, is a perilous thing to leave unwatched. She had -known France in all the glitter of its showy Empire, and had seen -its imperial glories dispersed as mist. Russia she had watched with -curiosity and dread. On the day when the ruler, who had bestowed -freedom on millions of his people, met his reward in the shattering -bomb which tore him to fragments, she had been in St. Petersburg. A -king, who had been assassinated, she had known well and had well -liked; an empress, whom a frenzied madman had stabbed to the heart, -had been her friend. - -Her years had been richly full of varied events, giving a strong -and far-seeing mind reason for much unspoken thought of the kind -which leaps in advance of its day's experience and exact knowledge. -She had learned when to speak and when to be silent, and she oftener -chose silence. But she had never ceased gazing on the world with -keen eyes, and reflecting upon its virtues and vagaries, its depths -and its shallows, with the help of a clear and temperate brain. - -By her fire she sat, an attracting presence, though only fine, -strong lines remained of beauty ravaged by illness and years. The -"polished forehead" was furrowed by the chisel of suffering; the -delicate high nose springing from her waxen, sunken face seemed -somewhat eaglelike, but the face was still brilliant in its intensity -of meaning and the carriage of her head was still noble. Not able -to walk except with the assistance of a cane, her once exquisite -hands stiffened almost to uselessness, she held her court from -her throne of mere power and strong charm. On the afternoons when -people "ran in to warm themselves" by her fire, the talk was never -dull and was often wonderful. There were those who came quietly -into the room fresh from important scenes where subjects of weight -to nations were being argued closely--perhaps almost fiercely. -Sometimes the argument was continued over cups of perfect tea near -the chair of the Duchess, and, howsoever far it led, she was able -brilliantly to follow. With the aid of books and pamphlets and -magazines, and the strong young man with the nice voice, who was -her reader, she kept pace with each step of the march of the world. - -It was, however, the modern note in her recollections of her world's -march in days long past, in which Coombe found mental food and fine -flavour. The phrase, "in these days" expressed in her utterance neither -disparagement nor regret. She who sat in state in a drawing-room -lighted by wax candles did so as an affair of personal preference, -and denied no claim of higher brilliance to electric illumination. -Driving slowly through Hyde Park on sunny days when she was able -to go out, her high-swung barouche hinted at no lofty disdain of -petrol and motor power. At the close of her youth's century, she -looked forward with thrilled curiosity to the dawning wonders of -the next. - -"If the past had not held so much, one might not have learned -to expect more," was her summing up on a certain afternoon, when -he came to report himself after one of his absences from England. -"The most important discovery of the last fifty years has been the -revelation that no man may any longer assume to speak the last -word on any subject. The next man--almost any next man--may evolve -more. Before that period all elderly persons were final in their -dictum. They said to each other--and particularly to the young--'It -has not been done in my time--it was not done in my grandfather's -time. It has never been done. It never can be done'." - -"The note of today is 'Since it has never been done, it will surely -be done soon'," said Coombe. - -"Ah! we who began life in the most assured and respectable of -reigns and centuries," she answered him, "have seen much. But these -others will see more. Crinolines, mushroom hats and large families -seemed to promise a decorum peaceful to dullness; but there have -been battles, murders and sudden deaths; there have been almost -supernatural inventions and discoveries--there have been marvels -of new doubts and faiths. When one sits and counts upon one's -fingers the amazements the 19th century has provided, one gasps -and gazes with wide eyes into the future. I, for one, feel rather -as though I had seen a calm milch cow sauntering--at first -slowly--along a path, gradually evolve into a tiger--a genie with -a hundred heads containing all the marvels of the world--a flying -dragon with a thousand eyes! Oh, we have gone fast and far!" - -"And we shall go faster and farther," Coombe added. - -"That is it," she answered. "Are we going too fast?" - -"At least so fast that we forget things it would be well for us -to remember." He had come in that day with a certain preoccupied -grimness of expression which was not unknown to her. It was generally -after one of his absences that he looked a shade grim. - -"Such as--?" she inquired. - -"Such as catastrophes in the history of the world, which forethought -and wisdom might have prevented. The French Revolution is the obvious -type of figure which lies close at hand so one picks it up. The -French Revolution--its Reign of Terror--the orgies of carnage--the -cataclysms of agony--need not have been, but they WERE. To put it -in words of one syllable." - -"What!" was her involuntary exclamation. "You are seeking such -similes as the French Revolution!" - -"Who knows how far a madness may reach and what Reign of Terror may -take form?" He sat down and drew an atlas towards him. It always lay -upon the table on which all the Duchess desired was within reach. -It was fat, convenient of form, and agreeable to look at in its -cover of dull, green leather. Coombe's gesture of drawing it towards -him was a familiar one. It was frequently used as reference. - -"The atlas again?" she said. - -"Yes. Just now I can think of little else. I have realized too -much." - -The continental journey had lasted a month. He had visited more -countries than one in his pursuit of a study he was making of -the way in which the wind was blowing particular straws. For long -he had found much to give thought to in the trend of movement in -one special portion of the Chessboard. It was that portion of it -dominated by the ruler of whose obsession too careless nations made -sly jest. This man he had known from his arrogant and unendearing -youth. He had looked on with unbiassed curiosity at his development -into arrogance so much greater than its proportions touched the -grotesque. The rest of the world had looked on also, but apparently, -merely in the casual way which good-naturedly smiles and leaves to -every man--even an emperor--the privilege of his own eccentricities. -Coombe had looked on with a difference, so also had his friend by -her fireside. This man's square of the Chessboard had long been -the subject of their private talks and a cause for the drawing -towards them of the green atlas. The moves he made, the methods -of his ruling, the significance of these methods were the evidence -they collected in their frequent arguments. Coombe had early begun -to see the whole thing as a process--a life-long labour which was -a means to a monstrous end. - -There was a certain thing he believed of which they often spoke -as "It". He spoke of it now. - -"Through three weeks I have been marking how It grows," he said; "a -whole nation with the entire power of its commerce, its education, -its science, its religion, guided towards one aim is a curious -study. The very babes are born and bred and taught only that -one thought may become an integral part of their being. The most -innocent and blue eyed of them knows, without a shadow of doubt, -that the world has but one reason for existence--that it may be -conquered and ravaged by the country that gave them birth." - -"I have both heard and seen it," she said. "One has smiled in -spite of oneself, in listening to their simple, everyday talk." - -"In little schools--in large ones--in little churches, and in -imposing ones, their Faith is taught and preached," Coombe -answered. "Sometimes one cannot believe one's hearing. It is all -so ingenuously and frankly unashamed--the mouthing, boasting, and -threats of their piety. There exists for them no God who is not -the modest henchman of their emperor, and whose attention is not -rivetted on their prowess with admiration and awe. Apparently, -they are His business, and He is well paid by being allowed to -retain their confidence." - -"A lack of any sense of humour is a disastrous thing," commented -the Duchess. "The people of other nations may be fools--doubtless -we all are--but there is no other which proclaims the fact abroad -with such guileless outbursts of raucous exultation." - -"And even we--you and I who have thought more than others" he -said, restlessly, "even we forget and half smile. There been too -much smiling." - -She picked up an illustrated paper and opened it at a page filled -by an ornate picture. - -"See!" she said. "It is because he himself has made it so easy, -with his amazing portraits of his big boots, and swords, and -eruption of dangling orders. How can one help but smile when -one finds him glaring at one from a newspaper in his superwarlike -attitude, defying the Universe, with his comic moustachios and their -ferocious waxed and bristling ends. No! One can scarcely believe -that a man can be stupid enough not to realize that he looks -as if he had deliberately made himself up to represent a sort of -terrific military bogey intimating that, at he may pounce and say -'Boo?" - -"There lies the peril. His pretensions seem too grotesque to be -treated seriously. And, while he should be watched as a madman is -watched, he is given a lifetime to we attack on a world that has -ceased to believe in the sole thing which is real to himself." - -"You are fresh from observation." There was new alertness in her -eyes, though she had listened before. - -"I tell you it GROWS!" he gave back and lightly struck the table -in emphasis. "Do you remember Carlyle--?" - -"The French Revolution again?" - -"Yes. Do you recall this? 'Do not fires, fevers, seeds, chemical -mixtures, GO ON GROWING. Observe, too, that EACH GROWS with a -rapidity proportioned to the madness and unhealthiness there is in -it.' A ruler who, in an unaggressive age such as this, can concentrate -his life and his people's on the one ambition of plunging the -world in an ocean of blood, in which his own monomania can bathe -in triumph--Good God! there is madness and unhealthiness to flourish -in!" - -"The world!" she said. "Yes--it will be the world." - -"See," he said, with a curve of the finger which included most of -the Map of Europe. "Here are countries engaged--like the Bandarlog--in -their own affairs. Quarrelling, snatching things from each other, -blustering or amusing themselves with transitory pomps and displays -of power. Here is a huge empire whose immense, half-savage population -has seethed for centuries in its hidden, boiling cauldron of -rebellion. Oh! it has seethed! And only cruelties have repressed -it. Now and then it has boiled over in assassination in high places, -and one has wondered how long its autocratic splendour could hold -its own. Here are small, fierce, helpless nations overrun and -outraged into a chronic state of secret ever-ready hatred. Here -are innocent, small countries, defenceless through their position -and size. Here is France rich, careless, super-modern and cynic. -Here is England comfortable to stolidity, prosperous and secure to -dullness in her own half belief in a world civilization, which -no longer argues in terms of blood and steel. And here--in a -well-entrenched position in the midst of it all--within but a few -hundreds of miles of weakness, complicity, disastrous unreadiness -and panic-stricken uncertainty of purpose, sits this Man of One -Dream--who believes God Himself his vassal. Here he sits." - -"Yes his One Dream. He has had no other." The Duchess was poring -over the map also. They were as people pondering over a strange -and terrible game. - -"It is his monomania. It possessed him when he was a boy. What -Napoleon hoped to accomplish he has BELIEVED he could attain by -concentrating all the power of people upon preparation for it--and -by not flinching from pouring forth their blood as if it were the -refuse water of his gutters." - -"Yes--the blood--the blood!" the Duchess shuddered. "He would pour -it forth without a qualm." - -Coombe touched the map first at one point and then at another. - -"See!" he said again, and this time savagely. "This empire flattered -and entangled by cunning, this country irritated, this deceived, -this drawn into argument, this and this and this treated with -professed friendship, these tricked and juggled with--And then, when -his plans are ripe and he is made drunk with belief in himself--just -one sodden insult or monstrous breach of faith, which all humanity -must leap to resent--And there is our World Revolution." - -The Duchess sat upright in her chair. - -"Why did you let your youth pass?" she said. "If you had begun -early enough, you could hare made the country listen to you. Why -did you do it?" - -"For the same reason that all selfish grief and pleasure and -indifference let the world go by. And I am not sure they would have -listened. I speak freely enough now in some quarters. They listen, -but they do nothing. There is a warning in the fact that, as he -has seen his youth leave him without giving him his opportunity, -he has been a disappointed man inflamed and made desperate. At the -outset, he felt that he must provide the world with some fiction -of excuse. As his obsession and arrogance have swollen, he sees -himself and his ambition as reason enough. No excuse is needed. -Deutschland uber alles--is sufficient." - -He pushed the map away and his fire died down. He spoke almost in -his usual manner. - -"The conquest of the world," he said. "He is a great fool. What -would he DO with his continents if he got them?" - -"What, indeed," pondered her grace. "Continents--even kingdoms are -not like kittens in a basket, or puppies to be trained to come to -heel." - -"It is part of his monomania that he can persuade himself that -they are little more." Coombe's eye-glasses had been slowly swaying -from the ribbon in his fingers. He let them continue to sway a -moment and then closed them with a snap. - -"He is a great fool," he said. "But we,--oh, my friend--and by 'we' -I mean the rest of the Map of Europe--we are much greater fools. -A mad dog loose among us and we sit--and smile." - -And this was in the days before the house with the cream-coloured -front had put forth its first geraniums and lobelias in Feather's -window boxes. Robin was not born. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - - - - -In the added suite of rooms at the back of the house, Robin grew -through the years in which It was growing also. On the occasion -when her mother saw her, she realized that she was not at least -going to look like a barmaid. At no period of her least refulgent -moment did she verge upon this type. Dowie took care of her and -Mademoiselle Valle educated her with the assistance of certain -masters who came to give lessons in German and Italian. - -"Why only German and Italian and French," said Feather, "why not -Latin and Greek, as well, if she is to be so accomplished?" - -"It is modern languages one needs at this period. They ought -to be taught in the Board Schools," Coombe replied. "They are -not accomplishments but workman's tools. Nationalities are not -separated as they once were. To be familiar with the language of -one's friends--and one's enemies--is a protective measure." - -"What country need one protect oneself against? When all the -kings and queens are either married to each other's daughters or -cousins or take tea with each other every year or so. Just think -of the friendliness of Germany for instance----" - -"I do," said Coombe, "very often. That is one of the reasons I -choose German rather than Latin and Greek. Julius Caesar and Nero -are no longer reasons for alarm." - -"Is the Kaiser with his seventeen children and his respectable -Frau?" giggled Feather. "All that he cares about is that women -shall be made to remember that they are born for nothing but to -cook and go to church and have babies. One doesn't wonder at the -clothes they wear." - -It was not a month after this, however, when Lord Coombe, again -warming himself at his old friend's fire, gave her a piece of -information. - -"The German teacher, Herr Wiese, has hastily returned to his own -country," he said. - -She lifted her eyebrows inquiringly. - -"He found himself suspected of being a spy," was his answer. "With -most excellent reason. Some first-rate sketches of fortifications -were found in a box he left behind him in his haste. The country--all -countries--are sown with those like him. Mild spectacled students -and clerks in warehouses and manufactories are weighing and -measuring resources; round-faced, middle-aged governesses are -making notes of conversation and of any other thing which may be -useful. In time of war--if they were caught at what are now their -simple daily occupations--they would be placed against a wall and -shot. As it is, they are allowed to play about among us and slip -away when some fellow worker's hint suggests it is time." - -"German young men are much given to spending a year or so here -in business positions," the Duchess wore a thoughtful air. "That -has been going on for a decade or so. One recognizes their Teuton -type in shops and in the streets. They say they come to learn the -language and commercial methods." - -"Not long ago a pompous person, who is the owner of a big shop, -pointed out to me three of them among his salesmen," Coombe said. -"He plumed himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they -worked for low wages and cared for very little else but finding -out how things were done in England. It wasn't only business -knowledge they were after, he said; they went about everywhere--into -factories and dock yards, and public buildings, and made funny -little notes and sketches of things they didn't understand--so -that they could explain them in Germany. In his fatuous, insular -way, it pleased him to regard them rather as a species of aborigines -benefiting by English civilization. The English Ass and the -German Ass are touchingly alike. The shade of difference is that -the English Ass's sublime self-satisfaction is in the German Ass -self-glorification. The English Ass smirks and plumes himself; -the German Ass blusters and bullies and defies." - -"Do you think of engaging another German Master for the little -girl?" the Duchess asked the question casually. - -"I have heard of a quiet young woman who has shown herself thorough -and well-behaved in a certain family for three years. Perhaps -she also will disappear some day, but, for the present, she will -serve the purpose." - -As he had not put into words to others any explanation of the -story of the small, smart establishment in the Mayfair street, so -he had put into words no explanation to her. That she was aware -of its existence he knew, but what she thought of it, or imagined -he himself thought of it, he had not at any period inquired. -Whatsoever her point of view might be, he knew it would be unbiassed, -clear minded and wholly just. She had asked no question and made -no comment. The rapid, whirligig existence of the well-known -fashionable groups, including in their circles varieties of the -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless type, were to be seen at smart functions and -to be read of in newspapers and fashion reports, if one's taste -lay in the direction of a desire to follow their movements. The -time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by -severities of opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown -their dice daringly to gain. The worldly old axiom, "Be virtuous -and you will be happy," had been ironically paraphrased too often. -"Please yourself and you will be much happier than if you were -virtuous," was a practical reading. - -But for a certain secret which she alone knew and which no one -would in the least have believed, if she had proclaimed it from -the housetops, Feather would really have been entirely happy. -And, after all, the fly in her ointment was merely an odd sting -a fantastic Fate had inflicted on her vanity and did not in any -degree affect her pleasures. So many people lived in glass houses -that the habit of throwing stones had fallen out of fashion as an -exercise. There were those, too, whose houses of glass, adroitly -given the air of being respectable conservatories, engendered in -the dwellers therein a leniency towards other vitreous constructions. -As a result of this last circumstance, there were times when -quite stately equipages drew up before Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' door -and visiting cards bearing the names of acquaintances much to be -desired were left upon the salver presented by Jennings. Again, -as a result of this circumstance, Feather employed some laudable -effort in her desire to give her own glass house the conservatory -aspect. Her little parties became less noisy, if they still remained -lively. She gave an "afternoon" now and then to which literary -people and artists, and persons who "did things" were invited. -She was pretty enough to allure an occasional musician to "do -something", some new poet to read or recite. Fashionable people -were asked to come and hear and talk to them, and, in this way, -she threw out delicate fishing lines here and there, and again -and again drew up a desirable fish of substantial size. Sometimes -the vague rumour connected with the name of the Head of the House -of Coombe was quite forgotten and she was referred to amiably as -"That beautiful creature, Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. She was left a -widow when she was nothing but a girl. If she hadn't had a little -money of her own, and if her husband's relatives hadn't taken care -of her, she would have had a hard time of it. She is amazingly -clever at managing her, small income," they added. "Her tiny house -is one of the jolliest little places in London--always full of -good looking people and amusing things." - -But, before Robin was fourteen, she had found out that the house -she lived in was built of glass and that any chance stone would -break its panes, even if cast without particular skill in aiming. -She found it out in various ways, but the seed from which all -things sprang to the fruition of actual knowledge was the child -tragedy through which she had learned that Donal had been taken -from her--because his mother would not let him love and play with -a little girl whose mother let Lord Coombe come to her house--because -Lord Coombe was so bad that even servants whispered secrets about -him. Her first interpretation of this had been that of a mere baby, -but it had filled her being with detestation of him, and curious -doubts of her mother. Donal's mother, who was good and beautiful, -would not let him come to see her and kept Donal away from him. -If the Lady Downstairs was good, too, then why did laugh and -talk to him and seem to like him? She had thought this over for -hours--sometimes wakening in the night to lie and puzzle over -it feverishly. Then, as time went by, she had begun to remember -that she had never played with any of the children in the Square -Gardens. It had seemed as though this had been because Andrews -would not let her. But, if she was not fit to play with Donal, -perhaps the nurses and governesses and mothers of the other children -knew about it and would not trust their little girls and boys to -her damaging society. She did not know what she could have done -to harm them--and Oh! how COULD she have harmed Donal!--but there -must be something dreadful about a child whose mother knew bad -people--something which other children could "catch" like scarlet -fever. From this seed other thoughts had grown. She did not remain -a baby long. A fervid little brain worked for her, picked up hints -and developed suggestions, set her to singularly alert reasoning -which quickly became too mature for her age. The quite horrid little -girl, who flouncingly announced that she could not be played with -any more "because of Lord Coombe" set a spark to a train. After -that time she used to ask occasional carefully considered questions -of Dowson and Mademoiselle Valle, which puzzled them by their -vagueness. The two women were mutually troubled by a moody habit -she developed of sitting absorbed in her own thoughts, and with -a concentrated little frown drawing her brows together. They did -not know that she was silently planning a subtle cross examination -of them both, whose form would be such that neither of them could -suspect it of being anything but innocent. She felt that she was -growing cunning and deceitful, but she did not care very much. -She possessed a clever and determined, though very young brain. -She loved both Dowson and Mademoiselle, but she must find out -about things for herself, and she was not going to harm or trouble -them. They would never know she had found out: Whatsoever she -discovered, she would keep to herself. - -But one does not remain a baby long, and one is a little girl -only a few years, and, even during the few years, one is growing -and hearing and seeing all the time. After that, one is beginning -to be a rather big girl and one has seen books and newspapers, and -overheard scraps of things from servants. If one is brought up -in a convent and allowed to read nothing but literature selected -by nuns, a degree of aloofness from knowledge may be counted -upon--though even convent schools, it is said, encounter their -difficulties in perfect discipline. - -Robin, in her small "Palace" was well taken care of but her library -was not selected by nuns. It was chosen with thought, but it was -the library of modern youth. Mademoiselle Valle's theories of a -girl's education were not founded on a belief that, until marriage, -she should be led about by a string blindfolded, and with ears -stopped with wax. - -"That results in a bleating lamb's being turned out of its fold to -make its way through a jungle full of wild creatures and pitfalls -it has never heard of," she said in discussing the point with Dowson. -She had learned that Lord Coombe agreed with her. He, as well as -she, chose the books and his taste was admirable. Its inclusion -of an unobtrusive care for girlhood did not preclude the exercise -of the intellect. An early developed passion for reading led the -child far and wide. Fiction, history, poetry, biography, opened -up vistas to a naturally quick and eager mind. Mademoiselle found -her a clever pupil and an affection-inspiring little being even -from the first. - -She always felt, however, that in the depths of her something held -itself hidden--something she did not speak of. It was some thought -which perhaps bewildered her, but which something prevented her -making clear to herself by the asking of questions. Mademoiselle -Valle finally became convinced that she never would ask the -questions. - -Arrived a day when Feather swept into the Palace with some -visitors. They were two fair and handsome little girls of thirteen -and fourteen, whose mother, having taken them shopping, found it -would suit her extremely well to drop then somewhere for an hour -while she went to her dressmaker. Feather was quite willing that -they should be left with Robin and Mademoiselle until their own -governess called for them. - -"Here are Eileen and Winifred Erwyn, Robin," she said, bringing -them in. "Talk to them and show them your books and things until -the governess comes. Dowson, give them some cakes and tea." - -Mrs. Erwyn was one of the most treasured of Feather's circle. Her -little girls' governess was a young Frenchwoman, entirely unlike -Mademoiselle Valle. Eileen and Winifred saw Life from their -schoolroom windows as an open book. Why not, since their governess -and their mother's French maid conversed freely, and had rather -penetrating voices even when they were under the impression that -they lowered them out of deference to blameless youth. Eileen and -Winifred liked to remain awake to listen as long as they could -after they went to bed. They themselves had large curious eyes -and were given to whispering and giggling. - -They talked a good deal to Robin and assumed fashionable little -grown up airs. They felt themselves mature creatures as compared -to her, since she was not yet thirteen. They were so familiar -with personages and functions that Robin felt that they must have -committed to memory every morning the column in the Daily Telegraph -known as "London Day by Day." She sometimes read it herself, -because it was amusing to her to read about parties and weddings -and engagements. But it did not seem easy to remember. Winifred -and Eileen were delighted to display themselves in the character -of instructresses. They entertained Robin for a short time, but, -after that, she began to dislike the shared giggles which so often -broke out after their introduction of a name or an incident. It -seemed to hint that they were full of amusing information which -they held back. Then they were curious and made remarks and asked -questions. She began to think them rather horrid. - -"We saw Lord Coombe yesterday," said Winifred at last, and the -unnecessary giggle followed. - -"We think he wears the most beautiful clothes we ever saw! You -remember his overcoat, Winnie?" said Eileen. "He MATCHES so--and -yet you don't know exactly how he matches," and she giggled also. - -"He is the best dressed man in London," Winifred stated quite -grandly. "I think he is handsome. So do Mademoiselle and Florine." - -Robin said nothing at all. What Dowson privately called "her -secret look" made her face very still. Winifred saw the look and, -not understanding it or her, became curious. - -"Don't you?" she said. - -"No," Robin answered. "He has a wicked face. And he's old, too." - -"You think he's old because you're only about twelve," inserted -Eileen. "Children think everybody who is grown-up must be old. -I used to. But now people don't talk and think about age as they -used to. Mademoiselle says that when a man has distinction he is -always young--and nicer than boys." - -Winifred, who was persistent, broke in. - -"As to his looking wicked, I daresay he IS wicked in a sort of -interesting way. Of course, people say all sorts of things about -him. When he was quite young, he was in love with a beautiful -little royal Princess--or she was in love with him--and her husband -either killed her or she died of a broken heart--I don't know -which." - -Mademoiselle Valle had left them for a short time feeling that -they were safe with their tea and cakes and would feel more at ease -relieved of her presence. She was not long absent, but Eileen and -Winifred, being avid of gossip and generally eliminated subjects, -"got in their work" with quite fevered haste. They liked the idea -of astonishing Robin. - -Eileen bent forward and lowered her voice. - -"They do say that once Captain Thorpe was fearfully jealous of -him and people wonder that he wasn't among the co-respondents." -The word "co-respondent" filled her with self-gratulation even -though she only whispered it. - -"Co-respondents?" said Robin. - -They both began to whisper at once--quite shrilly in their haste. -They knew Mademoiselle might return at any moment. - -"The great divorce case, you know! The Thorpe divorce case the -papers are so full of. We get the under housemaid to bring it to -us after Mademoiselle has done with it. It's so exciting! Haven't -you been reading it? Oh!" - -"No, I haven't," answered Robin. "And I don't know about co-respondents, -but, if they are anything horrid, I daresay he WAS one of them." - -And at that instant Mademoiselle returned and Dowson brought -in fresh cakes. The governess, who was to call for her charges, -presented herself not long afterwards and the two enterprising -little persons were taken away. - -"I believe she's JEALOUS of Lord Coombe," Eileen whispered to -Winifred, after they reached home. - -"So do I," said Winifred wisely. "She can't help but know how he -ADORES Mrs. Gareth-Lawless because she's so lovely. He pays for -all her pretty clothes. It's silly of her to be jealous--like a -baby." - -Robin sometimes read newspapers, though she liked books better. -Newspapers were not forbidden her. She been reading an enthralling -book and had not seen a paper for some days. She at once searched for -one and, finding it, sat down and found also the Thorpe Divorce -Case. It was not difficult of discovery, as it filled the principal -pages with dramatic evidence and amazing revelations. - -Dowson saw her bending over the spread sheets, hot-eyed and intense -in her concentration. - -"What are you reading, my love?" she asked. - -The little flaming face lifted itself. It was unhappy, obstinate, -resenting. It wore no accustomed child look and Dowson felt rather -startled. - -"I'm reading the Thorpe Divorce Case, Dowie," she answered -deliberately and distinctly. - -Dowie came close to her. - -"It's an ugly thing to read, my lamb," she faltered. "Don't you -read it. Such things oughtn't to be allowed in newspapers. And -you're a little girl, my own dear." Robin's elbow rested firmly -on the table and her chin firmly in her hand. Her eyes were not -like a bird's. - -"I'm nearly thirteen," she said. "I'm growing up. Nobody can stop -themselves when they begin to grow up. It makes them begin to find -out things. I want to ask you something, Dowie." - -"Now, lovey--!" Dowie began with tremor. Both she and Mademoiselle -had been watching the innocent "growing up" and fearing a time -would come when the widening gaze would see too much. Had it come -as soon as this? - -Robin suddenly caught the kind woman's wrists in her hands and -held them while she fixed her eyes on her. The childish passion -of dread and shyness in them broke Dowson's heart because it was -so ignorant and young. - -"I'm growing up. There's something--I MUST know something! I never -knew how to ask about it before." It was so plain to Dowson that -she did not know how to ask about it now. "Someone said that Lord -Coombe might have been a co-respondent in the Thorpe case----" - -"These wicked children!" gasped Dowie. "They're not children at -all!" - -"Everybody's horrid but you and Mademoiselle," cried Robin, brokenly. -She held the wrists harder and ended in a sort of outburst. "If -my father were alive--could he bring a divorce suit----And would -Lord Coombe----" - -Dowson burst into open tears. And then, so did Robin. She dropped -Dowson's wrists and threw her arms around her waist, clinging to -it in piteous repentance. - -"No, I won't!" she cried out. "I oughtn't to try to make you tell -me. You can't. I'm wicked to you. Poor Dowie--darling Dowie! I -want to KISS you, Dowie! Let me--let me!" - -She sobbed childishly on the comfortable breast and Dowie hugged -her close and murmured in a choked voice, - -"My lamb! My pet lamb!" - - - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - - - - -Mademoiselle Valle and Dowson together realized that after this -the growing up process was more rapid. It always seems incredibly -rapid to lookers on, after thirteen. But these two watchers felt -that, in Robin's case, it seemed unusually so. Robin had always -been interested in her studies and clever at them, but, suddenly, -she developed a new concentration and it was of an order which her -governess felt denoted the secret holding of some object in view. -She devoted herself to her lessons with a quality of determination -which was new. She had previously been absorbed, but not determined. -She made amazing strides and seemed to aspire to a thoroughness -and perfection girls did not commonly aim at--especially at the -frequently rather preoccupied hour of blossoming. Mademoiselle -encountered in her an eagerness that she--who knew girls--would -have felt it optimistic to expect in most cases. She wanted to -work over hours; she would have read too much if she had not been -watched and gently coerced. - -She was not distracted by the society of young people of her own age. -She, indeed, showed a definite desire to avoid such companionship. -What she said to Mademoiselle Valle one afternoon during a long walk -they took together, held its own revelation for the older woman. - -They had come upon the two Erwyns walking with their attendant -in Kensington Gardens, and, seeing them at some distance, Robin -asked her companion to turn into another walk. - -"I don't want to meet them," she said, hurriedly. "I don't think I -like girls. Perhaps it's horrid of me--but I don't. I don't like -those two." A few minutes later, after they had walked in an opposite -direction, she said thoughtfully. - -"Perhaps the kind of girls I should like to know would not like to -know me." - -From the earliest days of her knowledge of Lord Coombe, Mademoiselle -Valle had seen that she had no cause to fear lack of comprehension -on his part. With a perfection of method, they searched each other's -intelligence. It had become understood that on such occasions as -there was anything she wished to communicate or inquire concerning, -Mr. Benby, in his private room, was at Mademoiselle's service, and -there his lordship could also be met personally by appointment. - -"There have been no explanations," Mademoiselle Valle said to -Dowson. "He does not ask to know why I turn to him and I do not -ask to know why he cares about this particular child. It is taken -for granted that is his affair and not mine. I am paid well to -take care of Robin, and he knows that all I say and do is part of -my taking care of her." - -After the visit of the Erwyn children, she had a brief interview -with Coombe, in which she made for him a clear sketch. It was a -sketch of unpleasant little minds, avid and curious on somewhat -exotic subjects, little minds, awake to rather common claptrap -and gossipy pinchbeck interests. - -"Yes--unpleasant, luckless, little persons. I quite understand. -They never appeared before. They will not appear again. Thank you, -Mademoiselle," he said. - -The little girls did not appear again; neither did any others of -their type, and the fact that Feather knew little of other types -was a sufficient reason for Robin's growing up without companions -of her own age. - -"She's a lonely child, after all," Mademoiselle said. - -"She always was," answered Dowie. "But she's fond of us, bless -her heart, and it isn't loneliness like it was before we came." - -"She is not unhappy. She is too blooming and full of life," -Mademoiselle reflected. "We adore her and she has many interests. -It is only that she does not know the companionship most young -people enjoy. Perhaps, as she has never known it, she does not -miss it." - -The truth was that if the absence of intercourse with youth -produced its subtle effect on her, she was not aware of any lack, -and a certain uncompanioned habit of mind, which gave her much -time for dreams and thought, was accepted by her as a natural -condition as simply as her babyhood had accepted the limitations -of the Day and Night Nurseries. - -She was not a self-conscious creature, but the time came when she -became rather disturbed by the fact that people looked at her very -often, as she walked in the streets. Sometimes they turned their -heads to look after her; occasionally one person walking with -another would say something quietly to his or her companion, and -they even paused a moment to turn quite round and look. The first -few times she noticed this she flushed prettily and said nothing -to Mademoiselle Valle who was generally with her. But, after her -attention had been attracted by the same thing on several different -days, she said uneasily: - -"Am I quite tidy, Mademoiselle?" - -"Quite," Mademoiselle answered--just a shade uneasy herself. - -"I began to think that perhaps something had come undone or my -hat was crooked," she explained. "Those two women stared so. Then -two men in a hansom leaned forward and one said something to the -other, and they both laughed a little, Mademoiselle!" hurriedly, -"Now, there are three young men!" quite indignantly. "Don't let -them see you notice them--but I think it RUDE!" - -They were carelessly joyous and not strictly well-bred youths, -who were taking a holiday together, and their rudeness was quite -unintentional and without guile. They merely stared and obviously -muttered comments to each other as they passed, each giving -the hasty, unconscious touch to his young moustache, which is the -automatic sign of pleasurable observation in the human male. - -"If she had had companions of her own age she would have known -all about it long ago," Mademoiselle was thinking. - -Her intelligent view of such circumstances was that the simple -fact they arose from could--with perfect taste--only be treated -simply. It was a mere fact; therefore, why be prudish and affected -about it. - -"They did not intend any rudeness," she said, after they had gone -by. "They are not much more than boys and not perfectly behaved. -People often stare when they see a very pretty girl. I am afraid -I do it myself. You are very pretty," quite calmly, and as one -speaking without prejudice. - -Robin turned and looked at her, and the colour, which was like a -Jacqueminot rose, flooded her face. She was at the flushing age. -Her gaze was interested, speculative, and a shade startled--merely -a shade. - -"Oh," she said briefly--not in exclamation exactly, but in a sort -of acceptance. Then she looked straight before her and went on -walking, with the lovely, slightly swaying, buoyant step which in -itself drew attracted eyes after her. - -"If I were a model governess, such as one read of long before -you were born," Mademoiselle Valle continued, "I should feel it -my duty to tell you that beauty counts for nothing. But that is -nonsense. It counts a great deal--with some women it counts for -everything. Such women are not lucky. One should thank Heaven -for it and make the best of it, without exaggerated anxiety. Both -Dowie and I, who love you, are GRATEFUL to le bon Dieu that you -are pretty." - -"I have sometimes thought I was pretty, when I saw myself in the -glass," said Robin, with unexcited interest. "It seemed to me that -I LOOKED pretty. But, at the same time, I couldn't help knowing -that everything is a matter of taste and that it might be because -I was conceited." - -"You are not conceited," answered the Frenchwoman. - -"I don't want to be," said Robin. "I want to be--a serious person -with--with a strong character." - -Mademoiselle's smile was touched with affectionate doubt. It had -not occurred to her to view this lovely thing in the light of a -"strong" character. Though, after all, what exactly was strength? -She was a warm, intensely loving, love compelling, tender being. -Having seen much of the world, and of humanity and inhumanity, -Mademoiselle Valle had had moments of being afraid for -her--particularly when, by chance, she recalled the story Dowson -had told her of the bits of crushed and broken leaves. - -"A serious person," she said, "and strong?" - -"Because I must earn my own living," said Robin. "I must be strong -enough to take care of myself. I am going to be a governess--or -something." - -Here, it was revealed to Mademoiselle as in a flash, was the reason -why she had applied herself with determination to her studies. This -had been the object in view. For reasons of her own, she intended -to earn her living. With touched interest, Mademoiselle Valle -waited, wondering if she would be frank about the reason. She -merely said aloud: - -"A governess?" - -"Perhaps there may be something else I can do. I might be a -secretary or something like that. Girls and women are beginning -to do so many new things," her charge explained herself. "I do not -want to be--supported and given money. I mean I do not want--other -people--to buy my clothes and food--and things. The newspapers are -full of advertisements. I could teach children. I could translate -business letters. Very soon I shall be old enough to begin. Girls -in their teens do it." - -She had laid some of her cards on the table, but not all, poor -child. She was not going into the matter of her really impelling -reasons. But Mademoiselle Valle was not dull, and her affection -added keenness to her mental observations. Also she had naturally -heard the story of the Thorpe lawsuit from Dowson. Inevitably -several points suggested themselves to her. - -"Mrs. Gareth-Lawless----" she began, reasonably. - -But Robin stopped her by turning her face full upon her once more, -and this time her eyes were full of clear significance. - -"She will let me go," she said. "You KNOW she will let me -go, Mademoiselle, darling. You KNOW she will." There was a frank -comprehension and finality in the words which made a full revelation -of facts Mademoiselle herself had disliked even to allow to form -themselves into thoughts. The child knew all sorts of things and -felt all sorts of things. She would probably never go into details, -but she was extraordinarily, harrowingly, AWARE. She had been -learning to be aware for years. This had been the secret she had -always kept to herself. - -"If you are planning this," Mademoiselle said, as reasonably as -before, "we must work very seriously for the next few years." - -"How long do you think it will take?" asked Robin. She was nearing -sixteen--bursting into glowing blossom--a radiant, touching thing -whom one only could visualize in flowering gardens, in charming, -enclosing rooms, figuratively embraced by every mature and kind -arm within reach of her. This presented itself before Mademoiselle -Valle with such vividness that it was necessary for her to control -a sigh. - -"When I feel that you are ready, I will tell you," she answered. -"And I will do all I can to help you--before I leave you." - -"Oh!" Robin gasped, in an involuntarily childish way, "I--hadn't -thought of that! How could I LIVE without you--and Dowie?" - -"I know you had not thought of it," said Mademoiselle, affectionately. -"You are only a dear child yet. But that will be part of it, you -know. A governess or a secretary, or a young lady in an office -translating letters cannot take her governess and maid with her." - -"Oh!" said Robin again, and her eyes became suddenly so dewy that -the person who passed her at the moment thought he had never seen -such wonderful eyes in his life. So much of her was still child -that the shock of this sudden practical realization thrust the mature -and determined part of her being momentarily into the background, -and she could scarcely bear her alarmed pain. It was true that she -had been too young to face her plan as she must. - -But, after the long walk was over and she found herself in her -bedroom again, she was conscious of a sense of being relieved of -a burden. She had been wondering when she could tell Mademoiselle -and Dowie of her determination. She had not liked to keep it a secret -from them as if she did not love them, but it had been difficult -to think of a way in which to begin without seeming as if she -thought she was quite grown up--which would have been silly. She -had not thought of speaking today, but it had all come about quite -naturally, as a result of Mademoiselle's having told her that she -was really very pretty--so pretty that it made people turn to look -at her in the street. She had heard of girls and women who were -like that, but she had never thought it possible that she----! -She had, of course, been looked at when she was very little, but -she had heard Andrews say that people looked because she had so -much hair and it was like curled silk. - -She went to the dressing table and looked at herself in the glass, -leaning forward that she might see herself closely. The face -which drew nearer and nearer had the effect of some tropic flower, -because it was so alive with colour which seemed to palpitate -instead of standing still. Her soft mouth was warm and brilliant -with it, and the darkness of her eyes was--as it had always -been--like dew. Her brow were a slender black velvet line, and her -lashes made a thick, softening shadow. She saw they were becoming. -She cupped her round chin in her hands and studied herself with a -desire to be sure of the truth without prejudice or self conceit. -The whole effect of her was glowing, and she felt the glow as -others did. She put up a finger to touch the velvet petal texture -of her skin, and she saw how prettily pointed and slim her hand -was. Yes, that was pretty--and her hair--the way it grew about -her forehead and ears and the back of her neck. She gazed at her -young curve and colour and flame of life's first beauty with deep -curiosity, singularly impersonal for her years. - -She liked it; she began to be grateful as Mademoiselle had said -she and Dowie were. Yes, if other people liked it, there was no -use in pretending it would not count. - -"If I am going to earn my living," she thought, with entire -gravity, "it may be good for me. If I am a governess, it will be -useful because children like pretty people. And if I am a secretary -and work in an office, I daresay men like one to be pretty because -it is more cheerful." - -She mentioned this to Mademoiselle Valle, who was very kind about -it, though she looked thoughtful afterwards. When, a few days later, -Mademoiselle had an interview with Coombe in Benby's comfortable -room, he appeared thoughtful also as he listened to her recital -of the incidents of the long walk during which her charge had -revealed her future plans. - -"She is a nice child," he said. "I wish she did not dislike me -so much. I understand her, villain as she thinks me. I am not a -genuine villain," he added, with his cold smile. But he was saying -it to himself, not to Mademoiselle. - -This, she saw, but--singularly, perhaps--she spoke as if in reply. - -"Of that I am aware." - -He turned his head slightly, with a quick, unprepared movement. - -"Yes?" he said. - -"Would your lordship pardon me if I should say that otherwise I -should not ask your advice concerning a very young girl?" - -He slightly waved his hand. - -"I should have known that--if I had thought of it. I do know it." - -Mademoiselle Valle bowed. - -"The fact," she said, "that she seriously thinks that perhaps -beauty may be an advantage to a young person who applies for work -in the office of a man of business because it may seem bright and -cheerful to him when he is tired and out of spirits--that gives one -furiously to think. Yes, to me she said it, milord--with the eyes -of a little dove brooding over her young. I could see her--lifting -them like an angel to some elderly vaurien, who would merely think -her a born cocotte." - -Here Coombe's rigid face showed thought indeed. - -"Good God!" he muttered, quite to himself, "Good God!" in a low, -breathless voice. Villain or saint, he knew not one world but -many. - -"We must take care of her," he said next. "She is not an insubordinate -child. She will do nothing yet?" - -"I have told her she is not yet ready," Mademoiselle Valle answered. -"I have also promised to tell her when she is--And to help her." - -"God help her if we do not!" he said. "She is, on the whole, as -ignorant as a little sheep--and butchers are on the lookout for -such as she is. They suit them even better than the little things -whose tendencies are perverse from birth. An old man with an evil -character may be able to watch over her from a distance." - -Mademoiselle regarded him with grave eyes, which took in his tall, -thin erectness of figure, his bearing, the perfection of his attire -with its unfailing freshness, which was not newness. - -"Do you call yourself an old man, milord?" she asked. - -"I am not decrepit--years need not bring that," was his answer. "But -I believe I became an old man before I was thirty. I have grown no -older--in that which is really age--since then." - -In the moment's silence which followed, his glance met Mademoiselle -Valle's and fixed itself. - -"I am not old enough--or young enough--to be enamoured of Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless' little daughter," he said. "YOU need not be told -that. But you have heard that there are those who amuse themselves -by choosing to believe that I am." - -"A few light and not too clean-minded fools," she admitted without -flinching. - -"No man can do worse for himself than to explain and deny," he -responded with a smile at once hard and fine. "Let them continue -to believe it." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - - - - -Sixteen passed by with many other things much more disturbing -and important to the world than a girl's birthday; seventeen was -gone, with passing events more complicated still and increasingly -significant, but even the owners of the hands hovering over the -Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, did not keep a watch on -all of them as close as might have been kept with advantage. Girls -in their teens are seldom interested in political and diplomatic -conditions, and Robin was not fond of newspapers. She worked well -and steadily under Mademoiselle's guidance, and her governess -realized that she was not losing sight of her plans for self -support. She was made aware of this by an occasional word or so, -and also by a certain telepathic union between them. Little as she -cared for the papers, the child had a habit of closely examining -the advertisements every day. She read faithfully the columns -devoted to those who "Want" employment or are "Wanted" by employers. - -"I look at all the paragraphs which begin 'Wanted, a young lady' -or a 'young woman' or a 'young person,' and those which say that -'A young person' or 'a young woman' or 'a young lady' desires a -position. I want to find out what is oftenest needed." - -She had ceased to be disturbed by the eyes which followed her, -or opened a little as she passed. She knew that nothing had come -undone or was crooked and that untidiness had nothing to do with -the matter. She accepted being looked at as a part of everyday -life. A certain friendliness and pleasure in most of the glances she -liked and was glad of. Sometimes men of the flushed, middle-aged -or elderly type displeased her by a sort of boldness of manner -and gaze, but she thought that they were only silly, giddy, old -things who ought to go home to their families and stay with them. -Mademoiselle or Dowie was nearly always with her, but, as she was -not a French jemme fille, this was not because it was supposed -that she could not be trusted out alone, but because she enjoyed -their affectionate companionship. - -There was one man, however, whom she greatly disliked, as young -girls will occasionally dislike a member of the opposite sex for -no special reason they can wholly explain to themselves. - -He was an occasional visitor of her mother's--a personable young -Prussian officer of high rank and title. He was blonde and military -and good-looking; he brought his bearing and manner from the Court -at Berlin, and the click of his heels as he brought them smartly -together, when he made his perfect automatic bow, was one of the -things Robin knew she was reasonless in feeling she detested in -him. - -"It makes me feel as if he was not merely bowing as a a man who -is a gentleman does," she confided to Mademoiselle Valle, "but -as if he had been taught to do it and to call attention to it as -if no one had ever known how to do it properly before. It is so -flourishing in its stiff way that it's rather vulgar." - -"That is only personal fancy on your part," commented Mademoiselle. - -"I know it is," admitted Robin. "But--" uneasily, "--but that -isn't what I dislike in him most. It's his eyes, I suppose they -are handsome eyes. They are blue and full--rather too full. They -have a queer, swift stare--as if they plunged into other people's -eyes and tried to hold them and say something secret, all in one -second. You find yourself getting red and trying to look away." - -"I don't," said Mademoiselle astutely--because she wanted to hear -the rest, without asking too many questions. - -Robin laughed just a little. - -"You have not seen him do it. I have not seen him do it myself very -often. He comes to call on--Mamma"--she never said "Mother"--"when -he is in London. He has been coming for two or three seasons. The -first time I saw him I was going out with Dowie and he was just -going upstairs. Because the hall is so small, we almost knocked -against each other, and he jumped back and made his bow, and he -stared so that I felt silly and half frightened. I was only fifteen -then." - -"And since then?" Mademoiselle Valle inquired. - -"When he is here it seems as if I always meet him somewhere. Twice, -when Fraulein Hirsch was with me in the Square Gardens, he came -and spoke to us. I think he must know her. He was very grand and -condescendingly polite to her, as if he did not forget she was -only a German teacher and I was only a little girl whose mamma -he knew. But he kept looking at me until I began to hate him." - -"You must not dislike people without reason. You dislike Lord -Coombe." - -"They both make me creep. Lord Coombe doesn't plunge his eyes -into mine, but he makes me creep with his fishy coldness. I feel -as if he were like Satan in his still way." - -"That is childish prejudice and nonsense." - -"Perhaps the other is, too," said Robin. "But they both make me -creep, nevertheless. I would rather DIE than be obliged to let -one of them touch me. That was why I would never shake hands with -Lord Coombe when I was a little child." - -"You think Fraulein Hirsch knows the Baron?" Mademoiselle inquired -further. - -"I am sure she does. Several times, when she has gone out to walk -with me, we have met him. Sometimes he only passes us and salutes, -but sometimes he stops and says a few words in a stiff, magnificent -way. But he always bores his eyes into mine, as if he were finding -out things about me which I don't know myself. He has passed -several times when you have been with me, but you may not remember." - -Mademoiselle Valle chanced, however, to recall having observed -the salute of a somewhat haughty, masculine person, whose military -bearing in itself was sufficient to attract attention, so markedly -did it suggest the clanking of spurs and accoutrements, and the -high lift of a breast bearing orders. - -"He is Count von Hillern, and I wish he would stay in Germany," -said Robin. - -Fraulein Hirsch had not been one of those who returned hastily to -her own country, giving no warning of her intention to her employers. -She had remained in London and given her lessons faithfully. She -was a plain young woman with a large nose and pimpled, colourless -face and shy eyes and manner. Robin had felt sure that she stood -in awe of the rank and military grandeur of her fellow countryman. -She looked shyer than ever when he condescended to halt and address -her and her charge--so shy, indeed, that her glances seemed furtive. -Robin guessed that she admired him but was too humble to be at -ease when he was near her. More than once she had started and turned -red and pale when she saw him approaching, which had caused Robin -to wonder if she herself would feel as timid and overpowered by -her superiors, if she became a governess. Clearly, a man like -Count von Hillern would then be counted among her superiors, and -she must conduct herself becomingly, even if it led to her looking -almost stealthy. She had, on several occasions, asked Fraulein -certain questions about governesses. She had inquired as to the age -at which one could apply for a place as instructress to children -or young girls. Fraulein Hirsch had begun her career in Germany -at the age of eighteen. She had lived a serious life, full of -responsibilities at home as one of a large family, and she had -perhaps been rather mature for her age. In England young women -who wished for situations answered advertisements and went to see -the people who had inserted them in the newspapers, she explained. -Sometimes, the results were very satisfactory. Fraulein Hirsch -was very amiable in her readiness to supply information. Robin did -not tell her of her intention to find work of some sort--probably -governessing--but the young German woman was possessed of a mind -"made in Germany" and was quite well aware of innumerable things -her charge did not suspect her of knowing. One of the things -she knew best was that the girl was a child. She was not a child -herself, and she was an abjectly bitter and wretched creature who -had no reason for hope. She lived in small lodgings in a street -off Abbey Road, and, in a drawer in her dressing table, she kept -hidden a photograph of a Prussian officer with cropped blond head, -and handsome prominent blue eyes, arrogantly gazing from beneath -heavy lids which drooped. He was of the type the German woman, young -and slim, or mature and stout, privately worships as a god whose -relation to any woman can only be that of a modern Jove stooping -to command service. In his teens he had become accustomed to the -female eye which lifts itself adoringly or casts the furtively -excited glance of admiration or appeal. It was the way of mere -nature that it should be so--the wise provision of a masculine -God, whose world was created for the supply and pleasure of males, -especially males of the Prussian Army, whose fixed intention it -was to dominate the world and teach it obedience. - -To such a man, so thoroughly well trained in the comprehension of -the power of his own rank and values, a young woman such as Fraulein -Hirsch--subservient and without beauty--was an unconsidered object -to be as little regarded as the pavement upon which one walks. The -pavement had its uses, and such women had theirs. They could, at -least, obey the orders of those Heaven had placed above them, and, -if they showed docility and intelligence, might be re warded by a -certain degree of approval. - -A presumption, which would have dared to acknowledge to the existence -of the hidden photograph, could not have been encompassed by the -being of Fraulein Hirsch. She was, in truth, secretly enslaved -by a burning, secret, heart-wringing passion which, sometimes, as -she lay on her hard bed at night, forced from her thin chest hopeless -sobs which she smothered under the bedclothes. - -Figuratively, she would have licked the boots of her conquering -god, if he would have looked at her--just looked-as if she were -human. But such a thing could not have occurred to him. He did -not even think of her as she thought of herself, torturingly--as -not young, not in any degree good-looking, not geboren, not even -female. He did not think of her at all, except as one of those born -to serve in such manner as their superiors commanded. She was in -England under orders, because she was unobtrusive looking enough -to be a safe person to carry on the work she had been given to -do. She was cleverer than she looked and could accomplish certain -things without attracting any attention whatsoever. - -Von Hillern had given her instructions now and then, which had -made it necessary for him to see and talk to her in various places. -The fact that she had before her the remote chance of seeing him -by some chance, gave her an object in life. It was enough to be -allowed to stand or sit for a short time near enough to have been -able to touch his sleeve, if she had had the mad audacity to do -it; to quail before his magnificent glance, to hear his voice, to -ALMOST touch his strong, white hand when she gave him papers, to -see that he deigned, sometimes, to approve of what she had done, -to assure him of her continued obedience, with servile politeness. - -She was not a nice woman, or a good one, and she had, from her -birth, accepted her place in her world with such finality that her -desires could not, at any time, have been of an elevated nature. -If he had raised a haughty hand and beckoned to her, she would have -followed him like a dog under any conditions he chose to impose. -But he did not raise his hand, and never would, because she had no -attractions whatsoever. And this she knew, so smothered her sobs -in her bed at night or lay awake, fevered with anticipation when -there was a vague chance that he might need her for some reason -and command her presence in some deserted park or country road -or cheap hotel, where she could take rooms for the night as if -she were a passing visitor to London. - -One night--she had taken cheap lodgings for a week in a side street, -in obedience to orders--he came in about nine o'clock dressed in -a manner whose object was to dull the effect of his grandeur and -cause him to look as much like an ordinary Englishman as possible. - -But, when the door was closed and he stood alone in the room -with her, she saw, with the blissful pangs of an abjectly adoring -woman, that he automatically resumed his magnificence of bearing. -His badly fitting overcoat removed, he stood erect and drawn to -his full height, so dominating the small place and her idolatrously -cringing being that her heart quaked within her. Oh! to dare to -cast her unloveliness at his feet, if it were only to be trampled -upon and die there! No small sense of humour existed in her brain -to save her from her pathetic idiocy. Romantic humility and touching -sacrifice to the worshipped one were the ideals she had read of -in verse and song all her life. Only through such servitude and -sacrifice could woman gain man's love--and even then only if she -had beauty and the gifts worthy of her idol's acceptance. - -It was really his unmitigated arrogance she worshipped and crawled -upon her poor, large-jointed knees to adore. Her education, her -very religion itself had taught that it was the sign of his nobility -and martial high breeding. Even the women of his own class believed -something of the same sort--the more romantic and sentimental -of them rather enjoying being mastered by it. To Fraulein Hirsch's -mental vision, he was a sublimated and more dazzling German -Rochester, and she herself a more worthy, because more submissive, -Jane Eyre. Ach Gott! His high-held, cropped head--his so beautiful -white hands--his proud eyes which deigned to look at her from -their drooping lids! His presence filled the shabby room with the -atmosphere of a Palace. - -He asked her a few questions; he required from her certain notes she -had made; without wasting a word or glance he gave her in detail -certain further orders. - -He stood by the table, and it was, therefore, necessary that she -should approach him--should even stand quite near that she might -see clearly a sketch he made hastily--immediately afterwards tearing -it into fragments and burning it with a match. She was obliged -to stand so near him that her skirt brushed his trouser leg. His -nearness, and a vague scent of cigar smoke, mingled with the -suggestion of some masculine soap or essence, were so poignant -in their effect that she trembled and water rose in her eyes. In -fact--and despite her terrified effort to control it, a miserable -tear fell on her cheek and stood there because she dared not wipe -it away. - -Because he realized, with annoyance, that she was trembling, he -cast a cold, inquiring glance at her and saw the tear. Then he -turned away and resumed his examination of her notes. He was not -here to make inquiries as to whether a sheep of a woman was crying -or had merely a cold in her head. "Ach!" grovelled poor Hirsch in -her secret soul,--his patrician control of outward expression and -his indifference to all small and paltry things! It was part, -not only of his aristocratic breeding, but of the splendour of -his military training. - -It was his usual custom to leave her at once, when the necessary -formula had been gone through. Tonight--she scarcely dared to -believe it--he seemed to have some reason for slight delay. He -did not sit down or ask Fraulein Hirsch to do so--but he did not -at once leave the room. He lighted a quite marvellous cigar--deigning -a slight wave of the admired hand which held it, designating that -he asked permission. Oh! if she dared have darted to him with a -match! He stood upon the hearth and asked a casual-sounding question -or so regarding her employer, her household, her acquaintances, -her habits. - -The sole link between them was the asking of questions and the -giving of private information, and, therefore, the matter of taste -in such matters did not count as a factor. He might ask anything -and she must answer. Perhaps it was necessary for her to seek some -special knowledge among the guests Mrs. Gareth-Lawless received. -But training, having developed in her alertness of mind, led her -presently to see that it was not Mrs. Gareth-Lawless he was chiefly -interested in--but a member of her family--the very small family -which consisted of herself and her daughter. - -It was Robin he was enclosing in his network of questions. And she -had seen him look at Robin when he had passed or spoken to them. -An illuminating flash brought back to her that he had cleverly -found out from her when they were to walk together, and where they -were to go. She had not been quick enough to detect this before, -but she saw it now. Girls who looked like that--yes! But it could -not be--serious. An English girl of such family--with such a -mother! A momentary caprice, such as all young men of his class -amused themselves with and forgot--but nothing permanent. It would -not, indeed, be approved in those High Places where obedience was -the first commandment of the Decalogue. - -But he did not go. He even descended a shade from his inaccessible -plane. It was not difficult for him to obtain details of the odd -loneliness of the girl's position. Fraulein Hirsch was quite ready -to explain that, in spite of the easy morals and leniency of rank -and fashion in England, she was a sort of little outcast from -sacred inner circles. There were points she burned to make clear -to him, and she made them so. She was in secret fiercely desirous -that he should realize to the utmost, that, whatsoever rashness -this young flame of loveliness inspired in him, it was NOT possible -that he could regard it with any shadow of serious intention. -She had always disliked the girl, and now her weak mildness and -humility suddenly transformed themselves into something else--a -sort of maternal wolfishness. It did not matter what happened to -the girl--and whatsoever befell or did not befall her, she--Mathilde -Hirsch--could neither gain nor lose hope through it. But, if -she did not displease him and yet saved him from final disaster, -he would, perhaps, be grateful to her--and perhaps, speak with -approval--or remember it--and his Noble Mother most certainly -would--if she ever knew. But behind and under and through all these -specious reasonings, was the hot choking burn of the mad jealousy -only her type of luckless woman can know--and of whose colour she -dare not show the palest hint. - -"I have found out that, for some reason, she thinks of taking a -place as governess," she said. - -"Suggest that she go to Berlin. There are good places there," was -his answer. - -"If she should go, her mother will not feel any anxiety about -her," returned Fraulein Hirsch. - -"If, then, some young man she meets in the street makes love to -her and they run away together, she will not be pursued by her -relatives." - -Fraulein Hirsch's flat mouth looked rather malicious. - -"Her mother is too busy to pursue her, and there is no one -else--unless it were Lord Coombe, who is said to want her himself." - -Von Hillern shrugged his fine shoulders. - -"At his age! After the mother! That is like an Englishman!" - -Upon this, Fraulein Hirsch drew a step nearer and fixed her eyes -upon his, as she had never had the joy of fixing them before in -her life. She dared it now because she had an interesting story to -tell him which he would like to hear. It WAS like an Englishman. -Lord Coombe had the character of being one of the worst among -them, but was too subtle and clever to openly offend people. It -was actually said that he was educating the girl and keeping her -in seclusion and that it was probably his colossal intention to -marry her when she was old enough. He had no heir of his own--and -he must have beauty and innocence. Innocence and beauty his -viciousness would have. - -"Pah!" exclaimed von Hillern. "It is youth which requires such -things--and takes them. That is all imbecile London gossip. No, he -would not run after her if she ran away. He is a proud man and he -knows he would be laughed at. And he could not get her back from -a young man--who was her lover." - -Her lover! How it thrilled the burning heart her poor, flat chest -panted above. With what triumphant knowledge of such things he -said it. - -"No, he could not," she answered, her eyes still on his. "No one -could." - -He laughed a little, confidently, but almost with light indifference. - -"If she were missing, no particular search would be made then," -he said. "She is pretty enough to suit Berlin." - -He seemed to think pleasantly of something as he stood still for -a moment, his eyes on the floor. When he lifted them, there was -in their blue a hint of ugly exulting, though Mathilde Hirsch did -not think it ugly. He spoke in a low voice. - -"It will be an exciting--a colossal day when we come to London--as -we shall. It will be as if an ocean had collected itself into one -huge mountain of a wave and swept in and overwhelmed everything. -There will be confusion then and the rushing up of untrained -soldiers--and shouts--and yells----" - -"And Zeppelins dropping bombs," she so far forgot herself as to -pant out, "and buildings crashing and pavements and people smashed! -Westminster and the Palaces rocking, and fat fools running before -bayonets." - -He interrupted her with a short laugh uglier than the gleam in -his eyes. He was a trifle excited. - -"And all the women running about screaming and trying to hide and -being pulled out. We can take any of their pretty, little, high -nosed women we choose--any of them." - -"Yes," she answered, biting her lip. No one would take her, she -knew. - -He put on his overcoat and prepared to leave her. As he stood at -the door before opening it, he spoke in his usual tone of mere -command. - -"Take her to Kensington Gardens tomorrow afternoon," he said. "Sit -in one of the seats near the Round Pond and watch the children -sailing their boats. I shall not be there but you will find -yourself near a quiet, elegant woman in mourning who will speak -to you. You are to appear to recognize her as an old acquaintance. -Follow her suggestions in everything." - -After this he was gone and she sat down to think it over. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - - - - -She saw him again during the following week and was obliged to -tell him that she had not been able to take her charge to Kensington -Gardens on the morning that he had appointed but that, as the girl -was fond of the place and took pleasure in watching the children -sailing their boats on the Round Pond, it would be easy to lead -her there. He showed her a photograph of the woman she would find -sitting on a particular bench, and he required she should look -at it long enough to commit the face to memory. It was that of a -quietly elegant woman with gentle eyes. - -"She will call herself Lady Etynge," he said. "You are to remember -that you once taught her little girl in Paris. There must be no haste -and no mistakes. It be well for them to meet--by accident--several -times." - -Later he aid to her: - -"When Lady Etynge invites her to go to her house, you will, of -course, go with her. You will not stay. Lady Etynge will tell you -what to do." - -In words, he did not involve himself by giving any hint of his -intentions. So far as expression went, he might have had none, -whatever. Her secret conclusion was that he knew, if he could see -the girl under propitious circumstances--at the house of a clever -and sympathetic acquaintance, he need have no shadow of a doubt -as to the result of his efforts to please her. He knew she was -a lonely, romantic creature, who had doubtless read sentimental -books and been allured by their heroes. She was, of course, just -ripe for young peerings into the land of love making. His had -been no peerings, thought the pale Hirsch sadly. What girl--or -woman--could resist the alluring demand of his drooping eyes, if -he chose to allow warmth to fill them? Thinking of it, she almost -gnashed her teeth. Did she not see how he would look, bending his -high head and murmuring to a woman who shook with joy under his -gaze? Had she not seen it in her own forlorn, hopeless dreams? - -What did it matter if what the world calls disaster befell the -girl? Fraulein Hirsch would not have called it disaster. Any woman -would have been paid a thousand times over. His fancy might last -a few months. Perhaps he would take her to Berlin--or to some -lovely secret spot in the mountains where he could visit her. -What heaven--what heaven! She wept, hiding her face on her hot, -dry hands. - -But it would not last long--and he would again think only of the -immense work--the august Machine, of which he was a mechanical -part--and he would be obliged to see and talk to her, Mathilde -Hirsch, having forgotten the rest. She could only hold herself -decently in check by telling herself again and again that it was -only natural that such things should come and go in his magnificent -life, and that the sooner it began the sooner it would end. - -It was a lovely morning when her pupil walked with her in Kensington -Gardens, and, quite naturally, strolled towards the Round Pond. -Robin was happy because there were flutings of birds in the air, -gardeners were stuffing crocuses and hyacinths into the flower -beds, there were little sweet scents floating about and so it was -Spring. She pulled a bare looking branch of a lilac bush towards -her and stooped and kissed the tiny brown buttons upon it, half -shyly. - -"I can't help it when I see the first ones swelling on the twigs. -They are working so hard to break out into green," she said. "One -loves everything at this time--everything! Look at the children -round the pond. That fat, little boy in a reefer and brown leather -leggings is bursting with joy. Let us go and praise his boat, -Fraulein." - -They went and Robin praised the boat until its owner was breathless -with rapture. Fraulein Hirsch, standing near her, looked furtively -at all the benches round the circle, giving no incautiously interested -glance to any one of them in particular. Presently, however, she -said: - -"I think that is Lady Etynge sitting on the third bench from -here. I said to you that I had heard she was in London. I wonder -if her daughter is still in the Convent at Tours?" - -When Robin returned, she saw a quiet woman in perfect mourning -recognize Fraulein Hirsch with a a bow and smile which seemed to -require nearer approach. - -"We must go and speak to her." Fraulein Hirsch said. "I know she -wil wish me to present you. She is fond of young girls--because -of Helene." - -Robin went forward prettily. The woman was gentle looking and -attracting. She had a sweet manner and was very kind to Fraulein -Hirsch. She seemed to know her well and to like her. Her daughter, -Helene, was still in the Convent at Tours but was expected home -very shortly. She would be glad to find that Fraulein Hirsch was -in London. - -"I have turned the entire top story of my big house into a pretty -suite for her. She has a fancy for living high above the street," -smiled Lady Etynge, indulgently. Perhaps she was a "Mother" person, -Robin thought. - -Both her looks and talk were kind, and she was very nice in her -sympathetic interest in the boats and the children's efforts to -sail them. - -"I often bring my book here and forget to read, because I find I -am watching them," she said. "They are so eager and so triumphant -when a boat gets across the Pond." - -She went away very soon and Robin watched her out of sight with -interest. - -They saw her again a few days later and talked a little more. She -was not always near the Pond when they came, and they naturally -did not go there each time they walked together, though Fraulein -Hirsch was fond of sitting and watching the children. - -She had been to take tea with her former employer, she told Robin -one day, and she was mildly excited by the preparations for Helene, -who had been educated entirely in a French convent and was not -like an English girl at all. She had always been very delicate -and the nuns seemed to know how to take care of her and calm her -nerves with their quiet ways. - -"Her mother is rather anxious about her coming to London. She has, -of course, no young friends here and she is so used to the quiet -of convent life," the Fraulein explained. "That is why the rooms -at the top of the house have been arranged for her. She will hear -so little sound. I confess I am anxious about her myself. Lady -Etynge is wondering if she can find a suitable young companion to -live in the house with her. She must be a young lady and perfectly -educated--and with brightness and charm. Not a person like myself, -but one who can be treated as an equal and a friend--almost a -playmate." - -"It would be an agreeable position," commented Robin, thoughtfully. - -"Extremely so," answered Fraulein Hirsch. "Helene is a most lovable -and affectionate girl. And Lady Etynge is rich enough to pay a -large salary. Helene is her idol. The suite of rooms is perfect. -In Germany, girls are not spoiled in that way. It is not considered -good for them." - -It was quite natural, since she felt an interest in Helene, that, -on their next meeting, Robin should find pleasure in sitting on -the green bench near the girl's mother and hear her speak of her -daughter. She was not diffuse or intimate in her manner. Helene -first appeared in the talk as a result of a polite inquiry made -by Fraulein Hirsch. Robin gathered, as she listened, that this -particular girl was a tenderly loved and cared for creature and -was herself gentle and intelligent and loving. She sounded like -the kind of a girl one would be glad to have for a friend. Robin -wondered and wondered--if she would "do." Perhaps, out of tactful -consideration for the feelings of Fraulein Hirsch who would not -"do"--because she was neither bright, nor pretty, nor a girl--Lady -Etynge touched but lightly on her idea that she might find a sort -of sublimated young companion for her daughter. - -"It would be difficult to advertise for what one wants," she said. - -"Yes. To state that a girl must be clever and pretty and graceful, -and attractive, would make it difficult for a modest young lady -to write a suitable reply," said Fraulein Hirsch grimly, and both -Lady Etynge and Robin smiled. - -"Among your own friends," Lady Etynge said to Robin, a little -pathetically in her yearning, "do you know of anyone--who might -know of anyone who would fit in? Sometimes there are poor little -cousins, you know?" - -"Or girls who have an independent spirit and would like to support -themselves," said the Fraulein. "There are such girls in these -advanced times." - -"I am afraid I don't know anyone," answered Robin. Modesty also -prevented her from saying that she thought she did. She herself -was well educated, she was good tempered and well bred, and she -had known for some time that she was pretty. - -"Perhaps Fraulein Hirsch may bring you in to have tea with me some -afternoon when you are out," Lady Etynge said kindly before she -left them. "I think you would like to see Helene's rooms. I should -be glad to hear what another girl thinks of them." - -Robin was delighted. Perhaps this was a way opening to her. She -talked to Mademoiselle Valle about it and so glowed with hope that -Mademoiselle's heart was moved. - -"Do you think I might go?" she said. "Do you think there is any -chance that I might be the right person? AM I nice enough--and -well enough educated, and ARE my manners good?" - -She did not know exactly where Lady Etynge lived, but believed -it was one of those big houses in a certain dignified "Place" -they both knew--a corner house, she was sure, because--by mere -chance--she had one day seen Lady Etynge go into such a house as -if it were her own. She did not know the number, but they could -ask Fraulein. - -Fraulein Hirsch was quite ready with detail concerning her former -patroness and her daughter. She obviously admired them very much. -Her manner held a touch of respectful reverence. She described -Helene's disposition and delicate nerves and the perfection of the -nuns' treatment of her. - -She described the beauty of the interior of the house, its luxury -and convenience, and the charms of the suite of apartments prepared -for Helene. She thought the number of the house was No. 97 A. Lady -Etynge was the kindest employer she had ever had. She believed that -Miss Gareth-Lawless and Helene would be delighted with each other, -if they met, and her impression was that Lady Etynge privately -hoped they would become friends. - -Her mild, flat face was so modestly amiable that Mademoiselle -Valle, who always felt her unattractive femininity pathetic, was -a little moved by her evident pleasure in having been the humble -means of providing Robin with acquaintances of an advantageous -kind. - -No special day had been fixed upon for the visit and the cup of tea. -Robin was eager in secret and hoped Lady Etynge would not forget -to remind them of her invitation. - -She did not forget. One afternoon--they had not seen her for several -days and had not really expected to meet her, because they took -their walk later than usual--they found her just rising from her -seat to go home as they appeared. - -"Our little encounters almost assume the air of appointments," she -said. "This is very nice, but I am just going away, I am sorry to -say. I wonder--" she paused a moment, and then looked at Fraulein -Hirsch pleasantly; "I wonder if, in about an hour, you would bring -Miss Gareth-Lawless to me to have tea and tell me if she thinks -Helene will like her new rooms. You said you would like to see -them," brightly to Robin. - -"You are very kind. I should like it so much," was Robin's answer. - -Fraulein Hirsch was correctly appreciative of the condescension -shown to her. Her manner was the perfection of the exact shade -of unobtrusive chaperonship. There was no improper suggestion of -a mistaken idea that she was herself a guest, or, indeed, anything, -in fact, but a proper appendage to her charge. Robin had never -been fond of Fraulein as she was fond of Mademoiselle and Dowie, -still she was not only an efficient teacher, but also a good walker -and very fond of long tramps, which Mademoiselle was really not -strong enough for, but which Robin's slender young legs rejoiced -in. - -The two never took cabs or buses, but always walked everywhere. -They walked on this occasion, and, about an hour later, arrived at -a large, corner house in Berford Place. A tall and magnificently -built footman opened the door for them, and they were handed into -a drawing room much grander than the one Robin sometimes glanced -into as she passed it, when she was at home. A quite beautiful -tea equipage awaited them on a small table, but Lady Etynge was -not in the room. - -"What a beautiful house to live in," said Robin, "but, do you know, -the number ISN'T 97 A. I looked as we came in, and it is No. 25." - -"Is it? I ought to have been more careful," answered Fraulein -Hirsch. "It is wrong to be careless even in small matters." - -Almost immediately Lady Etynge came in and greeted them, with a -sort of gentle delight. She drew Robin down on to a sofa beside -her and took her hand and gave it a light pat which was a caress. - -"Now you really ARE here," she said, "I have been so busy that -I have been afraid I should not have time to show you the rooms -before it was too late to make a change, if you thought anything -might be improved." - -"I am sure nothing can improve them," said Robin, more dewy-eyed -than usual and even a thought breathless, because this was really -a sort of adventure, and she longed to ask if, by any chance, -she would "do." And she was so afraid that she might lose this -amazingly good opportunity, merely because she was too young and -inexperienced to know how she ought to broach the subject. She -had not thought yet of asking Mademoiselle Valle how it should be -done. - -She was not aware that she looked at Lady Etynge with a heavenly, -little unconscious appeal, which made her enchanting. Lady Etynge -looked at her quite fixedly for an instant. - -"What a child you are! And what a colour your cheeks and lips -are!" she said. "You are much--much prettier than Helene, my dear." - -She got up and brought a picture from a side table to show it to -her. - -"I think she is lovely," she said. "Is it became I am her mother?" - -"Oh, no! Not because you are her mother!" exclaimed Robin. "She is -angelic!" - -She was rather angelic, with her delicate uplifted face and her -communion veil framing it mistily. - -The picture was placed near them and Robin looked at is many times -as they took their tea. To be a companion to a girl with a face -like that would be almost too much to ask of one's luck. There -was actual yearning in Robin's heart. Suddenly she realized that -she had missed something all her life, without knowing that she -missed it. It was the friendly nearness of youth like her own. -How she hoped that she might make Lady Etynge like her. After tea -was over, Lady Etynge spoke pleasantly to Fraulein Hirsch. - -"I know that you wanted to register a letter. There is a post-office -just around the corner. Would you like to go and register it while -I take Miss Gareth-Lawless upstairs? You have seen the rooms. You -will only be away a few minutes." - -Fraulein Hirsch was respectfully appreciative again. The letter -really was important. It contained money which she sent monthly -to her parents. This month she was rather late, and she would be -very glad to be allowed to attend to the matter without losing a -post. - -So she went out of the drawing-room and down the stairs, and Robin -heard the front door close behind her with a slight thud. She had -evidently opened and closed it herself without waiting for the -footman. - -The upper rooms in London houses--even in the large ones--are -usually given up to servants' bedrooms, nurseries, and school -rooms. Stately staircases become narrower as they mount, and the -climber gets glimpses of apartments which are frequently bare, -whatsoever their use, and, if not grubby in aspect, are dull and -uninteresting. - -But, in Lady Etynge's house, it was plain that a good deal had -been done. Stairs had been altered and widened, walls had been -given fresh and delicate tints, and one laid one's hand on cream -white balustrades and trod on soft carpets. A good architect had -taken interest in the problems presented to him, and the result was -admirable. Partitions must have been removed to make rooms larger -and of better shape. - -"Nothing could be altered without spoiling it!" exclaimed Robin, -standing in the middle of a sitting room, all freshness and exquisite -colour--the very pictures on the wall being part of the harmony. - -All that a girl would want or love was there. There was nothing -left undone--unremembered. The soft Chesterfield lounge, which -was not too big and was placed near the fire, the writing table, -the books, the piano of satinwood inlaid with garlands; the lamp -to sit and read by. - -"How glad she must be to come back to anyone who loves her so," -said Robin. - -Here was a quilted basket with three Persian kittens purring in -it, and she knelt and stroked their fluffiness, bending her slim -neck and showing how prettily the dark hair grew up from it. It was, -perhaps, that at which Lady Etynge was looking as she stood behind -her and watched her. The girl-nymph slenderness and flexibility -of her leaning body was almost touchingly lovely. - -There were several other rooms and each one was, in its way, more -charming than the other. A library in Dresden blue and white, and -with peculiarly pretty windows struck the last note of cosiness. -All the rooms had pretty windows with rather small square panes -enclosed in white frames. - -It was when she was in this room that Robin took her courage in -her hands. She must not let her chance go by. Lady Etynge was so -kind. She wondered if it would seem gauche and too informal to -speak now. - -She stood quite upright and still, though her voice was not quite -steady when she began. - -"Lady Etynge," she said, "you remember what Fraulein Hirsch said -about girls who wish to support themselves? I--I am one of them. -I want very much to earn my own living. I think I am well educated. -I have been allowed to read a good deal and my teachers, Mademoiselle -Valle and Fraulein Hirsch, say I speak and write French and German -well for an English girl. If you thought I could be a suitable -companion for Miss Etynge, I--should be very happy." - -How curiously Lady Etynge watched her as she spoke. She did not -look displeased, but there was something in her face which made -Robin afraid that she was, perhaps, after all, not the girl who -was fortunate enough to quite "do." - -She felt her hopes raised a degree, however, when Lady Etynge -smiled at her. - -"Do you know, I feel that is very pretty of you!" she said. "It -quite delights me--as I am an idolizing mother--that my mere talk -of Helene should have made you like her well enough to think you -might care to live with her. And I confess I am modern enough to -be pleased with your wishing to earn your own living." - -"I must," said Robin. "I MUST! I could not bear not to earn it!" -She spoke a little suddenly, and a flag of new colour fluttered -in her cheek. - -"When Helene comes, you must meet. If you like each other, as I -feel sure you will, and if Mrs. Gareth-Lawless does not object--if -it remains only a matter of being suitable--you are suitable, my -dear--you are suitable." - -She touched Robin's hand with the light pat which was a caress, -and the child was radiant. - -"Oh, you are kind to me!" The words broke from her involuntarily. -"And it is such GOOD fortune! Thank you, thank you, Lady Etynge." - -The flush of her joy and relief had not died out before the -footman, who had opened the door, appeared on the threshold. He -was a handsome young fellow, whose eyes were not as professionally -impassive as his face. A footman had no right to dart a swift side -look at one as people did in the street. He did dart such a glance. -Robin saw, and she was momentarily struck by its being one of those -she sometimes objected to. - -Otherwise his manner was without flaw. He had only come to announce -to his mistress the arrival of a caller. - -When Lady Etynge took the card from the salver, her expression -changed. She even looked slightly disturbed. - -"Oh, I am sorry," she murmured, "I must see her," lifting her eyes -to Robin. "It is an old friend merely passing through London. How -wicked of me to forget that she wrote to say that she might dash -in at any hour." - -"Please!" pled Robin, prettily. "I can run away at once. Fraulein -Hirsch must have come back. Please--" - -"The lady asked me particularly to say that she has only a few -minutes to stay, as she is catching a train," the footman decorously -ventured. - -"If that is the case," Lady Etynge said, even relievedly, "I will -leave you here to look at things until I come back. I really want -to talk to you a little more about yourself and Helene. I can't let -you go." She looked back from the door before she passed through -it. "Amuse yourself, my dear," and then she added hastily to the -man. - -"Have you remembered that there was something wrong with the latch, -William? See if it needs a locksmith." - -"Very good, my lady." - -She was gone and Robin stood by the sofa thrilled with happiness -and relief. How wonderful it was that, through mere lucky chance, -she had gone to watch the children sailing their boats! And -that Fraulein Hirsch had seen Lady Etynge! What good luck and how -grateful she was! The thought which passed through her mind was -like a little prayer of thanks. How strange it would be to be really -intimate with a girl like herself--or rather like Helene. It made -her heart beat to think of it. How wonderful it would be if Helene -actually loved her, and she loved Helene. Something sprang out -of some depths of her being where past things were hidden. The -something was a deadly little memory. Donal! Donal! It would -be--if she loved Helene and Helene loved her--as new a revelation -as Donal. Oh! she remembered. - -She heard the footman doing something to the latch of the door, -which caused it to make a clicking sound. He was obeying orders -and examining it. As she involuntarily glanced at him, he--bending -over the door handle--raised his eyes sideways and glanced at -her. It was an inexcusable glance from a domestic, because it was -actually as if he were taking the liberty of privately summing her -up--taking her points in for his own entertainment. She so resented -the unprofessional bad manners of it, that she turned away and -sauntered into the Dresden blue and white library and sat down -with a book. - -She was quite relieved, when, only a few minutes later, he went -away having evidently done what he could. - -The book she had picked up was a new novel and opened with an -attention-arresting agreeableness, which led her on. In fact it -led her on further and, for a longer time than she was aware of. -It was her way to become wholly absorbed in books when they allured -her; she forgot her surroundings and forgot the passing of time. -This was a new book by a strong man with the gift which makes alive -people, places, things. The ones whose lives had taken possession -of his being in this story were throbbing with vital truth. - -She read on and on because, from the first page, she knew them -as actual pulsating human creatures. They looked into her face, -they laughed, she heard their voices, she CARED for every trivial -thing that happened to them--to any of them. If one of them picked -a flower, she saw how he or she held it and its scent was in the -air. - -Having been so drawn on into a sort of unconsciousness of all -else, it was inevitable that, when she suddenly became aware that -she did not see her page quite clearly, she should withdraw her -eyes from her page and look about her. As she did so, she started -from her comfortable chair in amazement and some alarm. The room -had become so much darker that it must be getting late. How careless -and silly she had been. Where was Fraulein Hirsch? - -"I am only a strange girl and Lady Etynge might so easily have -forgotten me," passed through her mind. "Her friend may have stayed -and they may have had so much to talk about, that, of coarse, I -was forgotten. But Fraulein Hirsch--how could she!" - -Then, remembering the subservient humility of the Fraulein's mind, -she wondered if it could have been possible that she had been too -timid to do more than sit waiting--in the hall, perhaps--afraid -to allow the footman to disturb Lady Etynge by asking her where -her pupil was. The poor, meek, silly thing. - -"I must get away without disturbing anyone," she thought, "I -will slip downstairs and snatch Fraulein Hirsch from her seat and -we will go quietly out. I can write a nice note to Lady Etynge -tomorrow, and explain. I HOPE she won't mind having forgotten me. -I must make her feel sure that it did not matter in the least. -I'll tell her about the book." - -She replaced the book on the shelf from which she had taken it and -passed through into the delightful sitting room. The kittens were -playing together on the hearth, having deserted their basket. One -of them gave a soft, airy pounce after her and caught at her dress -with tiny claws, rolling over and over after his ineffectual snatch. - -She had not heard the footman close the door when he left the room, -but she found he must have done so, as it was now shut. When she -turned the handle it did not seem to work well, because the door -did not open as it ought to have done. She turned it again and -gave it a little pull, but it still remained tightly shut. She -turned it again, still with no result, and then she tried the small -latch. Perhaps the man had done some blundering thing when he had -been examining it. She remembered hearing several clicks. She -turned the handle again and again. There was no key in the keyhole, -so he could not have bungled with the key. She was quite aghast -at the embarrassment of the situation. - -"How CAN I get out without disturbing anyone, if I cannot open -the door!" she said. "How stupid I shall seem to Lady Etynge! She -won't like it. A girl who could forget where she was--and then not -be able to open a door and be obliged to bang until people come!" - -Suddenly she remembered that there had been a door in the bedroom -which had seemed to lead out into the hall. She ran into the room -in such a hurry that all three kittens ran frisking after her. -She saw she had not been mistaken. There was a door. She went to -it and turned the handle, breathless with excitement and relief. -But the handle of that door also would not open it. Neither would -the latch. And there was no key. - -"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh!" - -Then she remembered the electric bell near the fireplace in the -sitting room. There was one by the fireplace here, also. No, she -would ring the one in the sitting room. She went to it and pressed -the button. She could not hear the ghost of a sound and one could -generally hear SOMETHING like one. She rang again and waited. -The room was getting darker. Oh, how COULD Fraulein Hirsch--how -could she? - -She waited--she waited. Fifteen minutes by her little watch--twenty -minutes--and, in their passing, she rang again. She rang the bell -in the library and the one in the bedroom--even the one in the -bathroom, lest some might be out of order. She slowly ceased to be -embarrassed and self-reproachful and began to feel afraid, though -she did not know quite what she was afraid of. She went to one -of the windows to look at her watch again in the vanishing light, -and saw that she had been ringing the bells for an hour. She -automatically put up a hand and leaned against the white frame -of one of the decorative small panes of glass. As she touched it, -she vaguely realized that it was of such a solidity that it felt, -not like wood but iron. She drew her hand away quickly, feeling a -sweep of unexplainable fear--yes, it was FEAR. And why should she -so suddenly feel it? She went back to the door and tried again to -open it--as ineffectively as before. Then she began to feel a -little cold and sick. She returned to the Chesterfield and sat -down on it helplessly. - -"It seems as if--I had been locked in!" she broke out, in a faint, -bewildered wail of a whisper. "Oh, WHY--did they lock the doors!" - - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - - - - -She had known none of the absolute horrors of life which were -possible in that underworld which was not likely to touch her own -existence in any form. - -"Why," had argued Mademoiselle Valle, "should one fill a white -young mind with ugly images which would deface with dark marks and -smears, and could only produce unhappiness and, perhaps, morbid -broodings? One does not feel it is wise to give a girl an education -in crime. One would not permit her to read the Newgate Calendar -for choice. She will be protected by those who love her and what -she must discover she will discover. That is Life." - -Which was why her first discovery that neither door could be -opened, did not at once fill her with horror. Her first arguments -were merely those of a girl who, though her brain was not inactive -pulp, had still a protected girl's outlook. She had been overwhelmed -by a sense of the awkwardness of her position and by the dread -that she would be obliged to disturb and, almost inevitably, -embarrass and annoy Lady Etynge. Of course, there had been some -bungling on the part of the impudent footman--perhaps actually at -the moment when he had given his sidelong leer at herself instead -of properly attending to what he was trying to do. That the bedroom -was locked might be the result of a dozen ordinary reasons. - -The first hint of an abnormality of conditions came after she had -rung the bells and had waited in vain for response to her summons. -There were servants whose business it was to answer bells at once. -If ALL the bells were out of order, why were they out of order when -Helene was to return in a few days and her apartment was supposed -to be complete? Even to the kittens--even to the kittens! - -"It seems as if I had been locked in," she had whispered to the -silence of the room. "Why did they lock the doors?" - -Then she said, and her heart began to thump and race in her side: - -"It has been done on purpose. They don't intend to let me out--for -some HORRIBLE reason!" - -Perhaps even her own growing panic was not so appalling as a sudden -rushing memory of Lady Etynge, which, at this moment, overthrew -her. Lady Etynge! Lady Etynge! She saw her gentle face and almost -affectionately watching eyes. She heard her voice as she spoke of -Helene; she felt the light pat which was a caress. - -"No! No!" she gasped it, because her breath had almost left her. -"No! No! She couldn't! No one could! There is NOTHING as wicked--as -that!" - -Bat, even as she cried out, the overthrow was utter, and she threw -herself forward on the arm of the couch and sobbed--sobbed with -the passion she had only known on the day long ago when she had -crawled into the shrubs and groveled in the earth. It was the same -kind of passion--the shaken and heart-riven woe of a creature who -has trusted and hoped joyously and has been forever betrayed. The -face and eyes had been so kind. The voice so friendly! Oh, how -could even the wickedest girl in the world have doubted their -sincerity. Unfortunately--or fortunately--she knew nothing whatever -of the mental processes of the wicked girls of the world, which -was why she lay broken to pieces, sobbing--sobbing, not at the -moment because she was a trapped thing, but because Lady Etynge -had a face in whose gentleness her heart had trusted and rejoiced. - -When she sat upright again, her own face, as she lifted it, would -have struck a perceptive onlooker as being, as it were, the face -of another girl. It was tear-stained and wild, but this was not the -cause of its change. The soft, bird eyes were different--suddenly, -amazingly older than they had been when she had believed in Helene. - -She had no experience which could reveal to her in a moment the -monstrousness of her danger, but all she had ever read, or vaguely -gathered, of law breakers and marauders of society, collected -itself into an advancing tidal wave of horror. - -She rose and went to the window and tried to open it, but it was -not intended to open. The decorative panes were of small size -and of thick glass. Her first startled impression that the white -framework seemed to be a painted metal was apparently founded on -fact. A strong person might have bent it with a hammer, but he -could not have broken it. She examined the windows in the other -rooms and they were of the same structure. - -"They are made like that," she said to herself stonily, "to prevent -people from getting OUT." - -She stood at the front one and looked down into the broad, stately -"Place." It was a long way to look down, and, even if the window -could be opened, one's voice would not be heard. The street -lamps were lighted and a few people were to be seen walking past -unhurriedly. - -"In the big house almost opposite they are going to give a party. -There is a red carpet rolled out. Carriages are beginning to drive -up. And here on the top floor, there is a girl locked up--And they -don't know!" - -She said it aloud, and her voice sounded as though it were not her -own. It was a dreadful voice, and, as she heard it, panic seized -her. - -Nobody knew--nobody! Her mother never either knew or cared where -she was, but Dowie and Mademoiselle always knew. They would be -terrified. Fraulein Hirsch had, perhaps, been told that her pupil -had taken a cab and gone home and she would return to her lodgings -thinking she was safe. - -Then--only at this moment, and with a suddenness which produced a -sense of shock--she recalled that it was Fraulein Hirsch who had -presented her to Lady Etynge. Fraulein Hirsch herself! It was she -who had said she had been in her employ and had taught Helene--Helene! -It was she who had related anecdotes about the Convent at Tours -and the nuns who were so wise and kind! Robin's hand went up to -her forehead with a panic-stricken gesture. Fraulein Hirsch had -made an excuse for leaving her with Lady Etynge--to be brought -up to the top of the house quite alone--and locked in. Fraulein -Hirsch had KNOWN! And there came back to her the memory of the -furtive eyes whose sly, adoring sidelooks at Count Von Hillern -had always--though she had tried not to feel it--been, somehow, -glances she had disliked--yes, DISLIKED! - -It was here--by the thread of Fraulein Hirsch--that Count Von -Hillern was drawn into her mind. Once there, it was as if he stood -near her--quite close--looking down under his heavy, drooping lids -with stealthy, plunging eyes. It had always been when Fraulein -Hirsch had walked with her that they had met him--almost as if by -arrangement. - -There were only two people in the world who might--because she -herself had so hated them--dislike and choose in some way to punish -her. One was Count Von Hillern. The other was Lord Coombe. Lord -Coombe, she knew, was bad, vicious, did the things people only -hinted at without speaking of them plainly. A sense of instinctive -revolt in the strength of her antipathy to Von Hillern made her -feel that he must be of the same order. - -"If either of them came into this room now and locked the door -behind him, I could not get out." - -She heard herself say it aloud in the strange girl's dreadful -voice, as she had heard herself speak of the party in the big -house opposite. She put her soft, slim hand up to her soft, slim -throat. - -"I could not get out," she repeated. - -She ran to the door and began to beat on its panels. By this time, -she knew it would be no use and yet she beat with her hands until -they were bruised and then she snatched up a book and beat with -that. She thought she must have been beating half an hour when -she realized that someone was standing outside in the corridor, -and the someone said, in a voice she recognized as belonging to -the leering footman, - -"May as well keep still, Miss. You can't hammer it down and no -one's going to bother taking any notice," and then his footsteps -retired down the stairs. She involuntarily clenched her hurt hands -and the shuddering began again though she stood in the middle of -the room with a rigid body and her head thrown fiercely back. - -"If there are people in the world as hideous--and monstrous as -THIS--let them kill me if they want to. I would rather be killed -than live! They would HAVE to kill me!" and she said it in a frenzy -of defiance of all mad and base things on earth. - -Her peril seemed to force her thought to delve into unknown dark -places in her memory and dig up horrors she had forgotten--newspaper -stories of crime, old melodramas and mystery romances, in which -people disappeared and were long afterwards found buried under -floors or in cellars. It was said that the Berford Place houses, -winch were old ones, had enormous cellars under them. - -"Perhaps other girls have disappeared and now are buried in the -cellars," she thought. - -And the dreadful young voice added aloud. - -"Because they would HAVE to kill me." - -One of the Persian kittens curled up in the basket wakened because -he heard it and stretched a sleepy paw and mewed at her. - -Coombe House was one of the old ones, wearing somewhat the aspect -of a stately barrack with a fine entrance. Its court was enclosed -at the front by a stone wall, outside which passing London roared -in low tumult. The court was surrounded by a belt of shrubs strong -enough to defy the rain of soot which fell quietly upon them day -and night. - -The streets were already lighted for the evening when Mademoiselle -Valle presented herself at the massive front door and asked for -Lord Coombe. The expression of her face, and a certain intensity -of manner, caused the serious-looking head servant, who wore no -livery, to come forward instead of leaving her to the footmen. - -"His lordship engaged with--a business person--and must not be -disturbed," he said. "He is also going out." - -"He will see me," replied Mademoiselle Valle. "If you give him -this card he will see me." - -She was a plainly dressed woman, but she had a manner which removed -her entirely from the class of those who merely came to importune. -There was absolute certainty in the eyes she fixed with steadiness -on the man's face. He took her card, though he hesitated. - -"If he does not see me," she added, "he will be very much displeased." - -"Will you come in, ma'am, and take a seat for a moment?" he -ventured. "I will inquire." - -The great hall was one of London's most celebrated. A magnificent -staircase swept up from it to landings whose walls were hung -with tapestries the world knew. In a gilded chair, like a throne, -Mademoiselle Valle sat and waited. - -But she did not wait long. The serious-looking man without livery -returned almost immediately. He led Mademoiselle into a room -like a sort of study or apartment given up to business matters. -Mademoiselle Valle had never seen Lord Coombe's ceremonial evening -effect more flawless. Tall, thin and finely straight, he waited -in the centre of the room. He was evidently on the point of going -out, and the light-textured satin-lined overcoat he had already -thrown on revealed, through a suggestion of being winged, that he -wore in his lapel a delicately fresh, cream-coloured carnation. - -A respectable, middle-class looking man with a steady, -blunt-featured face, had been talking to him and stepped quietly -aside as Mademoiselle entered. There seemed to be no question of -his leaving the room. - -Coombe met his visitor half way: - -"Something has alarmed you very much?" he said. - -"Robin went out with Fraulein Hirsch this afternoon," she said -quickly. "They went to Kensington Gardens. They have not come -back--and it is nine o'clock. They are always at home by six." - -"Will you sit down," he said. The man with the steady face was -listening intently, and she realized he was doing so and that, -somehow, it was well that he should. - -"I do not think there is time for any one to sit down," she said, -speaking more quickly than before. "It is not only that she has -not come back. Fraulein Hirsch has presented her to one of her old -employers-a Lady Etynge. Robin was delighted with her. She has a -daughter who is in France--," - -"Marguerite staying with her aunt in Paris," suddenly put in the -voice of the blunt-featured man from his side of the room. - -"Helene at a Covent in Tours," corrected Mademoiselle, turning a -paling countenance towards him and then upon Coombe. "Lady Etynge -spoke of wanting to engage some nice girl as a companion to her -daughter, who is coming home. Robin thought she might have the -good fortune to please her. She was to go to Lady Etynge's house -to tea sine afternoon and be shown the rooms prepared for Helene. -She thought the mother charming." - -"Did she mention the address?" Coombe asked at once. - -"The house was in Berford Place-a large house at a corner. She -chanced to see Lady Etynge go into it one day or we should not -have known. She did not notice the number. Fraulein Hirsch thought -it was 97A. I have the Blue Book, Lord Coombe--through the -Peerage--through the Directory! There is no Lady Etynge and there -is no 97A in Berford Place! That is why I came here." - -The man who had stood aside, stepped forward again. It was as if -he answered some sign, though Lord Coombe at the moment crossed -the hearth and rang the bell. - -"Scotland Yard knows that, ma'am," said the man. "We've had our -eyes on that house for two weeks, and this kind of thing is what -we want." - -"The double brougham," was Coombe's order to the servant who -answered his ring. Then he came back to Mademoiselle. - -"Mr. Barkstow is a detective," he said. "Among the other things -he has done for me, he has, for some time, kept a casual eye on -Robin. She is too lovely a child and too friendless to be quite -safe. There are blackguards who know when a girl has not the -usual family protection. He came here to tell me that she had been -seen sitting in Kensington Gardens with a woman Scotland Yard has -reason to suspect." - -"A black 'un!" said Barkstow savagely. "If she's the one we think -she is-a black, poisonous, sly one with a face that no girl could -suspect." - -Coombe's still countenance was so deadly in the slow lividness, -which Mademoiselle saw began to manifest itself, that she caught -his sleeve with a shaking hand. - -"She's nothing but a baby!" she said. "She doesn't know what a baby -she is. I can see her eyes frantic with terror! She'd go mad." - -"Good God!" he said, in a voice so low it scarcely audible. - -He almost dragged her out of the room, though, as they passed -through the hall, the servants only saw that he had given the -lady his arm-and two of the younger footmen exchanged glances with -each other which referred solely to the inimitableness of the cut -of his evening overcoat. - -When they entered the carriage, Barkstow entered with them and -Mademoiselle Valle leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and -her face clutched in her hands. She was trying to shut out from -her mental vision a memory of Robin's eyes. - -"If--if Fraulein Hirsch is--not true," she broke out once. "Count -von Hillern is concerned. It has come upon me like a flash. Why -did I not see before?" - -The party at the big house, where the red carpet was rolled across -the pavement, was at full height when they drove into the Place. -Their brougham did not stop at the corner but at the end of the -line of waiting carriages. - -Coombe got out and looked up and down the thoroughfare. - -"It must be done quietly. There must be no scandal," he said. "The -policeman on the beat is an enormous fellow. You will attend to -him, Barkstow," and Barkstow nodded and strolled away. - -Coombe walked up the Place and down on the opposite side until he -was within a few yards of the corner house. When he reached this -point, he suddenly quickened his footsteps because he saw that -someone else was approaching it with an air of intention. It was -a man, not quite as tall as himself but of heavier build and with -square held shoulders. As the man set his foot upon the step, -Coombe touched him on the arm and said something in German. - -The man started angrily and then suddenly stood quite still and -erect. - -"It will be better for us to walk up the Place together," Lord -Coombe said, with perfect politeness. - -If he could have been dashed down upon the pavement and his head -hammered in with the handle of a sword, or if he could have been -run through furiously again and again, either or both of these -things would have been done. But neither was possible. It also was -not possible to curse aloud in a fashionable London street. Such -curses as one uttered must be held in one's foaming mouth between -one's teeth. Count von Hillern knew this better than most men -would have known it. Here was one of those English swine with whom -Germany would deal in her own way later. - -They walked back together as if they were acquaintances taking a -casual stroll. - -"There is nothing which would so infuriate your--Master-as -a disgraceful scandal," Lord Coombe's highbred voice suggested -undisturbedly. "The high honour of a German officer-the knightly -bearing of a wearer of the uniform of the All Highest-that sort -of thing you know. All that sort of thing!" - -Von Hillern ground out some low spoken and quite awful German words. -If he had not been trapped-if he had been in some quiet by-street! - -"The man walking ahead of us is a detective from Scotland Yard. -The particularly heavy and rather martial tread behind us is that -of a policeman much more muscular than either of us. There is a -ball going on in the large house with the red carpet spread across -the pavement. I know the people who are giving it. There are a -good many coachmen and footmen about. Most of them would probably -recognize me." - -It became necessary for Count von Hillern actually to wipe away -certain flecks of foam from his lips, as he ground forth again -more varied and awful sentiments in his native tongue. - -"You are going back to Berlin," said Coombe, coldly. "If we English -were not such fools, you would not be here. You are, of course, -not going into that house." - -Von Hillern burst into a derisive laugh. - -"You are going yourself," he said. "You are a worn-out old ROUE, -but you are mad about her yourself in your senile way." - -"You should respect my age and decrepitude," answered Coombe. "A -certain pity for my gray hairs would become your youth. Shall we -turn here or will you return to your hotel by some other way?" -He felt as if the man might a burst a blood vessel if he were -obliged to further restrain himself. - -Von Hillern wheeled at the corner and confronted him. - -"There will come a day--" he almost choked. - -"Der Toy? Naturally," the chill of Coombe's voice was a sound to -drive this particular man at this particular, damnably-thwarted -moment, raving mad. And not to be able to go mad! Not to be able! - -"Swine of a doddering Englishman! Who would envy you--trembling -on your lean shanks--whatsoever you can buy for yourself. I spit -on you-spit!" - -"Don't," said Coombe. "You are sputtering to such an extent that -you really ARE, you know." - -Von Hillern whirled round the corner. - -Coombe, left alone, stood still a moment. - -"I was in time," he said to himself, feeling somewhat nauseated. -"By extraordinary luck, I was in time. In earlier days one would -have said something about 'Provadence'." And he at once walked -back. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - - - - -It was not utterly dark in the room, though Robin, after passing -her hands carefully over the walls, had found no electric buttons -within reach nor any signs of candles or matches elsewhere. The -night sky was clear and brilliant with many stars, and this gave -her an unshadowed and lighted space to look at. She went to the -window and sat down on the floor, huddled against the wall with -her hands clasped round her knees, looking up. She did this in the -effort to hold in check a rising tide of frenzy which threatened -her. Perhaps, if she could fix her eyes on the vault full of -stars, she could keep herself from going out of her mind. Though, -perhaps, it would be better if she DID go out of her mind, she -found herself thinking a few seconds later. - -After her first entire acceptance of the hideous thing which -had happened to her, she had passed through nerve breaking phases -of terror-stricken imaginings. The old story of the drowning man -across whose brain rush all the images of life, came back to her. -She did not know where or when or how she had ever heard or read -of the ghastly incidents which came trooping up to her and staring -at her with dead or mad eyes and awful faces. Perhaps they were -old nightmares-perhaps a kind of delirium had seized her. She tried -to stop their coming by saying over and over again the prayers -Dowie had taught her when she was a child. And then she thought, -with a sob which choked her, that perhaps they were only prayers -for a safe little creature kneeling by a white bed-and did not -apply to a girl locked up in a top room, which nobody knew about. -Only when she thought of Mademoiselle Valle and Dowie looking for -her--with all London spread out before their helplessness--did -she cry. After that, tears seemed impossible. The images trooped -by too close to her. The passion hidden within her being--which -had broken out when she tore the earth under the shrubbery, and -which, with torture staring her in the face, had leaped in the -child's soul and body and made her defy Andrews with shrieks--leaped -up within her now. She became a young Fury, to whom a mad fight -with monstrous death was nothing. She told herself that she was -strong for a girl--that she could tear with her nails, she could -clench her teeth in a flesh, she could shriek, she could battle -like a young madwoman so that they would be FORCED to kill her. This -was one of the images which rose op before her again yet again, -A hideous-hideous thing, which would not remain away. - -She had not had any food since the afternoon cap of tea and she -began to feel the need of it. If she became faint-! She lifted -her face desperately as she said it, and saw the immense blue -darkness, powdered with millions of stars and curving over her--as -it curved over the hideous house and all the rest of the world. -How high--how immense--how fathomlessly still it was--how it seemed -as if there could be nothing else--that nothing else could be -real! Her hands were clenched together hard and fiercely, as she -scrambled to her knees and uttered a of prayer--not a child's--rather -the cry of a young Fury making a demand. - -"Perhaps a girl is Nothing," she cried, "-a girl locked up in a -room! But, perhaps, she is Something--she may be real too! Save -me--save me! But if you won't save me, let me be killed!" - -She knelt silent after it for a few minutes and then she sank down -and lay on the floor with her face on her arm. - -How it was possible that even young and worn-out as she was, such -peace as sleep could overcome her at such a time, one cannot say. -But in the midst of her torment she was asleep. - -But it was not for long. She wakened with a start and sprang to -her feet shivering. The carriages were still coming and going with -guests for the big house opposite. It could not be late, though -she seemed to have been in the place for years--long enough to feel -that it was the hideous centre of the whole earth and all sane and -honest memories were a dream. She thought she would begin to walk -up and down the room. - -But a sound she heard at this very instant made her stand stock -still. She had known there would be a sound at last--she had -waited for it all the time--she had known, of course, that it would -come, but she had not even tried to guess whether she would hear -it early or late. It would be the sound of the turning of the -handle of the locked door. It had come. There it was! The click -of the lock first and then the creak of the turned handle! - -She went to the window again and stood with her back against it, -so that her body was outlined against the faint light. Would the -person come in the dark, or would he carry a light? Something -began to whirl in her brain. What was the low, pumping thump she -seemed to hear and feel at the same time? It was the awful thumping -of her heart. - -The door opened--not stealthily, but quite in the ordinary way. -The person who came in did not move stealthily either. He came -in as though he were making an evening call. How tall and straight -his body was, with a devilish elegance of line against the background -of light in the hall. She thought she saw a white flower on his -lapel as his overcoat fell back. The leering footman had opened -the for him. - -"Turn on the lights." A voice she knew gave the order, the leering -footman obeyed, touching a spot high on the wall. - -She had vaguely and sickeningly felt almost sure that it would -be either Count von Hillern or Lord Coombe--and it was not Count -von Hillern! The cold wicked face--the ironic eyes which made her -creep--the absurd, elderly perfection of dress--even the flawless -flower-made her flash quake with repulsion. If Satan came into -the room, he might look like that and make one's revolting being -quake so. - -"I thought--it might be you," the strange girl's voice said to -him aloud. - -"Robin," he said. - -He was moving towards her and, as she threw out her madly clenched -little hands, he stopped and drew back. - -"Why did you think I might come?" he asked. - -"Because you are the kind of a man who would do the things only -devils would do. I have hated-hated-hated you since I was a baby. -Come and kill me if you like. Call the footman back to help you, -if yon like. I can't get away. Kill me--kill me--kill me!" - -She was lost in her frenzy and looked as if she were mad. - -One moment he hesitated, and then he pointed politely to the sofa. - -"Go and sit down, please," he suggested. It was no more then a -courteous suggestion. "I shall remain here. I have no desire to -approach you--if you'll pardon my saying so." - -But she would not leave the window. - -"It is natural that you should be overwrought," he said. - -"This is a damnable thing. You are too young to know the worst of -it." - -"You are the worst of it!" she cried. "You." - -"No" as the chill of his even voice struck her, she wondered if -he were really human. "Von Hillern would have been the worst of -it. I stopped him at the front door and knew how to send him away. -Now, listen, my good child. Hate me as ferociously as you like. -That is a detail. You are in the house of a woman whose name -stands for shame and infamy and crime." - -"What are YOU doing in it--" she cried again, "--in a place where -girls are trapped-and locked up in top rooms--to be killed?" - -"I came to take you away. I wish to do it quietly. It would be -rather horrible if the public discovered that you have spent some -hours here. If I had not slipped in when they were expecting von -Hillern, and if the servants were not accustomed to the quiet -entrance of well dressed men, I could not have got in without an -open row and the calling of the policemen,--which I wished to avoid. -Also, the woman downstairs knows me and realized that I was not -lying when I said the house was surrounded and she was on the -point of being 'run in'. She is a woman of broad experience, and -at once knew that she might as well keep quiet." - -Despite his cold eyes and the bad smile she hated, despite his -almost dandified meticulous attire and the festal note of his -white flower, which she hated with the rest--he was, perhaps, not -lying to her. Perhaps for the sake of her mother he had chosen -to save her--and, being the man he was, he had been able to make -use of his past experiences. - -She began to creep away from the window, and she felt her legs, -all at once, shaking under her. By the time she reached the -Chesterfield sofa she fell down by it and began to cry. A sort of -hysteria seized her, and she shook from head to foot and clutched -at the upholstery with weak hands which clawed. She was, indeed, -an awful, piteous sight. He was perhaps not lying, but she was -afraid of him yet. - -"I told the men who are waiting outside that if I did not bring -you out in half an hour, they were to break into the house. I do -not wish them to break in. We have not any time to spare. What -you are doing is quite natural, but you must try and get up." He -stood by her and said this looking down at her slender, wrung body -and lovely groveling head. - -He took a flask out of his overcoat pocket--and it was a gem of -goldsmith's art. He poured some wine into its cup and bent forward -to hold it out to her. - -"Drink this and try to stand on your feet," he said. He knew better -than to try to help her to rise--to touch her in any way. Seeing -to what the past hours had reduced her, he knew better. There was -mad fear in her eyes when she lifted her head and threw out her -hand again. - -"No! No!" she cried out. "No, I will drink nothing!" He understood -at once and threw the wine into the grate. - -"I see," he said. "You might think it might be drugged. You are -right. It might be. I ought to have thought of that." He returned -the flask to his pocket. "Listen again. You must. The time will -soon be up and we must not let those fellows break in and make -a row that will collect a crowd We must go at once. Mademoiselle -Valle is waiting for you in my carriage outside. You will not be -afraid to drink wine she gives you." - -"Mademoiselle!" she stammered. - -"Yes. In my carriage, which is not fifty yards from the house. Can -you stand on your feet?" She got up and stood but she was still -shuddering all over. - -"Can you walk downstairs? If you cannot, will you let me carry -you? I am strong enough-in spite of my years." - -"I can walk," she whispered. - -"Will you take my arm?" - -She looked at him for a moment with awful, broken-spirited eyes. - -"Yes. I will take your arm." - -He offered it to her with rigid punctiliousness of manner. He -did not even look at her. He led her out of the room and down the -three flights of stairs. As they passed by the open drawing-room -door, the lovely woman who had called herself Lady Etynge stood -near it and watched them with eyes no longer gentle. - -"I have something to say to you, Madam," he said; "When I place -this young lady in the hands of her governess, I will come back -and say it." - -"Is her governess Fraulein Hirsch?" asked the woman lightly. - -"No. She is doubtless on her way back to Berlin--and von Hillern -will follow her." - -There was only the first floor flight of stairs now. Robin could -scarcely see her way. But Lord Coombe held her up firmly and, in -a few moments more, the leering footman, grown pale, opened the -large door, they crossed the pavement to the carriage, and she -was helped in and fell, almost insensible, across Mademoiselle -Valle's lap, and was caught in a strong arm which shook as she -did. - -"Ma cherie," she heard, "The Good God! Oh, the good--good God!--And -Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!" - -Coombe had gone back to the house. Four men returned with him, two -in plain clothes and two heavily-built policemen. They remained -below, but Coombe went up the staircase with the swift lightness -of a man of thirty. - -He merely stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room. This was -what he said, and his face was entirely white his eyes appalling. - -"My coming back to speak to you is--superfluous--and the result of -pure fury. I allow it to myself as mere shameless indulgence. More -is known against you than this--things which have gone farther and -fared worse. You are not young and you are facing years of life -in prison. Your head will be shaved--your hands worn and blackened -and your nails broken with the picking of oakum. You will writhe -in hopeless degradation until you are done for. You will have -time, in the night blackness if of your cell, to remember--to see -faces--to hear cries. Women such as you should learn what hell on -earth means. You will learn." - -When he ended, the woman hung with her back to the wall she had -staggered against, her mouth opening and shutting helplessly but -letting forth no sound. - -He took out an exquisitely fresh handkerchief and touched his -forehead because it was damp. His eyes were still appalling, but -his voice suddenly dropped and changed. - -"I have allowed myself to feel like a madman," he said. "It has -been a rich experience--good for such a soul as I own." - -He went downstairs and walked home because his carriage had taken -Robin and Mademoiselle back to the slice of a house. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - - - - -Von Hillern made no further calls on Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. His return -to Berlin was immediate and Fraulein Hirsch came no more to give -lessons in German. Later, Coombe learned from the mam with the -steady, blunt-featured face, that she had crossed the Channel on -a night boat not many hours after Von Hillern had walked away from -Berford Place. The exact truth was that she had been miserably -prowling about the adjacent streets, held in the neighbourhood -by some self-torturing morbidness, half thwarted helpless passion, -half triumphing hatred of the young thing she had betrayed. Up -and down the streets she had gone, round and round, wringing her -lean fingers together and tasting on her lips the salt of tears -which rolled down her cheeks--tears of torment and rage. - -There was the bitterness of death in what, by a mere trick of -chance, came about. As she turned a corner telling herself for -the hundredth time that she must go home, she found herself face -to face with a splendid figure swinging furiously along. She -staggered at the sight of the tigerish rage in the white face she -recognized with a gasp. It was enough merely to behold it. He had -met with some disastrous humiliation! - -As for him, the direct intervention of that Heaven whose special -care he was, had sent him a woman to punish--which, so far, was at -least one thing arranged as it should be. He knew so well how he -could punish her with his mere contempt and displeasure--as he -could lash a spaniel crawling at his feet. He need not deign to -tell her what had happened, and he did not. He merely drew back -and stood in stiff magnificence looking down at her. - -"It is through some folly of yours," he dropped in a voice of -vitriol. "Women are always foolish. They cannot hold their tongues -or think clearly. Return to Berlin at once. You are not of those -whose conduct I can commend to be trusted in the future." - -He was gone before she could have spoken even if she had dared. -Sobbing gasps caught her breath as she stood and watched him -striding pitilessly and superbly away with, what seemed to her -abject soul, the swing and tread of a martial god. Her streaming -tears tasted salt indeed. She might never see him again--even from -a distance. She would be disgraced and flung aside as a blundering -woman. She had obeyed his every word and done her straining best, -as she had licked the dust at his feet--but he would never cast a -glance at her in the future or utter to her the remotest word of -his high commands. She so reeled as she went her wretched way that -a good-natured policeman said to her as he passed, - -"Steady on, my girl. Best get home and go to bed." - -To Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was stated by Coombe that Fraulein -Hirsch had been called back to Germany by family complications. -That august orders should recall Count Von Hillern, was easily -understood. Such magnificent persons never shone upon society for -any length of time. - -That Feather had been making a country home visit when her daughter -had faced tragedy was considered by Lord Coombe as a fortunate -thing. - -"We will not alarm Mrs. Gareth-Lawless by telling her what has -occurred," he said to Mademoiselle Valle. "What we most desire -is that no one shall suspect that the hideous thing took place. A -person who was forgetful or careless might, unintentionally, let -some word escape which--" - -What he meant, and what Mademoiselle Valle knew he meant--also what -he knew she knew he meant--was that a woman, who was a heartless -fool, without sympathy or perception, would not have the delicacy -to feel that the girl must be shielded, and might actually see a -sort of ghastly joke in a story of Mademoiselle Valle's sacrosanct -charge simply walking out of her enshrining arms into such a "galere" -as the most rackety and adventurous of pupils could scarcely have -been led into. Such a point of view would have been quite possible -for Feather--even probable, in the slightly spiteful attitude of -her light mind. - -"She was away from home. Only you and I and Dowie know," answered -Mademoiselle. - -"Let us remain the only persons who know," said Coombe. "Robin -will say nothing." - -They both knew that. She had been feverish and ill for several -days and Dowie had kept her in bed saying that she had caught cold. -Neither of the two women had felt it possible to talk to her. She -had lain staring with a deadly quiet fixedness straight before -her, saying next to nothing. Now and then she shuddered, and once -she broke into a mad, heart-broken fit of crying which she seemed -unable to control. - -"Everything is changed," she said to Dowie and Mademoiselle who -sat on either side of her bed, sometimes pressing her head down -onto a kind shoulder, sometimes holding her hand and patting it. -"I shall be afraid of everybody forever. People who have sweet -faces and kind voices will make me shake all over. Oh! She seemed -so kind--so kind!" - -It was Dowie whose warm shoulder her face hidden on this time, -and Dowie was choked with sobs she dared not let loose. She could -only squeeze hard and kiss the "silk curls all in a heap"--poor, -tumbled curls, no longer a child's! - -"Aye, my lamb!" she managed to say. "Dowie's poor pet lamb!" - -"It's the knowing that kind eyes--kind ones--!" she broke off, -panting. "It's the KNOWING! I didn't know before! I knew nothing. -Now, it's all over. I'm afraid of all the world!" - -"Not all, cherie," breathed Mademoiselle. - -She sat upright against her pillows. The mirror on a dressing -table reflected her image--her blooming tear-wet youth, framed in -the wonderful hair falling a shadow about her. She stared at the -reflection hard and questioningly. - -"I suppose," her voice was pathos itself in its helplessness, "it -is because what you once told me about being pretty, is true. A -girl who looks like THAT," pointing her finger at the glass, "need -not think she can earn her own living. I loathe it," in fierce -resentment at some bitter injustice. "It is like being a person -under a curse!" - -At this Dowie broke down openly and let her tears run fast. "No, -no! You mustn't say it or think it, my dearie!" she wept. "It -might call down a blight on it. You a young thing like a garden -flower! And someone--somewhere--God bless him--that some day'll -glory in it--and you'll glory too. Somewhere he is--somewhere!" - -"Let none of them look at me!" cried Robin. "I loather them, too. -I hate everything--and everybody--but you two--just you two." - -Mademoiselle took her in her arms this time when she sobbed again. -Mademoiselle knew how at this hour it seemed to her that all her -world was laid bare forever more. When the worst of the weeping -was over and she lay quiet, but for the deep catching breaths -which lifted her breast in slow, childish shudders at intervals, -she held Mademoiselle Valle's hand and looked at her with a faint, -wry smile. - -"You were too kind to tell me what a stupid little fool I was when -I talked to you about taking a place in an office!" she said. "I -know now that you would not have allowed me to do the things I -was so sure I could do. It was only my ignorance and conceit. I -can't answer advertisements. Any bad person can say what they choose -in an advertisement. If that woman had advertised, she would have -described Helene. And there was no Helene." One of the shuddering -catches of her breath broke in here. After it, she said, with -a pitiful girlishness of regret: "I--I could SEE Helene. I have -known so few people well enough to love them. No girls at all. I -though--perhaps--we should begin to LOVE each other. I can't bear -to think of that--that she never was alive at all. It leaves a -sort of empty place." - -When she had sufficiently recovered herself to be up again, -Mademoiselle Valle said to her that she wished her to express her -gratitude to Lord Coombe. - -"I will if you wish it," she answered. - -"Don't you feel that it is proper that you should do it? Do you -not wish it yourself?" inquired Mademoiselle. Robin looked down -at the carpet for some seconds. - -"I know," she at last admitted, "that it is proper. But I don't -wish to do it." - -"No?" said Mademoiselle Valle. - -Robin raised her eyes from the carpet and fixed them on her. - -"It is because of--reasons," she said. "It is part of the horror -I want to forget. Even you mayn't know what it has done to me. -Perhaps I am turning into a girl with a bad mind. Bad thoughts keep -swooping down on me--like great black ravens. Lord Coombe saved -me, but I think hideous things about him. I heard Andrews say he -was bad when I was too little to know what it meant. Now, I KNOW, -I remember that HE knew because he chose to know--of his own free -will. He knew that woman and she knew him. HOW did he know her?" -She took a forward step which brought her nearer to Mademoiselle. -"I never told you but I will tell you now," she confessed, "When -the door opened and I saw him standing against the light I--I did -not think he had come to save me." - -"MON DIEU!" breathed Mademoiselle in soft horror. - -"He knows I am pretty. He is an old man but he knows. Fraulein -Hirsch once made me feel actually sick by telling me, in her meek, -sly, careful way, that he liked beautiful girls and the people -said he wanted a young wife and had his eye on me. I was rude to -her because it made me so furious. HOW did he know that woman so -well? You see how bad I have been made!" - -"He knows nearly all Europe. He has seen the dark corners as well -as the bright places. Perhaps he has saved other girls from her. -He brought her to punishment, and was able to do it because he -has been on her track for some time. You are not bad--but unjust. -You have had too great a shock to be able to reason sanely just -yet." - -"I think he will always make me creep a little," said Robin, "but -I will say anything you think I ought to say." - -On an occasion when Feather had gone again to make a visit in the -country, Mademoiselle came into the sitting room with the round -window in which plants grew, and Coombe followed her. Robin looked -up from her book with a little start and then stood up. - -"I have told Lord Coombe that you wish--that I wish you to thank -him," Mademoiselle Valle said. - -"I came on my own part to tell you that any expression of gratitude -is entirely unnecessary," said Coombe. - -"I MUST be grateful. I AM grateful." Robin's colour slowly faded -as she said it. This was the first time she had seen him since he -had supported her down the staircase which mounted to a place of -hell. - -"There is nothing to which I should object so much as being regarded -as a benefactor," he answered definitely, but with entire lack of -warmth. "The role does not suit me. Being an extremely bad man," he -said it as one who speaks wholly without prejudice, "my experience -is wide. I chance to know things. The woman who called herself -Lady Etynge is of a class which--which does not count me among its -clients. I had put certain authorities on her track--which was how -I discovered your whereabouts when Mademoiselle Valle told me that -you had gone to take tea with her. Mere chance you see. Don't be -grateful to me, I beg of you, but to Mademoiselle Valle." - -"Why," faltered Robin, vaguely repelled as much as ever, "did it -matter to you?" - -"Because," he answered--Oh, the cold inhumanness of his gray -eye!--"you happened to live in--this house." - -"I thought that was perhaps the reason," she said--and she felt -that he made her "creep" even a shade more. - -"I beg your pardon," she added, suddenly remembering, "Please sit -down." - -"Thank you," as he sat. "I will because I have something more to -say to you." - -Robin and Mademoiselle seated themselves also and listened. - -"There are many hideous aspects of existence which are not considered -necessary portions of a girl's education," he began. - -"They ought to be," put in Robin, and her voice was as hard as it -was young. - -It was a long and penetrating look he gave her. - -"I am not an instructor of Youth. I have not been called upon to -decide. I do not feel it my duty to go even now into detail." - -"You need not," broke in the hard young voice. "I know everything -in the world. I'm BLACK with knowing." - -"Mademoiselle will discuss that point with you. What you have, -unfortunately, been forced to learn is that it is not safe for a -girl--even a girl without beauty--to act independently of older -people, unless she has found out how to guard herself against--devils." -The words broke from him sharply, with a sudden incongruous hint -of ferocity which was almost startling. "You have been frightened," -he said next, "and you have discovered that there are devils, but -you have not sufficient experience to guard yourself against them." - -"I have been so frightened that I shall be a coward--a coward all -my life. I shall be afraid of every face I see--the more to be -trusted they look, the more I shall fear them. I hate every one -in the world!" - -Her quite wonderful eyes--so they struck Lord Coombe--flamed with -a child's outraged anguish. A thunder shower of tears broke and -rushed down her cheeks, and he rose and, walking quietly to the window -full of flowers, stood with his back to her for a few moments. She -neither cared nor knew whether it was because her hysteric emotion -bored or annoyed him, or because he had the taste to realize that -she would not wish to be looked at. Unhappy youth can feel no law -but its own. - -But all was over during the few moments, and he turned and walked -back to his chair. - -"You want very much to do some work which will insure your entire -independence--to take some situation which will support you without -aid from others? You are not yet prepared to go out and take the -first place which offers. You have been--as you say--too hideously -frightened, and you know there are dangers in wandering about -unguided. Mademoiselle Valle," turning his head, "perhaps you -will tell her what you know of the Duchess of Darte?" - -Upon which, Mademoiselle Valle took hold of her hand and entered -into a careful explanation. - -"She is a great personage of whom there can be no doubt. She -was a lady of the Court. She is of advanced years and an invalid -and has a liking for those who are pretty and young. She desires -a companion who is well educated and young and fresh of mind. The -companion who had been with her for many years recently died. If -you took her place you would live with her in her town house and -go with her to the country after the season. Your salary would -be liberal and no position could be more protected and dignified. -I have seen and talked to her grace myself, and she will allow me -to take you to her, if you desire to go." - -"Do not permit the fact that she has known me for many years -to prejudice you against the proposal," said Coombe. "You might -perhaps regard it rather as a sort of guarantee of my conduct in -the matter. She knows the worst of me and still allows me to retain -her acquaintance. She was brilliant and full of charm when she -was a young woman, and she is even more so now because she is--of -a rarity! If I were a girl and might earn my living in her service, -I should feel that fortune had been good to me--good." - -Robin's eyes turned from one of them to the other--from Coombe to -Mademoiselle Valle, and from Mademoiselle to Coombe pathetically. - -"You--you see--what has been done to me," she said. "A few weeks -ago I should have KNOWN that God was providing for me--taking -care of me. And now--I am still afraid. I feel as if she would see -that--that I am not young and fresh any more but black with evil. -I am afraid of her--I am afraid of you," to Coombe, "and of myself." - -Coombe rose, evidently to go away. - -"But you are not afraid of Mademoiselle Valle," he put it to her. -"She will provide the necessary references for the Duchess. I will -leave her to help you to decide." - -Robin rose also. She wondered if she ought not to hold out her -hand. Perhaps he saw her slight movement. He himself made none. - -"I remember you objected to shaking hands as a child," he said, -with an impersonal civil smile, and the easy punctiliousness of -his bow made it impossible for her to go further. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - - - - -Some days before this the Duchess of Darte had driven out in the -morning to make some purchases and as she had sat in her large -landau she had greatly missed Miss Brent who had always gone with -her when she had made necessary visits to the shops. She was not -fond of shopping and Miss Brent had privately found pleasure in -it which had made her a cheerful companion. To the quiet elderly -woman whose life previous to her service with this great lady had -been spent in struggles with poverty, the mere incident of entering -shops and finding eager salesmen springing forward to meet her -with bows and amiable offers of ministration, was to the end of -her days an almost thrilling thing. The Duchess bought splendidly -though quietly. Knowing always what she wanted, she merely required -that it be produced, and after silently examining it gave orders -that it should be sent to her. There was a dignity in her decision -which was impressive. She never gave trouble or hesitated. The -staffs of employees in the large shops knew and reveled in her -while they figuratively bent the knee. Miss Brent had been a happy -satisfied woman while she had lived. She had died peacefully after -a brief and, as it seemed at first, unalarming illness at one of -her employer's country houses to which she had been amiably sent -down for a holiday. Every kindness and attention had been bestowed -upon her and only a few moments before she fell into her last -sleep she had been talking pleasantly of her mistress. - -"She is a very great lady, Miss Hallam," she had said to her nurse. -"She's the last of her kind I often think. Very great ladies seem -to have gone out--if you know what I mean. They've gone out." - -The Duchess had in fact said of Brent as she stood a few days -later beside her coffin and looked down at her contentedly serene -face, something not unlike what Brent had said of herself. - -"You were a good friend, Brent, my dear," she murmured. "I shall -always miss you. I am afraid there are no more like you left." - -She was thinking of her all the morning as she drove slowly down -to Bond Street and Piccadilly. As she got out of her carriage to -go into a shop she was attracted by some photographs of beauties in -a window and paused to glance at them. Many of them were beauties -whom she knew, but among them were some of society's latest -discoveries. The particular photographs which caught her eye were -two which had evidently been purposely placed side by side for -an interesting reason. The reason was that the two women, while -obviously belonging to periods of some twenty years apart as the -fashion of their dress proved, were in face and form so singularly -alike that they bewilderingly suggested that they were the same -person. Both were exquisitely nymphlike, fair and large eyed and -both had the fine light hair which is capable of forming itself -into a halo. The Duchess stood and looked at them for the moment -spell-bound. She slightly caught her breath. She was borne back so -swiftly and so far. Her errand in the next door shop was forgotten. -She went into the one which displayed the photographs. - -"I wish to look at the two photographs which are so much alike," -she said to the man behind the counter. - -He knew her as most people did and brought forth the photographs -at once. - -"Many people are interested in them, your grace," he said. "It was -the amazing likeness which made me put them beside each other." - -"Yes," she answered. "It is almost incredible." She looked up -from the beautiful young being dressed in the mode of twenty years -past. - -"This is--WAS--?" she corrected herself and paused. The man -replied in a somewhat dropped voice. He evidently had his reasons -for feeling it discreet to do so. - -"Yes--WAS. She died twenty years ago. The young Princess Alixe of -X--" he said. "There was a sad story, your grace no doubt remembers. -It was a good deal talked about." - -"Yes," she replied and said no more, but took up the modern -picture. It displayed the same almost floating airiness of type, -but in this case the original wore diaphanous wisps of spangled -tulle threatening to take wings and fly away leaving the girl -slimness of arms and shoulders bereft of any covering whatsoever. - -"This one is--?" she questioned. - -"A Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. A widow with a daughter though she looks -in her teens. She's older than the Princess was, but she's kept -her beauty as ladies know how to in these days. It's wonderful to -see them side by side. But it's only a few that saw her Highness -as she was the season she came with the Prince to visit at Windsor -in Queen Victoria's day. Did your grace--" he checked himself -feeling that he was perhaps somewhat exceeding Bond Street limits. - -"Yes. I saw her," said the Duchess. "If these are for sale I will -take them both." - -"I'm selling a good many of them. People buy them because the -likeness makes them a sort of curiosity. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is -a very modern lady and she is quite amused." - -The Duchess took the two photographs home with her and looked at -them a great deal afterwards as she sat in her winged chair. - -They were on her table when Coombe came to drink tea with her in -the afternoon. - -When he saw them he stood still and studied the two faces silently -for several seconds. - -"Did you ever see a likeness so wonderful?" he said at last. - -"Never," she answered. "Or an unlikeness. That is the most wonderful -of all--the unlikeness. It is the same body inhabited by two souls -from different spheres." - -His next words were spoken very slowly. - -"I should have been sure you would see that," he commented. - -"I lost my breath for a second when I saw them side by side in the -shop window--and the next moment I lost it again because I saw--what -I speak of--the utter world wide apartness. It is in their eyes. -She--," she touched the silver frame enclosing the young Princess, -"was a little saint--a little spirit. There never was a young -human thing so transparently pure." - -The rigid modeling of his face expressed a thing which, himself -recognizing its presence, he chose to turn aside as he moved towards -the mantel and leaned on it. The same thing caused his voice to -sound hoarse and low as he spoke in answer, saying something she -had not expected him to say. Its unexpectedness in fact produced -in her an effect of shock. - -"And she was the possession of a brute incarnate, mad with unbridled -lust and drink and abnormal furies. She was a child saint, and -shook with terror before him. He killed her." - -"I believe he did," she said unsteadily after a breath space of -pause. "Many people believed so though great effort was made to -silence the stories. But there were too many stories and they were -so unspeakable that even those in high places were made furiously -indignant. He was not received here at Court afterwards. His own -emperor could not condone what he did. Public opinion was too -strong." - -"The stories were true," answered the hoarse low voice. "I myself, -by royal command, was a guest at the Schloss in the Bavarian Alps -when it was known that he struck her repeatedly with a dog whip. -She was going to have a child. One night I was wandering in the -park in misery and I heard shrieks which sent me in mad search. -I do not know what I should have done if I had succeeded, but I -tried to force an entrance into the wing from which the shrieks -came. I was met and stopped almost by open violence. The sounds -ceased. She died a week later. But the most experienced lying could -not hide some things. Even royal menials may have human blood in -their veins. It was known that there were hideous marks on her -little dead body." - -"We heard. We heard," whispered the Duchess. - -"He killed her. But she would have died of horror if he had not -struck her a blow. She began to die from the hour the marriage -was forced upon her. I saw that when she was with him at Windsor." - -"You were in attendance on him," the Duchess said after a little -silence. "That was when I first knew you." - -"Yes." She had added the last sentence gravely and his reply was -as grave though his voice was still hoarse. "You were sublime -goodness and wisdom. When a woman through the sheer quality of -her silence saves a man from slipping over the verge of madness -he does not forget. While I was sane I dared scarcely utter her -name. If I had gone mad I should have raved as madmen do. For that -reason I was afraid." - -"I knew. Speech was the greatest danger," she answered him. "She -was a princess of a royal house--poor little angel--and she had -a husband whose vileness and violence all Europe knew. How DARED -they give her to him?" - -"For reasons of their own and because she was too humbly innocent -and obedient to rebel." - -The Duchess did not ask questions. The sublime goodness of which -he had spoken had revealed its perfection through the fact that -in the long past days she had neither questioned nor commented. -She had given her strong soul's secret support to him and in his -unbearable hours he had known that when he came to her for refuge, -while she understood his need to the uttermost, she would speak -no word even to himself. - -But today though she asked no question her eyes waited upon him -as it were. This was because she saw that for some unknown reason -a heavy veil had rolled back from the past he had chosen to keep -hidden even from himself, as it were, more than from others. - -"Speech is always the most dangerous thing," he said. "Only the -silence of years piled one upon the other will bury unendurable -things. Even thought must be silenced. I have lived a lifetime -since--" his words began to come very slowly--as she listened she -felt as if he were opening a grave and drawing from its depths -long buried things, "--since the night when I met her alone in a -wood in the park of the Schloss and--lost hold of myself--lost it -utterly." - -The Duchess' withered hands caught each other in a clasp which -was almost like a passionate exclamation. - -"There was such a night. And I was young--young--not an iron bound -vieillard then. When one is young one's anguish is the Deluge -which ends the world forever. I had lain down and risen up and -spent every hour in growing torture for months. I had been forced -to bind myself down with bands of iron. When I found myself, without -warning, face to face with her, alone in the night stillness of -the wood, the bands broke. She had dared to creep out in secret -to hide herself and her heartbroken terror in the silence and -darkness alone. I knew it without being told. I knew and I went -quite mad for the time. I was only a boy. I threw myself face -downward on the earth and sobbed, embracing her young feet." - -Both of them were quite silent for a few moments before he went -on. - -"She was not afraid," he said, even with something which was like -a curious smile of tender pity at the memory. "Afterwards--when I -stood near her, trembling--she even took my hand and held it. Once -she kissed it humbly like a little child while her tears rained -down. Never before was there anything as innocently heartbreaking. -She was so piteously grateful for love of any kind and so heart -wrung by my misery." - -He paused again and looked down at the carpet, thinking. Then he -looked up at her directly. - -"I need not explain to you. You will know. I was twenty-five. My -heart was pounding in my side, my blood thudded through my veins. -Every atom of natural generous manhood in my being was wild with -fury at the brutal wrong done her exquisiteness. And she--" - -"She was a young novice fresh from a convent and very pious," the -Duchess' quiet voice put in. - -"You understand," he answered. "She knelt down and prayed for -her own soul as well as mine. She thanked God that I was kind and -would forgive her and go away--and only remember her in my prayers. -She believed it was possible. It was not, but I kissed the hem of -her white dress and left her standing alone--a little saint in a -woodland shrine. That was what I thought deliriously as I staggered -off. It was the next night that I heard her shrieks. Then she -died." - -The Duchess knew what else had died--the high adventure of youth -and joy of life in him, the brilliant spirit which had been himself -and whose utter withdrawal from his being had left him as she had -seen him on his return to London in those days which now seemed -a memory of a past life in a world which had passed also. He had -appeared before her late one afternoon and she had for a moment -been afraid to look at him because she was struck to the depths of -her being by a sense of seeing before her a body which had broken -the link holding it to life and walked the earth, the crowded -streets, the ordinary rooms where people gathered, a dead thing. -Even while it moved it gazed out of dead eyes. And the years had -passed and though they had been friends he had never spoken until -now. - -"Such a thing must be buried in a tomb covered with a heavy stone -and with a seal set upon it. I am unsealing a tomb," he said. Then -after a silence he added, "I have, of cause, a reason." She bent -her head because she had known this must be the case. - -"There is a thing I wish you to understand. Every woman could -not." - -"I shall understand." - -"Because I know you will I need not enter into exact detail. You -will not find what I say abnormal." - -There had been several pauses during his relation. Once or twice -he had stopped in the middle of a sentence as if for calmer breath -or to draw himself back from a past which had suddenly become again -a present of torment too great to face with modern steadiness. He -took breath so to speak in this manner again. - -"The years pass, the agony of being young passes. One slowly -becomes another man," he resumed. "I am another man. I could not -be called a creature of sentiment. I have given myself interests -in existence--many of them. But the sealed tomb is under one's feet. -Not to allow oneself to acknowledge its existence consciously is -one's affair. But--the devil of chance sometimes chooses to play -tricks. Such a trick was played on me." - -He glanced down at the two pictures at which she herself was looking -with grave eyes. It was the photograph of Feather he took up and -set a strange questioning gaze upon. - -"When I saw this," he said, "this--exquisitely smiling at me under -a green tree in a sunny garden--the tomb opened under my feet, -and I stood on the brink of it--twenty-five again." - -"You cannot possibly put it into words," the Duchess said. "You -need not. I know." For he had become for the moment almost livid. -Even to her who so well knew him it was a singular thing to see -him hastily set down the picture and touch his forehead with his -handkerchief. - -She knew he was about to tell her his reason for this unsealing -of the tomb. When he sat down at her table he did so. He did not -use many phrases, but in making clear his reasons he also made -clear to her certain facts which most persons would have ironically -disbelieved. But no shadow of a doubt passed through her mind -because she had through a long life dwelt interestedly on the many -variations in human type. She was extraordinarily interested when -he ended with the story of Robin. - -"I do not know exactly why 'it matters to me'--I am quoting her -mother," he explained, "but it happens that I am determined to -stand between the child and what would otherwise be the inevitable. -It is not that she has the slightest resemblance to--to anyone--which -might awaken memory. It is not that. She and her mother are of -totally different types. And her detestation of me is unconquerable. -She believes me to be the worst of men. When I entered the room -into which the woman had trapped her, she thought that I came as -one of the creature's damnable clients. You will acknowledge that -my position presents difficulties in the way of explanation to -a girl--to most adults in fact. Her childish frenzy of desire -to support herself arises from her loathing of the position of -accepting support from me. I sympathize with her entirely." - -"Mademoiselle Valle is an intelligent woman," the Duchess said as -though thinking the matter out. "Send her to me and we will talk -the matter over. Then she can bring the child." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - - - - -As a result of this, her grace saw Mademoiselle Valle alone -a few mornings later and talked to her long and quietly. Their -comprehension of each other was complete. Before their interview -was at an end the Duchess' interest in the adventure she was about -to enter into had become profound. - -"The sooner she is surrounded by a new atmosphere, the better," -was one of the things the Frenchwoman had said. "The prospect of -an arrangement so perfect and so secure fills me with the profoundest -gratitude. It is absolutely necessary that I return to my parents -in Belgium. They are old and failing in health and need me greatly. -I have been sad and anxious for months because I felt that it -would be wickedness to desert this poor child. I have been torn -in two. Now I can be at peace--thank the good God." - -"Bring her to me tomorrow if possible," the Duchess said when -they parted. "I foresee that I may have something to overcome in -the fact that I am Lord Coombe's old friend, but I hope to be able -to overcome it." - -"She is a baby--she is of great beauty--she has a passionate little -soul of which she knows nothing." Mademoiselle Valle said it with -an anxious reflectiveness. "I have been afraid. If I were her -mother----" her eyes sought those of the older woman. - -"But she has no mother," her grace answered. Her own eyes were -serious. She knew something of girls, of young things, of the rush -and tumult of young life in them and of the outlet it demanded. A -baby who was of great beauty and of a passionate soul was no trivial -undertaking for a rheumatic old duchess, but--"Bring her to me," -she said. - -So was Robin brought to the tall Early Victorian mansion in the -belatedly stately square. And the chief thought in her mind was -that though mere good manners demanded under the circumstances that -she should come to see the Dowager Duchess of Darte and be seen -by her, if she found that she was like Lord Coombe, she would not -be able to endure the prospect of a future spent in her service -howsoever desirable such service might outwardly appear. This -desirableness Mademoiselle Valle had made clear to her. She was -to be the companion of a personage of great and mature charm and -grace who desired not mere attendance, but something more, which -something included the warmth and fresh brightness of happy youth -and bloom. She would do for her employer the things a young -relative might do. She would have a suite of rooms of her own and -a freedom as to hours and actions which greater experience on her -part would have taught was not the customary portion meted out -to a paid companion. But she knew nothing of paid service and a -preliminary talk of Coombe's with Mademoiselle Valle had warned -her against allowing any suspicion that this "earning a living" -had been too obviously ameliorated. - -"Her life is unusual. She herself is unusual in a most dignified -and beautiful way. You will, it might almost be said, hold the -position of a young lady in waiting," was Mademoiselle's gracefully -put explanation. - -When, after they had been ushered into the room where her grace -sat in her beautiful and mellow corner by the fire, Robin advanced -towards the highbacked chair, what the old woman was chiefly -conscious of was the eyes which seemed all lustrous iris. There was -uncommon appeal and fear in them. The blackness of their setting -of up-curled lashes made them look babyishly wide. - -"Mademoiselle Valle has told me of your wish to take a position -as companion," the Duchess said after they were seated. - -"I want very much," said Robin, "to support myself and Mademoiselle -thinks that I might fill such a place if I am not considered too -young." - -"You are not too young--for me. I want something young to come and -befriend me. Am I too old for YOU?" Her smile had been celebrated -fifty years earlier and it had not changed. A smile does not. She -was not like Lord Coombe in any degree however remote. She did -not belong to his world, Robin thought. - -"If I can do well enough the things you require done," she answered -blushing her Jacqueminot rose blush, "I shall be grateful if you -will let me try to do them. Mademoiselle will tell you that I have -no experience, but that I am one who tries well." - -"Mademoiselle has answered all my questions concerning your -qualifications so satisfactorily that I need ask you very few." - -Such questions as she asked were not of the order Robin had -expected. She led her into talk and drew Mademoiselle Valle into the -conversation. It was talk which included personal views of books, -old gardens and old houses, people, pictures and even--lightly--politics. -Robin found herself quite incidentally, as it were, reading aloud -to her an Italian poem. She ceased to be afraid and was at ease. -She forgot Lord Coombe. The Duchess listening and watching her -warmed to her task of delicate investigation and saw reason for -anticipating agreeably stimulating things. She was not taking upon -herself a merely benevolent duty which might assume weight and -become a fatigue. In fact she might trust Coombe for that. After -all it was he who had virtually educated the child--little as she -was aware of the singular fact. It was he who had dragged her -forth from her dog kennel of a top floor nursery and quaintly -incongruous as it seemed, had found her a respectable woman for a -nurse and an intelligent person for a governess and companion as -if he had been a domesticated middle class widower with a little -girl to play mother to. She saw in the situation more than others -would have seen in it, but she saw also the ironic humour of it. -Coombe--with the renowned cut of his overcoat--the perfection of -his line and scarcely to be divined suggestions of hue--Coombe! - -She did not avoid all mention of his name during the interview, but -she spoke of him only casually, and though the salary she offered -was an excellent one, it was not inordinate. Robin could not feel -that she was not being accepted as of the class of young persons -who support themselves self-respectingly, though even the most -modest earned income would have represented wealth to her ignorance. - -Before they parted she had obtained the position so pleasantly -described by Mademoiselle Valle as being something like that of -a young lady in waiting. "But I am really a companion and I will -do everything--everything I can so that I shall be worth keeping," -she thought seriously. She felt that she should want to be kept. -If Lord Coombe was a friend of her employer's it was because the -Duchess did not know what others knew. And her house was not his -house--and the hideous thing she had secretly loathed would be at -an end. She would be supporting herself as decently and honestly -as Mademoiselle or Dowie had supported themselves all their lives. - -With an air of incidentally recalling a fact, the Duchess said -after they had risen to leave her: - -"Mademoiselle Valle tells me you have an elderly nurse you are -very fond of. She seems to belong to a class of servants almost -extinct." - -"I love her," Robin faltered--because the sudden reminder brought -back a pang to her. There was a look in her eyes which faltered -also. "She loves me. I don't know how----" but there she stopped. - -"Such women are very valuable to those who know the meaning of -their type. I myself am always in search of it. My dear Miss Brent -was of it, though of a different class." - -"But most people do not know," said Robin. "It seems old-fashioned -to them--and it's beautiful! Dowie is an angel." - -"I should like to secure your Dowie for my housekeeper and -myself,"--one of the greatest powers of the celebrated smile was -its power to convince. "A competent person is needed to take charge -of the linen. If we can secure an angel we shall be fortunate." - -A day or so later she said to Coombe in describing the visit. - -"The child's face is wonderful. If you could but have seen her -eyes when I said it. It is not the mere beauty of size and shape -and colour which affect one. It is something else. She is a little -flame of feeling." - -The "something else" was in the sound of her voice as she answered. - -"She will be in the same house with me! Sometimes perhaps I may -see her and talk to her! Oh! how GRATEFUL I am!" She might even -see and talk to her as often as she wished, it revealed itself -and when she and Mademoiselle got into their hansom cab to drive -away, she caught at the Frenchwoman's hand and clung to it, her -eyelashes wet, - -"It is as if there MUST be Goodness which takes care of one," she -said. "I used to believe in it so--until I was afraid of all the -world. Dowie means most of all. I did now know how I could bear -to let her go away. And since her husband and her daughter died, -she has no one but me. I should have had no one but her if you -had gone back to Belgium, Mademoiselle. And now she will be safe -in the same house with me. Perhaps the Duchess will keep her until -she dies. I hope she will keep me until I die. I will be as good -and faithful as Dowie and perhaps the Duchess will live until I -am quite old--and not pretty any more. And I will make economies -as you have made them, Mademoiselle, and save all my salary--and -I might be able to end my days in a little cottage in the country." - -Mademoiselle was conscious of an actual physical drag at her -heartstrings. The pulsating glow of her young loveliness had never -been more moving and oh! the sublime certainty of her unconsciousness -that Life lay between this hour and that day when she was "quite -old and not pretty any more" and having made economies could die -in a little cottage in the country! She believed in her vision as -she had believed that Donal would come to her in the garden. - -Upon Feather the revelation that her daughter had elected to -join the ranks of girls who were mysteriously determined to be -responsible for themselves produced a curious combination of effects. -It was presented to her by Lord Coombe in the form of a simple -impersonal statement which had its air of needing no explanation. -She heard it with eyes widening a little and a smile slowly growing. -Having heard, she broke into a laugh, a rather high-pitched treble -laugh. - -"Really?" she said. "She is really going to do it? To take a -situation! She wants to be independent and 'live her own life!' -What a joke--for a girl of mine!" She was either really amused or -chose to seem so. - -"What do YOU think of it?" she asked when she stopped laughing. -Her eyes had curiosity in them. - -"I like it," he answered. - -"Of course. I ought to have remembered that you helped her to an -Early Victorian duchess. She's one without a flaw--the Dowager -Duchess of Darte. The most conscientiously careful mother couldn't -object. It's almost like entering into the kingdom of heaven--in -a dull way." She began to laugh again as if amusing images rose -suddenly before her. "And what does the Duchess think of it?" she -said after her laughter had ceased again. "How does she reconcile -herself to the idea of a companion whose mother she wouldn't have -in her house?" - -"We need not enter into that view of the case. You decided some -years ago that it did not matter to you whether Early Victorian -duchesses included you in their visiting lists or did not. More -modern ones do I believe--quite beautiful and amusing ones." - -"But for that reason I want this one and those like her. They would -bore me, but I want them. I want them to come to my house and be -polite to me in their stuffy way. I want to be invited to their -hideous dinner parties and see them sitting round their tables in -their awful family jewels 'talking of the sad deaths of kings.' -That's Shakespeare, you know. I heard it last night at the theatre." - -"Why do you want it?" Coombe inquired. - -"When I ask you why you show your morbid interest in Robin, you -say you don't know. I don't know--but I do want it." - -She suddenly flushed, she even showed her small teeth. For an -extraordinary moment she looked like a little cat. - -"Robin will hare it," she cried, grinding a delicate fist into -the palm on her knee. "She's not eighteen and she's a beauty and -she's taken up by a perfectly decent old duchess. She'll have -EVERYTHING! The Dowager will marry her to someone important. You'll -help," she turned on him in a flame of temper. "You are capable -of marrying her yourself!" There was a a brief but entire silence. -It was broken by his saying, - -"She is not capable of marrying ME." - -There was brief but entire silence again, and it was he who again -broke it, his manner at once cool and reasonable. - -"It is better not to exhibit this kind of feeling. Let us be quite -frank. There are few things you feel more strongly than that you do -not want your daughter in the house. When she was a child you told -me that you detested the prospect of having her on your hands. -She is being disposed of in the most easily explained and enviable -manner." - -"It's true--it's true," Feather murmured. She began to see advantages -and the look of a little cat died out, or at least modified itself -into that of a little cat upon whom dawned prospects of cream. No -mood ever held her very long. "She won't come back to stay," she -said. "The Duchess won't let her. I can use her rooms and I shall -be very glad to have them. There's at least some advantage in -figuring as a sort of Dame Aux Camelias." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - - - - - -The night before Robin went away as she sat alone in the dimness -of one light, thinking as girls nearly always sit and think on -the eve of a change, because to youth any change seems to mean -the final closing as well as the opening of ways, the door of -her room was opened and an exquisite and nymphlike figure in pale -green stood exactly where the rays of the reading lamp seemed -to concentrate themselves in an effort to reveal most purely its -delicately startling effect. It was her mother in a dress whose -spring-like tint made her a sort of slim dryad. She looked so pretty -and young that Robin caught her breath as she rose and went forward. - -"It is your aged parent come to give you her blessing," said -Feather. - -"I was wondering if I might come to your room in the morning," -Robin answered. - -Feather seated herself lightly. She was not intelligent enough to -have any real comprehension of the mood which had impelled her to -come. She had merely given way to a secret sense of resentment of -something which annoyed her. She knew, however, why she had put -on the spring-leaf green dress which made her look like a girl. -She was not going to let Robin feel as if she were receiving a -visit from her grandmother. She had got that far. - -"We don't know each other at all, do we?" she said. - -"No," answered Robin. She could not remove her eyes from her -loveliness. She brought up such memories of the Lady Downstairs -and the desolate child in the shabby nursery. - -"Mothers are not as intimate with their daughters as they used -to be when it was a sort of virtuous fashion to superintend their -rice pudding and lecture them about their lessons. We have not -seen each other often." - -"No," said Robin. - -Feather's laugh had again the rather high note Coombe had noticed. - -"You haven't very much to say, have you?" she commented. "And you -stare at me as if you were trying to explain me. I dare say you -know that you have big eyes and that they're a good colour, but -I may as well hint to you that men do not like to be stared at as -if their deeps were being searched. Drop your eyelids." - -Robin's lids dropped in spite of herself because she was startled, -but immediately she was startled again by a note in her mother's -voice--a note of added irritation. - -"Don't make a habit of dropping them too often," it broke out, "or -it will look as if you did it to show your eyelashes. Girls with -tricks of that sort are always laughed at. Alison Carr LIVES -sideways became she has a pretty profile." - -Coombe would have recognized the little cat look, if he had been -watching her as she leaned back in her chair and scrutinized her -daughter. The fact was that she took in her every point, being an -astute censor of other women's charms. - -"Stand up," she said. - -Robin stood up because she could not well refuse to do so, but -she coloured because she was suddenly ashamed. - -"You're not little, but you're not tall," her mother said. "That's -against you. It's the fashion for women to be immensely tall -now. Du Maurier's pictures in Punch and his idiotic Trilby did it. -Clothes are made for giantesses. I don't care about it myself, but -a girl's rather out of it if she's much less than six feet high. -You can sit down." - -A more singular interview between mother and daughter had assuredly -rarely taken place. As she looked at the girl her resentment of her -increased each moment. She actually felt as if she were beginning -to lose her temper. - -"You are what pious people call 'going out into the world'," she -went on. "In moral books mothers always give advice and warnings -to their girls when they're leaving them. I can give you some -warnings. You think that because you have been taken up by a -dowager duchess everything will be plain sailing. You're mistaken. -You think because you are eighteen and pretty, men will fall at -your feet." - -"I would rather be hideous," cried suddenly passionate Robin. "I -HATE men!" - -The silly pretty thing who was responsible for her being, grew -sillier as her irritation increased. - -"That's what girls always pretend, but the youngest little idiot -knows it isn't true. It's men who count. It makes me laugh when -I think of them--and of you. You know nothing about them and they -know everything about you. A clever man can do anything he pleases -with a silly girl." - -"Are they ALL bad?" Robin exclaimed furiously. - -"They're none of them bad. They're only men. And that's my warning. -Don't imagine that when they make love to you they do it as if -you were the old Duchess' granddaughter. You will only be her paid -companion and that's a different matter." - -"I will not speak to one of them----" Robin actually began. - -"You'll be obliged to do what the Duchess tells you to do," laughed -Feather, as she realized her obvious power to dull the glitter -and glow of things which she had felt the girl must be dazzled -and uplifted unduly by. She was rather like a spiteful schoolgirl -entertaining herself by spoiling an envied holiday for a companion. -"Old men will run after you and you will have to be nice to them -whether you like it or not." A queer light came into her eyes. -"Lord Coombe is fond of girls just out of the schoolroom. But if -he begins to make love to you don't allow yourself to feel too -much flattered." - -Robin sprang toward her. - -"Do you think I don't ABHOR Lord Coombe!" she cried out forgetting -herself in the desperate cruelty of the moment. "Haven't I reason----" -but there she remembered and stopped. - -But Feather was not shocked or alarmed. Years of looking things -in the face had provided her with a mental surface from which -tilings rebounded. On the whole it even amused her and "suited -her book" that Robin should take this tone. - -"Oh! I suppose you mean you know he admires me and pays bills for -me. Where would you have been if he hadn't done it? He's been a -sort of benefactor." - -"I know nothing but that even when I was a little child I could -not bear to touch his hand!" cried Robin. Then Feather remembered -several things she had almost forgotten and she was still more -entertained. - -"I believe you've not forgotten through all these years that the -boy you fell so indecently in love with was taken away by his -mother because Lord Coombe was YOUR mother's admirer and he was -such a sinner that even a baby was contaminated by him! Donal -Muir is a young man by this time. I wonder what his mother would -do now if he turned up at your mistress' house--that's what she -is, you know, your mistress--and began to make love to you." She -laughed outright. "You'll get into all sorts of messes, but that -would be the nicest one!" - -Robin could only stand and gaze at her. Her moment's fire had died -down. Without warning, out of the past a wave rose and overwhelmed -her then and there. It bore with it the wild woe of the morning -when a child had waited in the spring sun and her world had fallen -into nothingness. It came back--the broken-hearted anguish, the -utter helpless desolation, as if she stood in the midst of it -again, as if it had never passed. It was a re-incarnation. She -could not bear it. - -"Do you hate me--as I hate Lord Coombe?" she cried out. "Do you WANT -unhappy things to happen to me? Oh! Mother, why!" She had never -said "Mother" before. Nature said it for her here. The piteous -appeal of her youth and lonely young rush of tears was almost -intolerably sweet. Through some subtle cause it added to the thing -in her which Feather resented and longed to trouble and to hurt. - -"You are a spiteful little cat!" she sprang up to exclaim, standing -close and face to face with her. "You think I am an old thing -and that I'm jealous of you! Because you're pretty and a girl you -think women past thirty don't count. You'll find out. Mrs. Muir -will count and she's forty if she's a day. Her son's such a beauty -that people go mad over him. And he worships her--and he's her -slave. I wish you WOULD get into some mess you couldn't get out -of! Don't come to me if you do." - -The wide beauty of Robin's gaze and her tear wet bloom were too -much. Feather was quite close to her. The spiteful schoolgirl -impulse got the better of her. - -"Don't make eyes at me like that," she cried, and she actually -gave the rose cheek nearest her a sounding little slap, "There!" -she exclaimed hysterically and she turned about and ran out of -the room crying herself. - -Robin had parted from Mademoiselle Valle at Charing Cross Station -on the afternoon of the same day, but the night before they had -sat up late together and talked a long time. In effect Mademoiselle -had said also, "You are going out into the world," but she had not -approached the matter in Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' mood. One may have -charge of a girl and be her daily companion for years, but there -are certain things the very years themselves make it increasingly -difficult to say to her. And after all why should one state -difficult things in exact phrases unless one lacks breeding and -is curious. Anxious she had been at times, but not curious. So it -was that even on this night of their parting it was not she who -spoke. - -It was after a few minutes of sitting in silence and looking at -the fire that Robin broke in upon the quiet which had seemed to -hold them both. - -"I must learn to remember always that I am a sort of servant. -I must be very careful. It will be easier for me to realize that -I am not in my own house than it would be for other girls. I have -not allowed Dowie to dress me for a good many weeks. I have learned -how to do everything for myself quite well." - -"But Dowie will be in the house with you and the Duchess is very -kind." - -"Every night I have begun my prayers by thanking God for leaving -me Dowie," the girl said. "I have begun them and ended them with -the same words." She looked about her and then broke out as if -involuntarily. "I shall be away from here. I shall not wear anything -or eat anything or sleep on any bed I have not paid for myself." - -"These rooms are very pretty. We have been very comfortable -here," Mademoiselle said. Suddenly she felt that if she waited a -few moments she would know definitely things she had previously -only guessed at. "Have you no little regrets?" - -"No," answered Robin, "No." - -She stood upon the hearth with her hands behind her. Mademoiselle -felt as if her fingers were twisting themselves together and the -Frenchwoman was peculiarly moved by the fact that she looked like -a slim jeune fille of a creature saying a lesson. The lesson opened -in this wise. - -"I don't know when I first began to know that I was different from -all other children," she said in a soft, hot voice--if a voice -can express heat. "Perhaps a child who has nothing--nothing--is -obliged to begin to THINK before it knows what thoughts are. If -they play and are loved and amused they have no time for anything -but growing and being happy. You never saw the dreadful little -rooms upstairs----" - -"Dowie has told me of them," said Mademoiselle. - -"Another child might have forgotten them. I never shall. I--I was -so little and they were full of something awful. It was loneliness. -The first time Andrews pinched me was one day when the thing -frightened me and I suddenly began to cry quite loud. I used -to stare out of the window and--I don't know when I noticed it -first--I could see the children being taken out by their nurses. -And there were always two or three of them and they laughed and -talked and skipped. The nurses used to laugh and talk too. Andrews -never did. When she took me to the gardens the other nurses sat -together and chattered and their children played games with other -children. Once a little girl began to talk to me and her nurse -called her away. Andrews was very angry and jerked me by my arm -and told me that if ever I spoke to a child again she would pinch -me." - -"Devil!" exclaimed the Frenchwoman. - -"I used to think and think, but I could never understand. How -could I?" - -"A baby!" cried Mademoiselle Valle and she got up and took her in -her arms and kissed her. "Chere petite ange!" she murmured. When -she sat down again her cheeks were wet. Robin's were wet also, but -she touched them with her handkerchief quickly and dried them. It -was as if she had faltered for a moment in her lesson. - -"Did Dowie ever tell you anything about Donal?" she asked -hesitatingly. - -"Something. He was the little boy you played with?" - -"Yes. He was the first human creature," she said it very slowly -as if trying to find the right words to express what she meant, -"--the first HUMAN creature I had ever known. You see Mademoiselle, -he--he knew everything. He had always been happy, he BELONGED -to people and things. I belonged to nobody and nothing. If I had -been like him he would not have seemed so wonderful to me. I was -in a kind of delirium of joy. If a creature who had been deaf dumb -and blind had suddenly awakened, and seeing on a summer day in a -world full of flowers and sun--it might have seemed to them as it -seemed to me." - -"You have remembered it through all the years," said Mademoiselle, -"like that?" - -"It was the first time I became alive. One could not forget it. -We only played as children play but--it WAS a delirium of joy. I -could not bear to go to sleep at night and forget it for a moment. -Yes, I remember it--like that. There is a dream I have every now -and then and it is more real than--than this is--" with a wave of -her hand about her. "I am always in a real garden playing with -a real Donal. And his eyes--his eyes--" she paused and thought, -"There is a look in them that is like--it is just like--that first -morning." - -The change which passed over her face the next moment might have -been said to seem to obliterate all trace of the childish memory. - -"He was taken away by his mother. That was the beginning of my -finding out," she said. "I heard Andrews talking to her sister and -in a baby way I gathered that Lord Coombe had sent him. I hated -Lord Coombe for years before I found out that he hadn't--and -that there was another reason. After that it took time to puzzle -things out and piece them together. But at last I found out what -the reason had been. Then I began to make plans. These are not my -rooms," glancing about her again, "--these are not my clothes," -with a little pull at her dress. "I'm not 'a strong character', -Mademoiselle, as I wanted to be, but I haven't one little regret--not -one." She kneeled down and put her arms round her old friend's -waist, lifting her face. "I'm like a leaf blown about by the -wind. I don't know what it will do with me. Where do leaves go? -One never knows really." - -She put her face down on Mademoiselle's knee then and cried with -soft bitterness. - -When she bade her good-bye at Charing Cross Station and stood and -watched the train until it was quite out of sight, afterwards she -went back to the rooms for which she felt no regrets. And before -she went to bed that night Feather came and gave her farewell -maternal advice and warning. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - - - - - -That a previously scarcely suspected daughter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -had become a member of the household of the Dowager Duchess of -Darte stirred but a passing wave of interest in a circle which was -not that of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself and which upon the whole -but casually acknowledged its curious existence as a modern -abnormality. Also the attitude of the Duchess herself was composedly -free from any admission of necessity for comment. - -"I have no pretty young relative who can be spared to come and -live with me. I am fond of things pretty and young and I am greatly -pleased with what a kind chance put in my way," she said. In her -discussion of the situation with Coombe she measured it with her -customary fine acumen. - -"Forty years ago it could not have been done. The girl would have -been made uncomfortable and outside things could not have been -prevented from dragging themselves in. Filial piety in the mass -would have demanded that the mother should be accounted for. Now -a genial knowledge of a variety in mothers leaves Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -to play about with her own probably quite amusing set. Once poor -Robin would have been held responsible for her and so should I. My -position would have seemed to defy serious moral issues. But we -have reached a sane habit of detaching people from their relations. -A nice condition we should be in if we had not." - -"You, of course, know that Henry died suddenly in some sort of -fit at Ostend." Coombe said it as if in a form of reply. She had -naturally become aware of it when the rest of the world did, but -had not seen him since the event. - -"One did not suppose his constitution would have lasted so long," -she answered. "You are more fortunate in young Donal Muir. Have -you seen him and his mother?" - -"I made a special journey to Braemarnie and had a curious interview -with Mrs. Muir. When I say 'curious' I don't mean to imply that it -was not entirely dignified. It was curious only because I realize -that secretly she regards with horror and dread the fact that her -boy is the prospective Head of the House of Coombe. She does not -make a jest of it as I have had the temerity to do. It's a cheap -defense, this trick of making an eternal jest of things, but it -IS a defense and one has formed the habit." - -"She has never done it--Helen Muir," his friend said. "On the -whole I believe she at times knows that she has been too grave. -She was a beautiful creature passionately in love with her husband. -When such a husband is taken away from such a woman and his child -is left it often happens that the flood of her love is turned into -one current and that it is almost overwhelming. She is too sane -to have coddled the boy and made him effeminate--what has she done -instead?" - -"He is a splendid young Highlander. He would be too good-looking -if he were not as strong and active as a young stag. All she has -done is to so fill him with the power and sense of her charm that -he has not seen enough of the world or learned to care for it. She -is the one woman on earth for him and life with her at Braemarnie -is all he asks for." - -"Your difficulty will be that she will not be willing to trust -him to your instructions." - -"I have not as much personal vanity as I may seem to have," Coombe -said. "I put all egotism modestly aside when I talked to her and -tried to explain that I would endeavour to see that he came to no -harm in my society. My heir presumptive and I must see something -of each other and he must become intimate with the prospect of -his responsibilities. More will be demanded of the next Marquis -of Coombe than has been demanded of me. And it will be DEMANDED -not merely hoped for or expected. And it will be the overwhelming -forces of Fate which will demand it--not mere tenants or constituents -or the general public." - -"Have you any views as to WHAT will be demanded?" was her interested -question. - -"None. Neither has anyone else who shares my opinion. No one will -have any until the readjustment comes. But before the readjustment -there will be the pouring forth of blood--the blood of magnificent -lads like Donal Muir--perhaps his own blood,--my God!" - -"And there may be left no head of the house of Coombe," from the -Duchess. - -"There will be many a house left without its head--houses great -and small. And if the peril of it were more generally foreseen at -this date it would be less perilous than it is." - -"Lads like that!" said the old Duchess bitterly. "Lads in their -strength and joy and bloom! It is hideous." - -"In all their young virility and promise for a next generation--the -strong young fathers of forever unborn millions! It's damnable! -And it will be so not only in England, but all over a blood drenched -world." - -It was in this way they talked to each other of the black tragedy -for which they believed the world's stage already being set in -secret, and though there were here and there others who felt the -ominous inevitability of the raising of the curtain, the rest of -the world looked on in careless indifference to the significance of -the open training of its actors and even the resounding hammerings -of its stage carpenters and builders. In these days the two -discussed the matter more frequently and even in the tone of those -who waited for the approach of a thing drawing nearer every day. - -Each time the Head of the House of Coombe made one of his so-called -"week end" visits to the parts an Englishman can reach only by -crossing the Channel, he returned with new knowledge of the special -direction in which the wind veered in the blowing of those straws -he had so long observed with absorbed interest. - -"Above all the common sounds of daily human life one hears in that -one land the rattle and clash of arms and the unending thudding -tread of marching feet," he said after one such visit. "Two -generations of men creatures bred and born and trained to live as -parts of a huge death dealing machine have resulted in a monstrous -construction. Each man is a part of it and each part's greatest -ambition is to respond to the shouted word of command as a -mechanical puppet responds to the touch of a spring. To each unit -of the millions, love of his own country means only hatred of all -others and the belief that no other should be allowed existence. -The sacred creed of each is that the immensity of Germany is such -that there can be no room on the earth for another than itself. -Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior peoples. To -the masses that is their God's will. Their God is an understudy -of their Kaiser." - -"You are not saying that as part of the trick of making a jest of -things?" - -"I wish to God I were. The poor huge inhuman thing he has built -does not know that when he was a boy he did not play at war and -battles as other boys do, but as a creature obsessed. He has played -at soldiers with his people as his toys throughout all his morbid -life--and he has hungered and thirsted as he has done it." - -A Bible lay upon the table and the Duchess drew it towards her. - -"There is a verse here--" she said "--I will find it." She turned -the pages and found it. "Listen! 'Know this and lay it to thy -heart this day. Jehovah is God in heaven above and on the earth -beneath. There is none else.' That is a power which does not -confine itself to Germany or to England or France or to the Map of -Europe. It is the Law of the Universe--and even Wilhelm the Second -cannot bend it to his almighty will. 'There is none else.'" - -"'There is none else'," repeated Coombe slowly. "If there existed -a human being with the power to drive that home as a truth into -his delirious brain, I believe he would die raving mad. To him -there is no First Cause which was not 'made in Germany.' And it -is one of his most valuable theatrical assets. It is part of his -paraphernalia--like the jangling of his sword and the glitter of -his orders. He shakes it before his people to arrest the attention -of the simple and honest ones as one jingles a rattle before a -child. There are those among them who are not so readily attracted -by terms of blood and iron." - -"But they will be called upon to shed blood and to pour forth -their own. There will be young things like Donal Muir--lads with -ruddy cheeks and with white bodies to be torn to fragments." She -shuddered as she said it. "I am afraid!" she said. "I am afraid!" - -"So am I," Coombe answered. "Of what is coming. What a FOOL I have -been!" - -"How long will it be before other men awaken to say the same -thing?" - -"Each man's folly is his own shame." He drew himself stiffly -upright as a man might who stood before a firing squad. "I had a -life to live or to throw away. Because I was hideously wounded at -the outset I threw it aside as done for. I said 'there is neither -God nor devil, vice nor virtue, love nor hate. I will do and leave -undone what I choose.' I had power and brain and money. A man -who could see clearly and who had words to choose from might have -stood firmly in the place to which he was born and have spoken in -a voice which might have been listened to. He might have fought -against folly and blindness and lassitude. I deliberately chose -privately to sneer at the thought of lifting a hand to serve any -thing but the cold fool who was myself. Life passes quickly. It -does not turn back." He ended with a short harsh laugh. "This -is Fear," he said. "Fear clears a man's mind of rubbish and -non-essentials. It is because I am AFRAID that I accuse myself. And -it is not for myself or you but for the whole world which before -the end comes will seem to fall into fragments." - -"You have been seeing ominous signs?" the Duchess said leaning -forward and speaking low. - -"There have been affectionate visits to Vienna. There is a certain -thing in the air--in the arrogance of the bearing of men clanking -their sabres as they stride through the streets. There is -an exultant eagerness in their eyes. Things are said which hold -scarcely concealed braggart threats. They have always been given -to that sort of thing--but now it strikes one as a thing unleashed--or -barely leashed at all. The background of the sound of clashing -arms and the thudding of marching feet is more unendingly present. -One cannot get away from it. The great munition factories are -working night and day. In the streets, in private houses, in the -shops, one hears and recognizes signs. They are signs which might -not be clear to one who has not spent years in looking on with -interested eyes. But I have watched too long to see only the -surface of things. The nation is waiting for something--waiting." - -"What will be the pretext--what," the Duchess pondered. - -"Any pretext will do--or none--except that Germany must have what -she wants and that she is strong enough to take it--after forty -years of building her machine." - -"And we others have built none. We almost deserve whatever comes -to us." The old woman's face was darkly grave. - -"In three villages where I chance to be lord of the manor I have, -by means of my own, set lads drilling and training. It is supposed -to be a form of amusement and an eccentric whim of mine and it -is a change from eternal cricket. I have given prizes and made an -occasional speech on the ground that English brawn is so enviable -a possession that it ought to develop itself to the utmost. When -I once went to the length of adding that each Englishman should -be muscle fit and ready in case of England's sudden need, I saw -the lads grin cheerfully at the thought of England in any such -un-English plight. Their innocent swaggering belief that the -country is always ready for everything moved my heart of stone. -And it is men like myself who are to blame--not merely men of my -class, but men of my KIND. Those who have chosen to detach themselves -from everything but the living of life as it best pleased their -tastes or served their personal ambitions." - -"Are we going to be taught that man cannot argue without including -his fellow man? Are we going to be forced to learn it?" she said. - -"Yes--forced. Nothing but force could reach us. The race is -an undeveloped thing. A few centuries later it will have evolved -another sense. This century may see the first huge step--because -the power of a cataclysm sweeps it forward." - -He turned his glance towards the opening door. Robin came in with -some letters in her hand. He was vaguely aware that she wore an -aspect he was unfamiliar with. The girl of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had -in the past, as it went without saying, expressed the final note -of priceless simplicity and mode. The more finely simple she looked, -the more priceless. The unfamiliarity in her outward seeming lay -in the fact that her quiet dun tweed dress with its lines of white -at neck and wrists was not priceless though it was well made. It, -in fact, unobtrusively suggested that it was meant for service -rather than for adornment. Her hair was dressed closely and her -movements were very quiet. Coombe realized that her greeting of -him was delicately respectful. - -"I have finished the letters," she said to the Duchess. "I hope -they are what you want. Sometimes I am afraid----" - -"Don't be afraid," said the Duchess kindly. "You write very correct -and graceful little letters. They are always what I want. Have -you been out today?" - -"Not yet." Robin hesitated a little. "Have I your permission to -ask Mrs. James if it will be convenient to her to let Dowie go -with me for an hour?" - -"Yes," as kindly as before. "For two hours if you like. I shall -not drive this afternoon." - -"Thank you," said Robin and went out of the room as quietly as -she had entered it. - -When the door closed the Duchess was smiling at Lord Coombe. - -"I understand her," she said. "She is sustained and comforted by -her pretty air of servitude. She might use Dowie as her personal maid -and do next to nothing, but she waits upon herself and punctiliously -asks my permission to approach Mrs. James the housekeeper with -any request for a favour. Her one desire is to be sure that she -is earning her living as other young women do when they are paid -for their work. I should really like to pet and indulge her, -but it would only make her unhappy. I invent tasks for her which -are quite unnecessary. For years the little shut-up soul has -been yearning and praying for this opportunity to stand honestly -on her own feet and she can scarcely persuade herself that it has -been given to her. It must not be spoiled for her. I send her on -errands my maid could perform. I have given her a little room with -a serious business air. It is full of files and papers and she -sits in it and copies things for me and even looks over accounts. -She is clever at looking up references. I have let her sit up quite -late once or twice searching for detail and dates for my use. It -made her bloom with joy." - -"You are quite the most delightful woman in the world," said Coombe. -"Quite." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - - - - - - -In the serious little room the Duchess had given to her Robin -built for herself a condition she called happiness. She drew the -spiritual substance from which it was made from her pleasure in -the books of reference closely fitted into their shelves, in the -files for letters and more imposing documents, in the varieties -of letter paper and envelopes of different sizes and materials -which had been provided for her use in case of necessity. - -"You may not use the more substantial ones often, but you must be -prepared for any unexpected contingency," the Duchess had explained, -thereby smoothing her pathway by the suggestion of responsibilities. - -The girl did not know the extent of her employer's consideration -for her, but she knew that she was kind with a special grace -and comprehension. A subtle truth she also did not recognize was -that the remote flame of her own being was fiercely alert in its -readiness to leap upward at any suspicion that her duties were -not worth the payment made for them and that for any reason which -might include Lord Coombe she was occupying a position which was -a sinecure. She kept her serious little room in order herself, -dusting and almost polishing the reference books, arranging and -re-arranging the files with such exactness of system that she -could--as is the vaunt of the model of orderly perfection--lay her -hand upon any document "in the dark." She was punctuality's self -and held herself in readiness at any moment to appear at the -Duchess' side as if a magician had instantaneously transported her -there before the softly melodious private bell connected with her -room had ceased to vibrate. The correctness of her to deference -to the convenience of Mrs. James the housekeeper in her simplest -communication with Dowie quite touched that respectable person's -heart. - -"She's a young lady," Mrs. James remarked to Dowie. "And a credit -to you and her governess, Mrs. Dowson. Young ladies have gone -almost out of fashion." - -"Mademoiselle Valle had spent her governessing days among the -highest. My own places were always with gentle-people. Nothing -ever came near her that could spoil her manners. A good heart she -was born with," was the civil reply of Dowie. - -"Nothing ever came NEAR her--?" Mrs. James politely checked what -she became conscious was a sort of unconscious exclamation. - -"Nothing," said Dowie going on with her sheet hemming steadily. - -Robin wrote letters and copied various documents for the Duchess, -she went shopping with her and executed commissions to order. -She was allowed to enter into correspondence with the village -schoolmistress and the wife of the Vicar at Darte Norham and to buy -prizes for notable decorum and scholarship in the school, and baby -linen and blankets for the Maternity Bag and other benevolences. She -liked buying prizes and the baby clothes very much because--though -she was unaware of the fact--her youth delighted in youngness and the -fulfilling of young desires. Even oftener and more significantly -than ever did eyes turn towards her--try to hold hers--look after -her eagerly when she walked in the streets or drove with the -Duchess in the high-swung barouche. More and more she became used -to it and gradually she ceased to be afraid of it and began to feel -it nearly always--there were sometimes exceptions--a friendly thing. - -She saw friendliness in it because when she caught sight as she so -often did of young things like herself passing in pairs, laughing -and talking and turning to look into each other's eyes, her being -told her that it was sweet and human and inevitable. They always -turned and looked at each other--these pairs--and then they smiled -or laughed or flushed a little. As she had not known when first -she recognized, as she looked down into the street from her nursery -window, that the children nearly always passed in twos or threes -and laughed and skipped and talked, so she did not know when -she first began to notice these joyous young pairs and a certain -touch of exultation in them and feel that it was sweet and quite -a simple common natural thing. Her noting and being sometimes -moved by it was as natural as her pleasure in the opening of spring -flowers or the new thrill of spring birds--but she did not know -that either. - -The brain which has worked through many years in unison with the -soul to which it was apportioned has evolved a knowledge which -has deep cognizance of the universal law. The brain of the old -Duchess had so worked, keeping pace always with its guide, never -visualizing the possibility of working alone, also never falling -into the abyss of that human folly whose conviction is that all -that one sees and gives a special name to is all that exists--or -that the names accepted by the world justly and clearly describe -qualities, yearnings, moods, as they are. This had developed -within her wide perception and a wisdom which was sane and kind -to tenderness. - -As she drove through the streets with Robin beside her she saw -the following eyes, she saw the girl's soft friendly look at the -young creatures who passed her glowing and uplifted by the joy of -life, and she was moved and even disturbed. - -After her return from one particular morning's outing she sent -for Dowie. - -"You have taken care of Miss Robin since she was a little child?" -she began. - -"She was not quite six when I first went to her, your grace." - -"You are not of the women who only feed and bathe a child and keep -her well dressed. You have been a sort of mother to her." - -"I've tried to, your grace. I've loved her and watched over her -and she's loved me, I do believe." - -"That is why I want to talk to you about her, Dowie. If you were -the woman who merely comes and goes in a child's life, I could -not. She is--a very beautiful young thing, Dowie." - -"From her little head to her slim bits of feet, your grace. No -one knows better than I do." - -The Duchess' renowned smile revealed itself. - -"A beautiful young thing ought to see and know other beautiful young -things and make friends with them. That is one of the reasons for -their being put in the world. Since she has been with me she has -spoken to no one under forty. Has she never had young friends?" - -"Never, your grace. Once two--young baggages--were left to have -tea with her and they talked to her about divorce scandals and -corespondents. She never wanted to see them again." Dowie's face -set itself in lines of perfectly correct inexpressiveness and she -added, "They set her asking me questions I couldn't answer. And -she broke down because she suddenly understood why. No, your grace, -she's not known those of her own age." - -"She is--of the ignorance of a child," the Duchess thought it out -slowly. - -"She thinks not, poor lamb, but she is," Dowie answered. The -Duchess' eyes met hers and they looked at each other for a moment. -Dowie tried to retain a non-committal steadiness and the Duchess -observing the intention knew that she was free to speak. - -"Lord Coombe confided to me that she had passed through a hideous -danger which had made a lasting impression on her," she said in -a low voice. "He told me because he felt it would explain certain -reserves and fears in her." - -"Sometimes she wakes up out of nightmares about it," said Dowie. -"And she creeps into my room shivering and I take her into my bed -and hold her in my arms until she's over the panic. She says the -worst of it is that she keeps thinking that there may have been -other girls trapped like her--and that they did not get away." - -The Duchess was very thoughtful. She saw the complications in -which such a horror would involve a girl's mind. - -"If she consorted with other young things and talked nonsense with -them and shared their pleasures she would forget it," she said. - -"Ah!" exclaimed Dowie. "That's it." - -The question in the Duchess' eyes when she lifted them required -an answer and she gave it respectfully. - -"The thing that happened was only the last touch put to what she'd -gradually been finding out as she grew from child to young girl. -The ones she would like to know--she said it in plain words once to -Mademoiselle--might not want to know her. I must take the liberty -of speaking plain, your grace, or it's no use me speaking at all. -She holds it deep in her mind that she's a sort of young outcast." - -"I must convince her that she is not--." It was the beginning of -what the Duchess had meant to say, but she actually found herself -pausing, held for the moment by Dowie's quiet, civil eye. - -"Was your grace in your kindness thinking--?" was what the excellent -woman said. - -"Yes. That I would invite young people to meet her--help them to -know each other and to make friends." And even as she said it she -was conscious of being slightly under the influence of Dowie's -wise gaze. - -"Your grace only knows those young people she would like to know." -It was a mere simple statement. - -"People are not as censorious as they once were." Her grace's tone -was intended to reply to the suggestion lying in the words which -had worn the air of statement without comment. - -"Some are not, but some are," Dowie answered. "There's two worlds -in London now, your grace. One is your grace's and one is Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless'. I HAVE heard say there are others between, but -I only know those two." - -The Duchess pondered again. - -"You are thinking that what Miss Robin said to Mademoiselle Valle -might be true--in mine. And perhaps you are not altogether wrong -even if you are not altogether right." - -"Until I went to take care of Miss Robin I had only had places -in families Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' set didn't touch anywhere. What -I'm remembering is that there was a--strictness--shown sometimes -even when it seemed a bit harsh. Among the servants the older ones -said that is was BECAUSE of the new sets and their fast wicked -ways. One of my young ladies once met another young lady about -her own age--she was just fifteen--at a charity bazaar and they -made friends and liked each other very much. The young lady's -mother was one there was a lot of talk about in connection with a -person of very high station--the highest, your grace--and everyone -knew. The girl was a lovely little creature and beautifully -behaved. It was said her mother wanted to push her into the world -she couldn't get into herself. The acquaintance was stopped, your -grace--it was put a stop to at once. And my poor little young lady -quite broke her heart over it, and I heard it was much worse for -the other." - -"I will think this over," the Duchess said. "It needs thinking -over. I wished to talk to you because I have seen that she has fixed -little ideas regarding what she thinks is suited to her position -as a paid companion and she might not be prepared. I wish you to -see that she has a pretty little frock or so which she could wear -if she required them." - -"She has two, your grace," Dowie smiled affectionately as she said -it. "One for evening and one for special afternoon wear in case -your grace needed her to attend you for some reason. They are as -plain as she dare make them, but when she puts one on she can't -help giving it A LOOK." - -"Yes--she would give it all it needed," her grace said. "Thank -you, Dowie. You may go." - -With her sketch of a respectful curtsey Dowie went towards the -door. As she approached it her step became slower; before she -reached it she had stopped and there was a remarkable look on her -face--a suddenly heroic look. She turned and made several steps -backward and paused again which unexpected action caused the Duchess -to turn to glance at her. When she glanced her grace recognized -the heroic look and waited, with a consciousness of some slight -new emotion within herself, for its explanation. - -"Your grace," Dowie began, asking God himself to give courage if -she was doing right and to check her if she was making a mistake, -"When your grace was thinking of the parents of other young ladies -and gentlemen--did it come to you to put it to yourself whether -you'd be willing--" she caught her breath, but ended quite -clearly, respectfully, reasonably. "Lady Kathryn--Lord Halwyn--" -Lady Kathryn was the Duchess' young granddaughter, Lord Halwyn -was her extremely good-looking grandson who was in the army. - -The Duchess understood what the heroic look had meant, and her -respect for it was great. Its intention had not been to suggest -inclusion of George and Kathryn in her pun, it had only with pure -justice put it to her to ask herself what her own personal decision -in such a matter would be. - -"You do feel as if you were her mother," she said. "And you are a -practical, clear-minded woman. It is only if I myself am willing -to take such a step that I have a right to ask it of other people. -Lady Lothwell is the mother I must speak to first. Her children -are mine though I am a mere grandmother." - -Lady Lothwell was her daughter and though she was not regarded -as Victorian either of the Early or the Middle periods, Dowie as -she returned to her own comfortable quarters wondered what would -happen. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - - - - - -What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been -possible for a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest -mother of her day and have emerged from her training either -obstinate or illogical. Lady Lothwell listened to as much of the -history of Robin as her mother chose to tell her and plainly felt -an amiable interest in it. She knew much more detail and gossip -concerning Mrs. Gareth-Lawless than the Duchess herself did. She -had heard of the child who was kept out of sight, and she had -been somewhat disgusted by a vague story of Lord Coombe's abnormal -interest in it and the ugly hint that he had an object in view. -It was too unpleasantly morbid to be true of a man her mother had -known for years. - -"Of course you were not thinking of anything large or formal?" -she said after a moment of smiling hesitation. - -"No. I am not launching a girl into society. I only want to help -her to know a few nice young people who are good-natured and -well-mannered. She is not the ordinary old lady's companion and -if she were not so strict with herself and with me, I confess I -should behave towards her very much as I should behave to Kathryn -if you could spare her to live with me. She is a heart-warming -young thing. Because I am known to have one of my eccentric fancies -for her and because after all her father WAS well connected, her -present position will not be the obstacle. She is not the first -modern girl who has chosen to support herself." - -"But isn't she much too pretty?" - -"Much. But she doesn't flaunt it." - -"But heart-warming--and too pretty! Dearest mamma!" Lady Lothwell -laughed again. "She can do no harm to Kathryn, but I own that -if George were not at present quite madly in love with a darling -being at least fifteen years older than himself I should pause -to reflect. Mrs. Stacy will keep him steady--Mrs. Alan Stacy, you -know--the one with the magnificent henna hair, and the eyes that -droop. No boy of twenty-two can resist her. They call her adorers -'The Infant School'." - -"A small dinner and a small dance--and George and Kathryn may be -the beginning of an interesting experiment. It would be pretty -and kind of you to drop in during the course of the evening." - -"Are you hoping to--perhaps--make a marriage for her?" Lady Lothwell -asked the question a shade disturbedly. "You are so amazing, -mamma darling, that I know you will do it, if you believe in it. -You seem to be able to cause the things you really want, to evolve -from the universe." - -"She is the kind of girl whose place in the universe is in the -home of some young man whose own place in the universe is in the -heart and soul and life of her kind of girl. They ought to carry -out the will of God by falling passionately in love with each -other. They ought to marry each other and have a large number of -children as beautiful and rapturously happy as themselves. They -would assist in the evolution of the race." - -"Oh! Mamma! how delightful you always are! For a really brilliant -woman you are the most adorable dreamer in the world." - -"Dreams are the only things which are true. The rest are nothing -but visions." - -"Angel!" her daughter laughed a little adoringly as she kissed -her. "I will do whatever you want me to do. I always did, didn't -I? It's your way of making one see what you see when you are -talking that does it." - -It was understood before they parted that Kathryn and George would -be present at the small dinner and the small dance, and that a -few other agreeable young persons might be trusted to join them, -and that Lady Lothwell and perhaps her husband would drop in. - -"It's your being almost Early Victorian, mamma, which makes it -easy for you to initiate things. You will initiate little Miss -Lawless. It was rather neat of her to prefer to drop the 'Gareth.' -There has been less talk in late years of the different classes -'keeping their places'--'upper' and 'lower' classes really strikes -one as vulgar." - -"We may 'keep our places'," the Duchess said. "We may hold on to -them as firmly as we please. It is the places themselves which -are moving, my dear. It is not unlike the beginning of a landslide." - -Robin went to Dowie's room the next evening and stood a moment in -silence watching her sewing before she spoke. She looked anxious -and even pale. - -"Her grace is going to give a party to some young people, Dowie," -she said. "She wishes me to be present. I--I don't know what to -do." - -"What you must do, my dear, is to put on your best evening frock -and go downstairs and enjoy yourself as the other young people -will. Her grace wants you to see someone your own age," was Dowie's -answer. - -"But I am not like the others. I am only a girl earning her living -as a companion. How do I know--" - -"Her grace knows," Dowie said. "And what she asks you to do it is -your duty to do--and do it prettily." - -Robin lost even a shade more colour. - -"Do you realize that I have never been to a party in my life--not -even to a children's party, Dowie? I shall not know how to behave -myself." - -"You know how to talk nicely to people, and you know how to sit -down and rise from your chair and move about a room like a quiet -young lady. You dance like a fairy. You won't be asked to do -anything more." - -"The Duchess," reflected Robin aloud slowly, "would not let me -come downstairs if she did not know that people would--be kind." - -"Lady Kathryn and Lord Halwyn are coming. They are her own -grandchildren," Dowie said. - -"How did you know that?" Robin inquired. - -Robin's colour began to come back. - -"It's not what usually happens to girls in situations," she said. - -"Her grace herself isn't what usually happens," said Dowie. "There -is no one like her for high wisdom and kindness." - -Having herself awakened to the truth of this confidence-inspiring -fact, Robin felt herself supported by it. One knew what -far-sighted perception and clarity of experienced vision this one -woman had gained during her many years of life. If she had elected -to do this thing she had seen her path clear before her and was not -offering a gift which awkward chance might spoil or snatch away -from the hand held out to receive it. A curious slow warmth began -to creep about Robin's heart and in its mounting gradually fill -her being. It was true she had been taught to dance, to move about -and speak prettily. She had been taught a great many things which -seemed to be very carefully instilled into her mind and body without -any special reason. She had not been aware that Lord Coombe and -Mademoiselle Valle had directed and discussed her training as if -it had been that of a young royal person whose equipment must be -a flawless thing. If the Dowager Duchess of Darte had wished to -present her at Court some fair morning she would have known the -length of the train she must wear, where she must make her curtseys -and to whom and to what depth, how to kiss the royal hand, and -how to manage her train when she retired from the presence. When -she had been taught this she had asked Mademoiselle Valle if the -training was part of every girl's education and Mademoiselle had -answered, - -"It is best to know everything--even ceremonials which may or may -not prove of use. It all forms part of a background and prevents -one from feeling unfamiliar with customs." - -When she had passed the young pairs in the streets she had found -an added interest in them because of this background. She could -imagine them dancing together in fairy ball rooms whose lights -and colours her imagination was obliged to construct for her out -of its own fabric; she knew what the girls would look like if they -went to a Drawing Room and she often wondered if they would feel -shy when the page spread out their lovely peacock tails for them -and left them to their own devices. It was mere Nature that she -should have pondered and pondered and sometimes unconsciously -longed to feel herself part of the flood of being sweeping past -her as she stood apart on the brink of the river. - -The warmth about her heart made it beat a little faster. She opened -the door of her wardrobe when she found herself in her bedroom. The -dress hung modestly in its corner shrouded from the penetration of -London fogs by clean sheeting. It was only white and as simple as -she knew how to order it, but Mademoiselle had taken her to a young -French person who knew exactly what she was doing in all cases, -and because the girl had the supple lines of a wood nymph and the -eyes of young antelope she had evolved that which expressed her -as a petal expresses its rose. Robin locked her door and took the -dress down and found the silk stockings and slippers which belonged -to it. She put them all on standing before her long mirror and -having left no ungiven last touch she fell a few steps backward and -looked at herself, turning and balancing herself as a bird might -have done. She turned lightly round and round. - -"Yes. I AM--" she said. "I am--very!" - -The next instant she laughed at herself outright. - -"How silly! How silly!" she said. "Almost EVERYBODY is--more -or less! I wonder if I remember the new steps." For she had been -taught the new steps--the new walking and swayings and pauses and -sudden swirls and swoops. And her new dress was as short as other -fashionable girls' dresses were, but in her case revealed a haunting -delicacy of contour and line. - -So before her mirror she danced alone and as she danced her lips -parted and her breast rose and fell charmingly, and her eyes -lighted and glowed as any girl's might have done or as a joyous -girl nymph's might have lighted as she danced by a pool in her -forest seeing her loveliness mirrored there. - -Something was awakening as something had awakened when Donal had -kissed a child under the soot sprinkled London trees. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - - - - - -The whole day before the party was secretly exciting to Robin. -She knew how much more important it seemed to her than it really -was. If she had been six years old she might have felt the same -kind of uncertain thrills and tremulous wonders. She hid herself -behind the window curtains in her room that she might see the -men putting up the crimson and white awning from the door to the -carriage step. The roll of red carpet they took from their van had -a magic air. The ringing of the door bell which meant that things -were being delivered, the extra moving about of servants, the -florists' men who went into the drawing-rooms and brought flowers -and big tropical plants to re-arrange the conservatory and fill -corners which were not always decorated--each and every one of -them quickened the beating of her pulses. If she had belonged in -her past to the ordinary cheerful world of children, she would -have felt by this time no such elation. But she had only known of -the existence of such festivities as children's parties because once -a juvenile ball had been given in a house opposite her mother's -and she had crouched in an almost delirious little heap by the -nursery window watching carriages drive up and deposit fluffy pink -and white and blue children upon the strip of red carpet, and had -seen them led or running into the house. She had caught sounds -of strains of music and had shivered with rapture--but Oh! what -worlds away from her the party had been. - -She found her way into the drawing-rooms which were not usually thrown -open. They were lofty and stately and seemed to her immense. There -were splendid crystal-dropping chandeliers and side lights which -she thought looked as if they would hold a thousand wax candles. -There was a delightfully embowered corner for the musicians. It -was all spacious and wonderful in its beautiful completeness--its -preparedness for pleasure. She realized that all of it had always -been waiting to be used for the happiness of people who knew -each other and were young and ready for delight. When the young -Lothwells had been children they had had dances and frolicking -games with other children in the huge rooms and had kicked up -their young heels on the polished floors at Christmas parties and -on birthdays. How wonderful it must have been. But they had not -known it was wonderful. - -As Dowie dressed her the reflection she saw in the mirror gave back -to her an intensified Robin whose curved lips almost quivered as -they smiled. The soft silk of her hair looked like the night and -the small rings on the back of her very slim white neck were things -to ensnare the eye and hold it helpless. - -"You look your best, my dear," Dowie said as she clasped her little -necklace. "And it is a good best." Dowie was feeling tremulous -herself though she could not have explained why. She thought that -perhaps it was because she wished that Mademoiselle could have -been with her. - -Robin kissed her when the last touch had been given. - -"I'm going to run down the staircase," she said. "If I let myself -walk slowly I shall have time to feel queer and shy and I might -seem to CREEP into the drawing-room. I mustn't creep in. I must -walk in as if I had been to parties all my life." - -She ran down and as she did so she looked like a white bird -flying, but she was obliged to stop upon the landing before the -drawing-room door to quiet a moment of excited breathing. Still -when she entered the room she moved as she should and held her head -poised with a delicately fearless air. The Duchess--who herself -looked her best in her fine old ivory profiled way--gave her a -pleased smile of welcome which was almost affectionate. - -"What a perfect little frock!" she said. "You are delightfully -pretty in it." - -"Is it quite right?" said Robin. "Mademoiselle chose it for me." - -"It is quite right. 'Frightfully right,' George would say. George -will sit near you at dinner. He is my grandson--Lord Halwyn you -know, and you will no doubt frequently hear him say things are -'frightfully' something or other during the evening. Kathryn will -say things are 'deevy' or 'exquig'. I mention it because you may -not know that she means 'exquisite' and 'divine.' Don't let it -frighten you if you don't quite understand their language. They -are dear handsome things sweeping along in the rush of their bit -of century. I don't let it frighten me that their world seems to -me an entirely new planet." - -Robin drew a little nearer her. She felt something as she had -felt years ago when she had said to Dowie. "I want to kiss you, -Dowie." Her eyes were pools of childish tenderness because she -so well understood the infinitude of the friendly tact which drew -her within its own circle with the light humour of its "I don't -let them frighten ME." - -"You are kind--kind to me," she said. "And I am grateful--GRATEFUL." - -The extremely good-looking young people who began very soon to -drift into the brilliant big room--singly or in pairs of brother -and sister--filled her with innocent delight. They were so well -built and gaily at ease with each other and their surroundings, so -perfectly dressed and finished. The filmy narrowness of delicate -frocks, the shortness of skirts accentuated the youth and girlhood and -added to it a sort of child fairy-likeness. Kathryn in exquisite -wisps of silver-embroidered gauze looked fourteen instead of -nearly twenty--aided by a dimple in her cheek and a small tilted -nose. A girl in scarlet tulle was like a child out of a nursery -ready to dance about a Christmas tree. Everyone seemed so young -and so suggested supple dancing, perhaps because dancing was going -on everywhere and all the world whether fashionable or unfashionable -was driven by a passion for whirling, swooping and inventing new -postures and fantastic steps. The young men had slim straight -bodies and light movements. Their clothes fitted their suppleness -to perfection. Robin thought they all looked as if they had had -a great deal of delightful exercise and plenty of pleasure all -their lives. - -They were of that stream which had always seemed to be rushing -past her in bright pursuit of alluring things which belonged to -them as part of their existence, but which had had nothing to do -with her own youth. Now the stream had paused as if she had for -the moment some connection with it. The swift light she was used -to seeing illuminate glancing eyes as she passed people in the -street, she saw again and again as new arrivals appeared. Kathryn -was quite excited by her eyes and eyelashes and George hovered -about. There was a great deal of hovering. At the dinner table -sleek young heads held themselves at an angle which allowed of -their owners seeing through or around, or under floral decorations -and alert young eyes showed an eager gleam. After dinner was -over and dancing began the Duchess smiled shrewdly as she saw the -gravitating masculine movement towards a certain point. It was -the point where Robin stood with a small growing circle about her. - -It was George who danced with her first. He was tall and slender -and flexible and his good shoulders had a military squareness of -build. He had also a nice square face, and a warmly blue eye and -knew all the latest steps and curves and unexpected swirls. Robin -was an ozier wand and there was no swoop or dart or sudden sway -and change she was not alert at. The swing and lure of the music, -the swift movement, the fluttering of airy draperies as slim sister -nymphs flew past her, set her pulses beating with sweet young joy. -A brief, uncontrollable ripple of laughter broke from her before -she had circled the room twice. - -"How heavenly it is!" she exclaimed and lifted her eyes to Halwyn's. -"How heavenly!" - -They were not safe eyes to lift in such a way to those of a very -young man. They gave George a sudden enjoyable shock. He had -heard of the girl who was a sort of sublimated companion to his -grandmother. The Duchess herself had talked to him a little about -her and he had come to the party intending to behave very amiably -and help the little thing enjoy herself. He had also encountered -before in houses where there were no daughters the smart well-born, -young companion who was allowed all sorts of privileges because -she knew how to assume tiresome little responsibilities and how -to be entertaining enough to add cheer and spice to the life of -the elderly and lonely. Sometimes she was a subtly appealing sort -of girl and given to being sympathetic and to liking sympathy and -quiet corners in conservatories or libraries, and sometimes she -was capable of scientific flirtation and required scientific -management. A man had to have his wits about him. This one as she -flew like a blown leaf across the floor and laughed up into his -face with wide eyes, produced a new effect and was a new kind. - -"It's you who are heavenly," he answered with a boy's laugh. "You -are like a feather--and a willow wand." - -"You are light too," she laughed back, "and you are like steel as -well." - -Mrs. Alan Stacy, the lady with the magnificent henna hair, had -recently given less time to him, being engaged in the preliminary -instruction of a new member of the Infant Class. Such things will, -of course, happen and though George had quite ingenuously raged -in secret, the circumstances left him free to "hover" and hovering -was a pastime he enjoyed. - -"Let us go on like this forever and ever," he said sweeping half -the length of the room with her and whirling her as if she were -indeed a leaf in the wind, "Forever and ever." - -"I wish we could. But the music will stop," she gave back. - -"Music ought never to stop--never," he answered. - -But the music did stop and when it began again almost immediately -another tall, flexible young man made a lightning claim on her -and carried her away only to hand her to another and he in his -turn to another. She was not allowed more than a moment's rest -and borne on the crest of the wave of young delight, she did not -need more. Young eyes were always laughing into hers and elating -her by a special look of pleasure in everything she did or said -or inspired in themselves. How was she informed without phrases -that for this exciting evening she was a creature without a flaw, -that the loveliness of her eyes startled those who looked into -them, that it was a thrilling experience to dance with her, that -somehow she was new and apart and wonderful? No sleek-haired, slim -and straight-backed youth said exactly any of these things to her, -but somehow they were conveyed and filled her with a wondering -realization of the fact that if they were true, they were no longer -dreadful and maddening, since they only made people like and want -to dance with one. To dance, to like people and be liked seemed -so heavenly natural and right--to be only like air and sky and -free, happy breathing. There was, it was true, a blissful little -uplifted look about her which she herself was not aware of, but -which was singularly stimulating to the masculine beholder. It only -meant indeed that as she whirled and swayed and swooped laughing -she was saying to herself at intervals, - -"This is what other girls feel like. They are happy like this. -I am laughing and talking to people just as other girls do. I am -Robin Gareth-Lawless, but I am enjoying a party like this--a YOUNG -party." - -Lady Lothwell sitting near her mother watched the trend of affairs -with an occasional queer interested smile. - -"Well, mamma darling," she said at last as youth and beauty whirled -by in a maelstrom of modern Terpsichorean liveliness, "she is a -great success. I don't know whether it is quite what you intended -or not." - -The Duchess did not explain what she had intended. She was watching -the trend also and thinking a good deal. On the whole Lady Lothwell -had scarcely expected that she would explain. She rarely did. She -seldom made mistakes, however. - -Kathryn in her scant gauzy strips of white and silver having -drifted towards them at the moment stood looking on with a funny -little disturbed expression on her small, tip-tilted face. - -"There's something ABOUT her, grandmamma," she said. - -"All the girls see it and no one knows what it is. She's sitting -out for a few minutes and just look at George--and Hal Brunton--and -Captain Willys. They are all laughing, of course, and pretending -to joke, but they would like to eat each other up. Perhaps it's -her eyelashes. She looks out from under them as if they were a -curtain." - -Lady Lothwell's queer little smile became a queer little laugh. - -"Yes. It gives her a look of being ecstatically happy and yet -almost shy and appealing at the same time. Men can't stand it of -course." - -"None of them are trying to stand it," answered little Lady Kathryn -somewhat in the tone of a retort. - -"I don't believe she knows she does it," Lady Lothwell said quite -reflectively. - -"She does not know at all. That is the worst of it," commented the -Duchess. - -"Then you see that there IS a worst," said her daughter. - -The Duchess glanced towards Kathryn, but fortunately the puzzled -fret of the girl's forehead was even at the moment melting into -a smile as a young man of much attraction descended upon her with -smiles of his own and carried her into the Tango or Fox Trot or -Antelope Galop, whichsoever it chanced to be. - -"If she were really aware of it that would be 'the worst' for -other people--for us probably. She could look out from under her -lashes to sufficient purpose to call what she wanted and take and -keep it. As she is not aware, it will make things less easy for -herself--under the circumstances." - -"The circumstance of being Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' daughter is not -an agreeable one," said Lady Lothwell. - -"It might give some adventurous boys ideas when they had time to -realize all it means. Do you know I am rather sorry for her myself. -I shouldn't be surprised if she were rather a dear little thing. -She looks tender and cuddle-some. Perhaps she is like the heroine -of a sentimental novel I read the other day. Her chief slave said -of her 'She walks into a man's heart through his eyes and sits -down there and makes a warm place which will never get cold again.' -Rather nice, I thought." - -The Duchess thought it rather nice also. - -"'Never get cold again,'" she repeated. "What a heavenly thing -to happen to a pair of creatures--if--" she paused and regarded -Robin, who at the other side of the room was trying to decide -some parlous question of dances to which there was more than one -claimant. She was sweetly puckering her brow over her card and -round her were youthful male faces looking eager and even a trifle -tense with repressed anxiety for the victory of the moment. - -"Oh!" Lady Lothwell laughed. "As Kitty says 'There's something -about her' and it's not mere eyelashes. You have let loose a germ -among us, mamma my sweet, and you can't do anything with a germ -when you have let it loose. To quote Kitty again, 'Look at George!'" - -The music which came from the bower behind which the musicians -were hidden seemed to gain thrill and wildness as the hours went -on. As the rooms grew warmer the flowers breathed out more reaching -scent. Now and again Robin paused for a moment to listen to strange -delightful chords and to inhale passing waves of something like -mignonette and lilies, and apple blossoms in the sun. She thought -there must be some flower which was like all three in one. The -rushing stream was carrying her with it as it went--one of the -happy petals on its surface. Could it ever cast her aside and -leave her on the shore again? While the violins went singing on -and the thousand wax candles shone on the faint or vivid colours -which mingled into a sort of lovely haze, it did not seem possible -that a thing so enchanting and so real could have an end at all. -All the other things in her life seemed less real tonight. - -In the conservatory there was a marble fountain which had long -years ago been brought from a palace garden in Rome. It was not -as large as it was beautiful and it had been placed among palms -and tropic ferns whose leaves and fronds it splashed merrily among -and kept deliciously cool and wet-looking. There was a quite -intoxicating hot-house perfume of warm damp moss and massed flowers -and it was the kind of corner any young man would feel it necessary -to gravitate towards with a partner. - -George led Robin to it and she naturally sat upon the edge of the -marble basin and as naturally drew off a glove and dipped her hand -into the water, splashing it a little because it felt deliciously -cool. George stood near at first and looked down at her bent head. -It was impossible not also to take in her small fine ear and the -warm velvet white of the lovely little nape of her slim neck. He -took them in with elated appreciation. He was not subtle minded -enough to be aware that her reply to a casual remark he had made -to her at dinner had had a remote effect upon him. - -"One of the loveliest creatures I ever saw was a Mrs. Gareth-Lawless," -he had said. "Are you related to her?" - -"I am her daughter," Robin had answered and with a slightly startled -sensation he had managed to slip into amiably deft generalities -while he had secretly wondered how much his grandmother knew or -did not know. - -An involuntary thought of Feather had crossed his mind once or -twice during the evening. This was the girl who, it was said, had -actually been saved up for old Coombe. Ugly morbid sort of idea -if it was true. How had the Duchess got hold of her and why and -what was Coombe really up to? Could he have some elderly idea -of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. -Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails. -He was not a desperate character, but he had been very intimate -with Mrs. Alan Stacy and her friends and it had made him careless. -Also Robin had drawn him--drawn him more than he knew. - -"Is it still heavenly?" he asked. (How pointed her fingers were -and how soft and crushable her hand looked as it splashed like a -child's.) - -"More heavenly every minute," she answered. He laughed outright. - -"The heavenly thing is the way you are enjoying it yourself. I -never saw a girl light up a whole room before. You throw out stars -as you dance." - -"That's like a skyrocket," Robin laughed back. "And it's because -in all my life I never went to a dance before." - -"Never! You mean except to children's parties?" - -"There were no children's parties. This is the first--first--first." - -"Well, I don't see how that happened, but I am glad it did because -it's been a great thing for me to see you at your first--first--first." - -He sat down on the fountain's edge near her. - -"I shall not forget it," he said. - -"I shall remember it as long as I live," said Robin and she lifted -her unsafe eyes again and smiled into his which made them still -more unsafe. - -Perhaps it was because he was extremely young, perhaps it was -because he was immoral, perhaps because he had never held a tight -rein on his fleeting emotions, even the next moment he felt that -it was because he was an idiot--but suddenly he found he had let -himself go and was kissing the warm velvet of the slim little -nape--had kissed it twice. - -He had not given himself time to think what would happen as a -result, but what did happen was humiliating and ridiculous. One -furious splash of the curled hand flung water into his face and -eyes and mouth while Robin tore herself free from him and stood -blazing with fury and woe--for it was not only fury he saw. - -"You--You--!" she cried and actually would have swooped to the -fountain again if he had not caught her arm. - -He was furious himself--at himself and at her. - -"You--little fool!" he gasped. "What did you do that for even if -I WAS a jackass? There was nothing in it. You're so pretty----" - -"You've spoiled everything!" she flamed, "everything--everything!" - -"I've spoiled nothing. I've only been a fool--and it's your own -fault for being so pretty." - -"You've spoiled everything in the world! Now--" with a desolate -horrible little sob, "now I can only go back--BACK!" - -He had a queer idea that she spoke as if she were Cinderella and -he had made the clock strike twelve. Her voice had such absolute -grief in it that he involuntarily drew near her. - -"I say," he was really breathless, "don't speak like that. I beg -pardon. I'll grovel! Don't--Oh! Kathryn--COME here." - -This last because at this difficult moment from between the banks -of hot-house bloom and round the big palms his sister Kathryn -suddenly appeared. She immediately stopped short and stared at -them both--looking from one to the other. - -"What is the matter?" she asked in a low voice. - -"Oh! COME and talk to her," George broke forth. "I feel as if she -might scream in a minute and call everybody in. I've been a lunatic -and she has apparently never been kissed before. Tell her--tell -her you've been kissed yourself." - -A queer little look revealed itself in Kathryn's face. A delicate -vein of her grandmother's wisdom made part of her outlook upon a -rapidly moving and exciting world. She had never been hide-bound -or dull and for a slight gauzy white and silver thing she was -astute. - -"Don't be impudent," she said to George as she walked up to Robin -and put a cool hand on her arm. "He's only been silly. You'd better -let him off," she said. She turned a glance on George who was -wiping his sleeve with a handkerchief and she broke into a small -laugh, "Did she push you into the fountain?" she asked cheerfully. - -"She threw the fountain at me," grumbled George. "I shall have to -dash off home and change." - -"I would," replied Kathryn still cheerful. "You can apologize -better when you're dry." - -He slid through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood -and gazed at each other. Robin's flame had died down and her face -had settled itself into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know -that she herself looked at her as the Duchess might have looked -at another girl in the quite different days of her youth. - -"I'll tell you something now he's gone," she said. "I HAVE been -kissed myself and so have other girls I know. Boys like George -don't really matter, though of course it's bad manners. But who -has got good manners? Things rush so that there's scarcely time -for manners at all. When an older man makes a snatch at you it's -sometimes detestable. But to push him into the fountain was a -good idea," and she laughed again. - -"I didn't push him in." - -"I wish you had," with a gleeful mischief. The next moment, however, -the hint of a worried frown showed itself on her forehead. "You -see," she said protestingly, "you are so FRIGHTFULLY pretty." - -"I'd rather be a leper," Robin shot forth. - -But Kathryn did not of course understand. - -"What nonsense!" she answered. "What utter rubbish! You know you -wouldn't. Come back to the ball room. I came here because my mother -was asking for George." - -She turned to lead the way through the banked flowers and as she -did so added something. - -"By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of -the Balkan countries. They are always assassinating people. They -like it. Lord Coombe has just come in and is talking it over with -grandmamma. I can see they are quite excited in their quiet way." - -As they neared the entrance to the ball room she paused a moment -with a new kind of impish smile. - -"Every girl in the room is absolutely shaky with thrills at this -particular moment," she said. "And every man feels himself bristling -a little. The very best looking boy in all England is dancing with -Sara Studleigh. He dropped in by chance to call and the Duchess -made him stay. He is a kind of miracle of good looks and takingness." - -Robin said nothing. She had plainly not been interested in the -Balkan tragedy and she as obviously did not care for the miracle. - -"You don't ask who he is?" said Kathryn. - -"I don't want to know." - -"Oh! Come! You mustn't feel as sulky as that. You'll want to ask -questions the moment you see him. I did. Everyone does. His name -is Donal Muir. He's Lord Coombe's heir. He'll be the Head of the -House of Coombe some day. Here he comes," quite excitedly, "Look!" - -It was one of the tricks of Chance--or Fate--or whatever you will. -The dance brought him within a few feet of them at that very moment -and the slow walking steps he was taking held him--they were some -of the queer stealthy almost stationary steps of the Argentine -Tango. He was finely and smoothly fitted as the other youngsters -were, his blond glossed head was set high on a heroic column of -neck, he was broad of shoulder, but not too broad, slim of waist, -but not too slim, long and strong of leg, but light and supple -and firm. He had a fair open brow and a curved mouth laughing to -show white teeth. Robin felt he ought to wear a kilt and plaid and -that an eagle's feather ought to be standing up from a chieftain's -bonnet on the fair hair which would have waved if it had been -allowed length enough. He was scarcely two yards from her now and -suddenly--almost as if he had been called--he turned his eyes away -from Sara Studleigh who was the little thing in Christmas tree -scarlet. They were blue like the clear water in a tarn when the -sun shines on it and they were still laughing as his mouth was. -Straight into hers they laughed--straight into hers. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - - - - - -Through all aeons since all the worlds were made it is at least not -unthinkable that in all the worlds of which our own atom is one, -there has ruled a Force illimitable, unconquerable and inexplicable -and whichsoever its world and whatsoever the sign denoting or the -name given it, the Force--the Thing has been the same. Upon our -own atom of the universe it is given the generic name of Love and -its existence is that which the boldest need not defy, the most profound -need not attempt to explain with clarity, the most brilliantly -sophistical to argue away. Its forms of beauty, triviality, -magnificence, imbecility, loveliness, stupidity, holiness, purity -and bestiality neither detract from nor add to its unalterable -power. As the earth revolves upon its axis and reveals night and -day, Spring, Summer and Winter, so it reveals this ceaselessly -working Force. Men who were as gods have been uplifted or broken -by it, fools have trifled with it, brutes have sullied it, saints -have worshipped, poets sung and wits derided it. As electricity -is a force death dealing, or illuminating and power bestowing, so -is this Great Impeller, and it is fatuous--howsoever worldly wise -or moderately sardonic one would choose to be--to hint ironically -that its proportions are less than the ages have proved them. -Whether a world formed without a necessity for the presence and -assistance of this psychological factor would have been a better -or a worse one, it is--by good fortune--not here imperative that -one should attempt to decide. What is--exists. None of us created -it. Each one will deal with the Impeller as he himself either -sanely or madly elects. He will also bear the consequences--and so -also may others. - -Of this force the Head of the House of Coombe and his old friend -knew much and had often spoken to each other. They had both been -accustomed to recognizing its signs subtle or crude, and watching -their development. They had seen it in the eyes of creatures young -enough to be called boys and girls, they had heard it in musical -laughter and in silly giggles, they had seen it express itself in -tragedy and comedy and watched it end in union or in a nothingness -which melted away like a wisp of fog. But they knew it was a thing -omnipresent and that no one passed through life untouched by it -in some degree. - -Years before this evening two children playing in a garden had -not know that the Power--the Thing--drew them with its greatest -strength because among myriads of atoms they two were created for -oneness. Enraptured and unaware they played together, their souls -and bodies drawn nearer each other every hour. - -So it was that--without being portentous--one may say that when -an unusually beautiful and unusually well dressed and perfectly -fitted young man turned involuntarily in the particular London ball -room in which Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' daughter watched the dancers, -and looked unintentionally into the eyes of a girl standing -for a moment near the wide entrance doors, the inexplicable and -unconquerable Force reconnected its currents again. - -Donal Muir's eyes only widened a little for a second's time. He -had not known why he had suddenly looked around and he did not -know why he was conscious of something which startled him a little. -You could not actually stare at a girl because your eyes chanced -to get entangled in hers for a second as you danced past her. It -was true she was of a startling prettiness and there was something--. -Yes, there was SOMETHING which drew the eye and--. He did not know -what it was. It had actually given him a sort of electric shock. -He laughed at himself a little and then his open brow looked -puzzled for a moment. - -"You saw Miss Lawless," said Sara Studleigh who was at the moment -dancing prettily with him. She was guilty of something which might -have been called a slight giggle, but it was good-natured. "I -know, you saw Miss Lawless--the pretty one near the door." - -"There are so many pretty ones near everything. You can't lift your -eyes without seeing one," Donal answered. "What a lot of them!" -(The sense of having received a slight electric shock made you -feel that you must look again and find out what had caused it, he -was thinking.) - -"She is the one with the eyelashes." - -"I have eyelashes--so have you," looking down at hers with a very -taking expression. Hers were in fact nice ones. - -"But ours are not two inches long and they don't make a big soft -circle round our eyes when we look at anyone." - -"Please look up and let me see," said Donal. "When I asked you to -dance with me I thought--" - -What a "way" he had, Sara Studleigh was thinking. But "perhaps it -WAS the eyelashes" was passing through Donal's mind. Very noticeable -eyelashes were rather arresting. - -"I knew you saw her," said Sara Studleigh, "because I have happened -to be near two or three people this evening when they caught their -first sight of her." - -"What happens to them?" asked Donal Muir. - -"They forget where they are," she laughed, "and don't say anything -for a few seconds." - -"I should not want to forget where I am. It wouldn't be possible -either," answered Donal. ("But that was it," he thought. "For a -minute I forgot.") - -One should not dance with one girl and talk to her about another. -Wisely he led her to other subjects. The music was swinging through -the air performing its everlasting miracle of swinging young souls -and pulses with it, the warmed flowers breathed more perceptible -scent, sweet chatter and laughter, swaying colour and glowing eyes -concentrated in making magic. This beautiful young man's pulses -only beat with the rest--as one with the pulse of the Universe. -Lady Lothwell acting for the Duchess was very kind to him finding -him another partner as soon as a new dance began--this time her -own daughter, Lady Kathryn. - -Even while he had been tangoing with Sara Studleigh he had seen -the girl with the eyelashes, whirling about with someone, and -when he began his dance with Kathryn, he caught a glimpse of her -at the other end of the room. And almost immediately Kathryn spoke -of her. - -"I don't know when you will get a dance with Miss Lawless," she -said. "She is obliged to work out mathematical problems on her -programme." - -"I have a setter who fixes his eyes on you and waits without -moving until you look at him and then he makes a dart and you're -obliged to pat him," he said. "Perhaps if I go and stand near her -and do that she will take notice of me." - -"Take notice of him, the enslaving thing!" thought Kathryn. "She'd -jump--for all her talk about lepers--any girl would. He's TOO nice! -There's something about HIM too." - -Robin did not jump. She had no time to do it because one dance -followed another so quickly and some of them were even divided in -two or three pieces. But the thrill of the singing sound of the -violins behind the greenery, the perfume and stately spaces and -thousand candlelights had suddenly been lifted on to another plane -though she had thought they could reach no higher one. Her whole -being was a keen fine awareness. Every moment she was AWARE. After -all the years--from the far away days--he had come back. No one -had dreamed of the queer half abnormal secret she had always kept -to herself as a child--as a little girl--as a bigger one when she -would have died rather than divulge that in her loneliness there -had been something she had remembered--something she had held on -to--a memory which she had actually made a companion of, making -pictures, telling herself stories in the dark, even inventing -conversations which not for one moment had she thought would -or could ever take place. But they had been living things to her -and her one near warm comfort--closer, oh, so weirdly closer than -kind, kind Dowie and dearly beloved Mademoiselle. She had wondered -if the two would have disapproved if they had known--if Mademoiselle -would have been shocked if she had realized that sometimes when -they walked together there walked with them a growing, laughing -boy in a swinging kilt and plaid and that he had a voice and eyes -that drew the heart out of your breast for joy. At first he had -only been a child like herself, but as she had grown he had grown -with her--but always taller, grander, marvellously masculine and -beyond compare. Yet never once had she dared to believe or hope -that he could take form before her eyes--a living thing. He had -only been the shadow she had loved and which could not be taken -away from her because he was her secret and no one could ever know. - -The music went swinging and singing with notes which were almost a -pain. And he was in the very room with her! Donal! Donal! He had -not known and did not know. He had laughed into her eyes without -knowing--but he had come back. A young man now like all the rest, -but more beautiful. What a laugh, what wonderful shoulders, what -wonderful dancing, how long and strongly smooth and supple he was -in the line fabric of his clothes! Though her mind did not form -these things in words for her, it was only that her eyes saw all -the charm of him from head to foot, and told her that he was only -more than ever what he had been in the miraculous first days. - -"Perhaps he will not find out at all," she thought, dancing all -the while and trying to talk as well as think. "I was too little -for him to remember. I only remembered because I had nothing else. -Oh, if he should not find out!" She could not go and tell him. -Even if a girl could do such a thing, perhaps he could not recall -a childish incident of so long ago--such a small, small thing. It -had only been immense to her and so much water had flowed under -his bridge bearing so many flotillas. She had only stood and -looked down at a thin trickling stream which carried no ships at -all. It was very difficult to keep her eyes from stealing--even -darting--about in search of him. His high fair head with the -clipped wave in its hair could be followed if one dared be alert. -He danced with an auburn haired girl, he spun down the room with -a brown one, he paused for a moment to show the trick of a new step -to a tall one with black coils. He was at the end of the room, he -was tangoing towards her and she felt her heart beat and beat. -He passed close by and his eyes turned upon her and after he had -passed a queer little inner trembling would not cease. Oh! if he -had looked a little longer--if her partner would only carry her -past him! And how dreadful she was to let herself feel so excited -when he could not be EXPECTED to remember such a little thing--just -a baby playing with him in a garden. Oh!--her heart giving a leap--if -he would look--if he would LOOK! - -When did she first awaken to a realization--after what seemed years -and years of waiting and not being able to conquer the inwardly -trembling feeling--that he was BEGINNING to look--that somehow he -had become aware of her presence and that it drew his eyes though -there was no special recognition in them? Down the full length -of the room they met hers first, and again as he passed with yet -another partner. Then when he was resting between danced and being -very gay indeed--though somehow he always seemed gay. He had been -gay when they played in the Gardens. Yes, his eyes cane and found -her. She thought he spoke of her to someone near him. Of course -Robin looked away and tried not to look again too soon. But when -in spite of intention and even determination, something forced her -glance and made it a creeping, following glance--there were his -eyes again. She was frightened each time it happened, but he was -not. She began to know with new beatings of the pulse that he no -longer looked by chance, but because he wanted to see her--and -wished her to see him, as if he had begun to call to her with a -gay Donal challenge. It was like that, though his demeanour was -faultlessly correct. - -The incident of their meeting was faultlessly correct, also, when -after one of those endless lapses of time Lady Lothwell appeared -and presented him as if the brief ceremony were one of the most -ordinary in existence. The conventional grace of his bow said no -more than George's had said to those looking on, but when he put -his arm round her and they began to sway together in the dance, -Robin wondered in terror if he could not feel the beating of her -heart under his hand. If he could it would be horrible--but it -would not stop. To be so near--to try to believe it--to try to -make herself remember that she could mean nothing to him and that -it was only she who was shaking--for nothing! But she could not -help it. This was the disjointed kind of thing that flew past her -mental vision. She was not a shy girl, but she could not speak. -Curiously enough he also was quite silent for several moments. -They danced for a space without a word and they did not notice -that people began to watch them because they were an attracting -pair to watch. And the truth was that neither of the two knew in -the least what the other thought. - -"That--is a beautiful waltz," he said at last. He said it in a -low meaning voice as if it were a sort of emotional confidence. -He had not actually meant to speak in such a tone, but when he -realized what its sound had been he did not care in the least. -What was the matter with him? - -"Yes," Robin answered. (Only "Yes.") - -He had not known when he glanced at her first, he was saying -mentally. He could not, of course, swear to her now. But what an -extraordinary thing that--! She was like a swallow--she was like -any swift flying thing on a man's arm. One could go on to the end -of time. Once round the great ball room, twice, and as the third -round began he gave a little laugh and spoke again. - -"I am going to ask you a question. May I?" - -"Yes." - -"Is your name Robin?" - -"Yes," she could scarcely breathe it. - -"I thought it was," in the voice in which he had spoken of the -music. "I hoped it was--after I first began to suspect. I HOPED -it was." - -"It is--it is." - -"Did we--" he had not indeed meant that his arm should hold her -a shade closer, but--in spite of himself--it did because he was -after all so little more than a boy, "--did we play together in -a garden?" - -"Yes--yes," breathed Robin. "We did." Surely she heard a sound -as if he had caught a quick breath. But after it there were a few -more steps and another brief space of silence. - -"I knew," he said next, very low. "I KNEW that we played together -in a garden." - -"You did not know when you first looked at me tonight." Innocently -revealing that even his first glance had been no casual thing to -her. - -But his answer revealed something too. - -"You were near the door--just coming into the room. I didn't know -why you startled me. I kept looking for you afterwards in the -crowd." - -"I didn't see you look," said Robin softly, revealing still more -in her utter inexperience. - -"No, because you wouldn't look at me--you were too much engaged. -Do you like this step?" - -"I like them all." - -"Do you always dance like this? Do you always make your partner -feel as if he had danced with you all his life?" - -"It is--because we played together in the garden," said Robin -and then was quite terrified at herself. Because after all--after -all they were only two conventional young people meeting for the -first time at a dance, not knowing each other in the least. It -was really the first time. The meeting of two children could not -count. But the beating and strange elated inward tremor would not -stop. - -As for him he felt abnormal also and he was usually a very normal -creature. It was abnormal to be so excited that he found himself, -as it were, upon another plane, because he had recognized and was -dancing with a girl he had not seen since she was five or six. -It was not normal that he should be possessed by a desire to keep -near to her, overwhelmed by an impelling wish to talk to her--to -ask her questions. About what--about herself--themselves--the years -between--about the garden. - -"It began to come back bit by bit after I had two fair looks. You -passed me several times though you didn't know." (Oh! had she not -known!) "I had been promised some dances by other people. But I -went to Lady Lothwell. She's very kind." - -Back swept the years and it had all begun again, the wonderful -happiness--just as the anguish had swept back on the night her -mother had come to talk to her. As he had brought it into her -dreary little world then, he brought it now. He had the power. -She was so happy that she seemed to be only waiting to hear what -he would say--as if that were enough. There are phases like this--rare -ones--and it was her fate that through such a phase she was passing. - -It was indeed true that much more water had passed under his -bridge than under hers, but now--! Memory reproduced for him with -an acuteness like actual pain, a childish torment he thought he had -forgotten. And it was as if it had been endured only yesterday--and -as if the urge to speak and explain was as intense as it had been -on the first day. - -"She's very little and she won't understand," he had said to his -mother. "She's very little, really--perhaps she'll cry." - -How monstrous it had seemed! Had she cried--poor little soul! -He looked down at her eyelashes. Her cheek had been of the same -colour and texture then. That came back to him too. The impulse to -tighten his arms was infernally powerful--almost automatic. - -"She has no one but me to remember!" he heard his own child voice -saying fiercely. Good Lord, it WAS as if it had been yesterday. -He actually gulped something down in his throat. - -"You haven't rested much," he said aloud. "There's a conservatory -with marble seats and corners and a fountain going. Will you let -me take you there when we stop dancing? I want to apologize to -you." - -The eyelashes lifted themselves and made round her eyes the -big soft shadow of which Sara Studleigh had spoken. A strong and -healthy valvular organ in his breast lifted itself curiously at -the same time. - -"To apologize?" - -Was he speaking to her almost as if she were still four or five? -It was to the helplessness of those years he was about to explain--and -yet he did not feel as though he were still eight. - -"I want to tell you why I never came back to the garden. It was -a broken promise, wasn't it?" - -The music had not ceased, but they stopped dancing. - -"Will you come?" he said and she went with him like a child--just -as she had followed in her babyhood. It seemed only natural to do -what he asked. - -The conservatory was like an inner Paradise now. The tropically -scented warmth--the tiers on tiers of bloom above bloom--the -softened swing of music--the splash of the fountain on water and -leaves. Their plane had lifted itself too. They could hear the -splashing water and sometimes feel it in the corner seat of marble -he took her to. A crystal drop fell on her hand when she sat down. -The blue of his eyes was vaguely troubled and he spoke as if he -were not certain of himself. - -"I was wakened up in what seemed to me the middle of the night," -he said, as if indeed the thing had happened only the day before. -"My mother was obliged to go back suddenly to Scotland. I was only -a little chap, but it nearly finished me. Parents and guardians -don't understand how gigantic such a thing can be. I had promised -you--we had promised each other--hadn't we?" - -"Yes," said Robin. Her eyes were fixed upon his face--open and -unmoving. Such eyes! Such eyes! All the touchingness of the past -was in their waiting on his words. - -"Children--little boys especially--are taught that they must not -cry out when they are hurt. As I sat in the train through the -journey that day I thought my heart would burst in my small breast. -I turned my back and stared out of the window for fear my mother -would see my face. I'd always loved her. Do you know I think that -just then I HATED her. I had never hated anything before. Good -Lord! What a thing for a little chap to go through! My mother was -an angel, but she didn't KNOW." - -"No," said Robin in a small strange voice and without moving her -gaze. "She didn't KNOW." - -He had seated himself on a sort of low marble stool near her and -he held a knee with clasped hands. They were hands which held each -other for the moment with a sort of emotional clinch. His position -made him look upward at her instead of down. - -"It was YOU I was wild about," he said. "You see it was YOU. I -could have stood it for myself. The trouble was that I felt I was -such a big little chap. I thought I was years--ages older than -you--and mountains bigger," his faint laugh was touched with pity -for the smallness of the big little chap. "You seemed so tiny and -pretty--and lonely." - -"I was as lonely as a new-born bird fallen out of its nest." - -"You had told me you had 'nothing.' You said no one had ever kissed -you. I'd been loved all my life. You had a wondering way of fixing -your eyes on me as if I could give you everything--perhaps it was -a coxy little chap's conceit that made me love you for it--but -perhaps it wasn't." - -"You WERE everything," Robin said--and the mere simpleness of -the way in which she said it brought the garden so near that he -smelt the warm hawthorn and heard the distant piano organ and it -quickened his breath. - -"It was because I kept seeing your eyes and hearing your laugh -that I thought my heart was bursting. I knew you'd go and wait for -me--and gradually your little face would begin to look different. -I knew you'd believe I'd come. 'She's little'--that was what I kept -saying to myself again and again. 'And she'll cry--awfully--and -she'll think I did it. She'll never know.' There,"--he hesitated -a moment--"there was a kind of mad shame in it. As if I'd BETRAYED -your littleness and your belief, though I was too young to know -what betraying was." - -Just as she had looked at him before, "as if he could give her -everything," she was looking at him now. In what other way could -she look while he gave her this wonderful soothing, binding softly -all the old wounds with unconscious, natural touch because he had -really been all her child being had been irradiated and warmed -by. There was no pose in his manner--no sentimental or flirtatious -youth's affecting of a picturesque attitude. It was real and he -told her this thing because he must for his own relief. - -"Did you cry?" he said. "Did my little chap's conceit make too -much of it? I suppose I ought to hope it did." - -Robin put her hand softly against her heart. - -"No," she answered. "I was only a baby, but I think it KILLED -something--here." - -He caught a big hard breath. - -"Oh!" he said and for a few seconds simply sat and gazed at her. - -"But it came to life again?" he said afterwards. - -"I don't know. I don't know what it was. Perhaps it could only -live in a very little creature. But it was killed." - -"I say!" broke from him. "It was like wringing a canary's neck -when it was singing in the sun!" - -A sudden swelling of the music of a new dance swept in to them -and he rose and stood up before her. - -"Thank you for giving me my chance to tell you," he said. "This -was the apology. You have been kind to listen." - -"I wanted to listen," Robin said. "I am glad I didn't live a long -time and grow old and die without your telling me. When I saw you -tonight I almost said aloud, 'He's come back!'" - -"I'm glad I came. It's queer how one can live a thing over again. -There have been all the years between for us both. For me there's -been all a lad's life--tutors and Eton and Oxford and people and -lots of travel and amusement. But the minute I set eyes on you -near the door something must have begun to drag me back. I'll own -I've never liked to let myself dwell on that memory. It wasn't a -good thing because it had a trick of taking me back in a fiendish -way to the little chap with his heart bursting in the railway -carriage--and the betrayal feeling. It's morbid to let yourself -grouse over what can't be undone. So you faded away. But when I -danced past you somehow I knew I'd come on SOMETHING. It made me -restless. I couldn't keep my eyes away decently. Then all at once -I KNEW! I couldn't tell you what the effect was. There you were -again--I was as much obliged to tell you as I should have been if -I'd found you at Braemarnie when I got there that night. Conventions -had nothing to do with it. It would not have mattered even if -you'd obviously thought I was a fool. You might have thought so, -you know." - -"No, I mightn't," answered Robin. "There have been no Eton and -Oxford and amusements for me. This is my first party." - -She rose as he had done and they stood for a second or so with their -eyes resting on each other's--each with a young smile quivering -into life which neither was conscious of. It was she who first -wakened and came back. He saw a tiny pulse flutter in her throat -and she lifted her hand with a delicate gesture. - -"This dance was Lord Halwyn's and we've sat it out. We must go -back to the ball room." - -"I--suppose--we must," he answered with slow reluctance--but he -could scarcely drag his eyes away from hers--even though he obeyed, -and they turned and went. - -In the shining ball room the music rose and fell and swelled again -into ecstasy as he took her white young lightness in his arm and -they swayed and darted and swooped like things of the air--while -the old Duchess and Lord Coombe looked on almost unseeing and -talked in murmurs of Sarajevo. - -THE END - -PUBLISHERS' NOTE - -The inflexible limitations of magazine space necessitated the -omission--in its serial form--of so large a portion of THE -HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE as to eliminate much of the charm -of characterization and the creation of atmosphere and background -which add so greatly to the power and picturesqueness of the -author's work. - -These values having been unavoidably lost in a greatly compressed -version, it is the publishers' desire to produce the story in its -entirety, and, as during its writing it developed into what might -be regarded as two novels--so distinctly does it deal with two -epochs--it has been decided to present it to its public as two -separate books. The first, THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE, deals -with social life in London during the evolutionary period between -the late Victorian years and the reign of Edward VII and that of -his successor, previous to the Great War. It brings Lord Coombe -and Donal, Feather and her girl Robin to the summer of 1914. It -ends with the ending of a world which can never again be the same. -The second novel, ROBIN, to be published later continues the story -of the same characters, facing existence, however, in a world -transformed by tragedy, and in which new aspects of character, new -social, economic, and spiritual possibilities are to be confronted, -rising to the surface of life as from the depths of unknown seas. -Readers of THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE will follow -the story of Robin with intensified interest. - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Head of the House of Coombe, by -Frances Hodgson Burnett - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE *** - -***** This file should be named 6491.txt or 6491.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/9/6491/ - -Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team. - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a -donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** - - -Title: The Head of the House of Coombe - -Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett - -Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6491] -[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] -[This file was first posted on December 22, 2002] - -Edition: 10 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE *** - - - - -Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. - - - - - -THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE - -BY - -FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT - -NEW YORK - - - - - - -CHAPTER I - - - - - -The history of the circumstances about to be related began many -years ago--or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, years -before the world being rocked to and fro revealed in the pause -between each of its heavings some startling suggestion of a new -arrangement of its kaleidoscopic particles, and then immediately -a re-arrangement, and another and another until all belief in a -permanency of design seemed lost, and the inhabitants of the earth -waited, helplessly gazing at changing stars and colours in a degree -of mental chaos. - -Its opening incidents may be dated from a period when people -still had reason to believe in permanency and had indeed many of -them--sometimes through ingenuousness, sometimes through stupidity -of type--acquired a singular confidence in the importance and -stability of their possessions, desires, ambitions and forms of -conviction. - -London at the time, in common with other great capitals, felt -itself rather final though priding itself on being much more fluid -and adaptable than it had been fifty years previously. In speaking -of itself it at least dealt with fixed customs, and conditions -and established facts connected with them--which gave rise to -brilliant--or dull--witticisms. - -One of these, heard not infrequently, was to the effect that--in -London--one might live under an umbrella if one lived under it in -the right neighbourhood and on the right side of the street, which -axiom is the reason that a certain child through the first six -years of her life sat on certain days staring out of a window -in a small, dingy room on the top floor of a slice of a house on -a narrow but highly fashionable London street and looked on at -the passing of motors, carriages and people in the dull afternoon -grayness. - -The room was exalted above its station by being called The Day -Nursery and another room equally dingy and uninviting was known as -The Night Nursery. The slice of a house was inhabited by the very -pretty Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, its inordinate rent being reluctantly -paid by her--apparently with the assistance of those "ravens" who -are expected to supply the truly deserving. The rent was inordinate -only from the standpoint of one regarding it soberly in connection -with the character of the house itself which was a gaudy little -kennel crowded between two comparatively stately mansions. On one -side lived an inordinately rich South African millionaire, and -on the other an inordinately exalted person of title, which facts -combined to form sufficient grounds for a certain inordinateness -of rent. - -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was also, it may be stated, of the fibre -which must live on the right side of the street or dissolve into -nothingness--since as nearly nothingness as an embodied entity can -achieve had Nature seemingly created her at the outset. So light -and airy was the fair, slim, physical presentation of her being -to the earthly vision, and so almost impalpably diaphanous the -texture and form of mind and character to be observed by human -perception, that among such friends--and enemies--as so slight a -thing could claim she was prettily known as "Feather". Her real -name, "Amabel", was not half as charming and whimsical in its -appropriateness. "Feather" she adored being called and as it was -the fashion among the amazing if amusing circle in which she spent -her life, to call its acquaintances fantastic pet names selected -from among the world of birds, beasts and fishes or inanimate -objects--"Feather" she floated through her curious existence. And -it so happened that she was the mother of the child who so often -stared out of the window of the dingy and comfortless Day Nursery, -too much a child to be more than vaguely conscious in a chaotic way -that a certain feeling which at times raged within her and made her -little body hot and restless was founded on something like actual -hate for a special man who had certainly taken no deliberate steps -to cause her detestation. - - * * * * * - -"Feather" had not been called by that delicious name when she married -Robert Gareth-Lawless who was a beautiful and irresponsibly rather -than deliberately bad young man. She was known as Amabel Darrel -and the loveliest girl in the lovely corner of the island of Jersey -where her father, a country doctor, had begotten a large family of -lovely creatures and brought them up on the appallingly inadequate -proceeds of his totally inadequate practice. Pretty female things -must be disposed of early lest their market value decline. Therefore -a well-born young man even without obvious resources represents a -sail in the offing which is naturally welcomed as possibly belonging -to a bark which may at least bear away a burden which the back -carrying it as part of its pack will willingly shuffle on to other -shoulders. It is all very well for a man with six lovely daughters -to regard them as capital if he has money or position or generous -relations or if he has energy and an ingenious unfatigued mind. But -a man who is tired and neither clever nor important in any degree -and who has reared his brood in one of the Channel Islands with a -faded, silly, unattractive wife as his only aid in any difficulty, -is wise in leaving the whole hopeless situation to chance and luck. -Sometimes luck comes without assistance but--almost invariably--it -does not. - -"Feather"--who was then "Amabel"--thought Robert Gareth-Lawless -incredible good luck. He only drifted into her summer by merest -chance because a friend's yacht in which he was wandering about -"came in" for supplies. A girl Ariel in a thin white frock and with -big larkspur blue eyes yearning at you under her flapping hat as -she answers your questions about the best road to somewhere will -not be too difficult about showing the way herself. And there you -are at a first-class beginning. - -The night after she met Gareth-Lawless in a lane whose banks were -thick with bluebells, Amabel and her sister Alice huddled close -together in bed and talked almost pantingly in whispers over the -possibilities which might reveal themselves--God willing--through -a further acquaintance with Mr. Gareth-Lawless. They were eager and -breathlessly anxious but they were young--YOUNG in their eagerness -and Amabel was full of delight in his good looks. - -"He is SO handsome, Alice," she whispered actually hugging her, not -with affection but exultation. "And he can't be more than twenty-six -or seven. And I'm SURE he liked me. You know that way a man has of -looking at you--one sees it even in a place like this where there -are only curates and things. He has brown eyes--like dark bright -water in pools. Oh, Alice, if he SHOULD!" - -Alice was not perhaps as enthusiastic as her sister. Amabel had -seen him first and in the Darrel household there was a sort of -unwritten, not always observed code flimsily founded on "First come -first served." Just at the outset of an acquaintance one might -say "Hands off" as it were. But not for long. - -"It doesn't matter how pretty one is they seldom do," Alice -grumbled. "And he mayn't have a farthing." - -"Alice," whispered Amabel almost agonizingly, "I wouldn't -CARE a farthing--if only he WOULD! Have I a farthing--have you a -farthing--has anyone who ever comes here a farthing? He lives in -London. He'd take me away. To live even in a back street IN LONDON -would be Heaven! And one MUST--as soon as one possibly can.--One -MUST! And Oh!" with another hug which this time was a shudder, -"think of what Doris Harmer had to do! Think of his thick red old -neck and his horrid fatness! And the way he breathed through his -nose. Doris said that at first it used to make her ill to look at -him." - -"She's got over it," whispered Alice. "She's almost as fat as he -is now. And she's loaded with pearls and things." - -"I shouldn't have to 'get over' anything," said Amabel, "if this -one WOULD. I could fall in love with him in a minute." - -"Did you hear what Father said?" Alice brought out the words -rather slowly and reluctantly. She was not eager on the whole to -yield up a detail which after all added glow to possible prospects -which from her point of view were already irritatingly glowing. -Yet she could not resist the impulse of excitement. "No, you didn't -hear. You were out of the room." - -"What about? Something about HIM? I hope it wasn't horrid. How -could it be?" - -"He said," Alice drawled with a touch of girlishly spiteful -indifference, "that if he was one of the poor Gareth-Lawlesses he -hadn't much chance of succeeding to the title. His uncle--Lord -Lawdor--is only forty-five and he has four splendid healthy -boys--perfect little giants." - -"Oh, I didn't know there was a title. How splendid," exclaimed Amabel -rapturously. Then after a few moments' innocent maiden reflection -she breathed with sweet hopefulness from under the sheet, "Children -so often have scarlet fever or diphtheria, and you know they -say those very strong ones are more likely to die than the other -kind. The Vicar of Sheen lost FOUR all in a week. And the Vicar -died too. The doctor said the diphtheria wouldn't have killed him -if the shock hadn't helped." - -Alice--who had a teaspoonful more brain than her sister--burst -into a fit of giggling it was necessary to smother by stuffing -the sheet in her mouth. - -"Oh! Amabel!" she gurgled. "You ARE such a donkey! You would have -been silly enough to say that even if people could have heard you. -Suppose HE had!" - -"Why should he care," said Amabel simply. "One can't help thinking -things. If it happened he would be the Earl of Lawdor and--" - -She fell again into sweet reflection while Alice giggled a little -more. Then she herself stopped and thought also. After all perhaps--! -One had to be practical. The tenor of her thoughts was such that -she did not giggle again when Amabel broke the silence by whispering -with tremulous, soft devoutness. - -"Alice--do you think that praying REALLY helps?" - -"I've prayed for things but I never got them," answered Alice. -"But you know what the Vicar said on Sunday in sermon about 'Ask -and ye shall receive'." - -"Perhaps you haven't prayed in the right spirit," Amabel suggested -with true piety. "Shall we--shall we try? Let us get out of bed -and kneel down." - -"Get out of bed and kneel down yourself," was Alice's sympathetic -rejoinder. "You wouldn't take that much trouble for ME." - -Amabel sat up on the edge of the bed. In the faint moonlight and -her white night-gown she was almost angelic. She held the end of -the long fair soft plait hanging over her shoulder and her eyes -were full of reproach. - -"I think you ought to take SOME interest," she said plaintively. -"You know there would be more chances for you and the others--if -I were not here." - -"I'll wait until you are not here," replied the unstirred Alice. - -But Amabel felt there was no time for waiting in this particular -case. A yacht which "came in" might so soon "put out". She knelt -down, clasping her slim young hands and bending her forehead upon -them. In effect she implored that Divine Wisdom might guide Mr. -Robert Gareth-Lawless in the much desired path. She also made -divers promises because nothing is so easy as to promise things. -She ended with a gently fervent appeal that--if her prayer -were granted--something "might happen" which would result in her -becoming a Countess of Lawdor. One could not have put the request -with greater tentative delicacy. - -She felt quite uplifted and a trifle saintly when she rose from -her knees. Alice had actually fallen asleep already and she sighed -quite tenderly as she slipped into the place beside her. Almost -as her lovely little head touched the pillow her own eyes closed. -Then she was asleep herself--and in the faintly moonlit room with -the long soft plait trailing over her shoulder looked even more -like an angel than before. - -Whether or not as a result of this touching appeal to the Throne -of Grace, Robert Gareth-Lawless DID. In three months there was -a wedding at the very ancient village church, and the flowerlike -bridesmaids followed a flower of a bride to the altar and later in -the day to the station from where Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless -went on their way to London. Perhaps Alice and Olive also knelt by -the side of their white beds the night after the wedding, for on -that propitious day two friends of the bridegroom's--one of them -the owner of the yacht--decided to return again to the place where -there were to be found the most nymphlike of pretty creatures a man -had ever by any chance beheld. Such delicate little fair crowned -heads, such delicious little tip-tilted noses and slim white throats, -such ripples of gay chatter and nonsense! When a man has fortune -enough of his own why not take the prettiest thing he sees? So -Alice and Olive were borne away also and poor Mr. and Mrs. Darrel -breathed sighs of relief and there were not only more chances but -causes for bright hopefulness in the once crowded house which now -had rooms to spare. - -A certain inattention on the part of the Deity was no doubt -responsible for the fact that "something" did not "happen" to the -family of Lord Lawdor. On the contrary his four little giants of -sons throve astonishingly and a few months after the Gareth-Lawless -wedding Lady Lawdor--a trifle effusively, as it were--presented her -husband with twin male infants so robust that they were humorously -known for years afterwards as the "Twin Herculeses." - -By that time Amabel had become "Feather" and despite Robert's -ingenious and carefully detailed method of living upon nothing -whatever, had many reasons for knowing that "life is a back street -in London" is not a matter of beds of roses. Since the back street -must be the "right street" and its accompaniments must wear an aspect -of at least seeming to belong to the right order of detachment and -fashionable ease, one was always in debt and forced to keep out of -the way of duns, and obliged to pretend things and tell lies with -aptness and outward gaiety. Sometimes one actually was so far driven -to the wall that one could not keep most important engagements and -the invention of plausible excuses demanded absolute genius. The -slice of a house between the two big ones was a rash feature of -the honeymoon but a year of giving smart little dinners in it and -going to smart big dinners from it in a smart if small brougham -ended in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of balancing oneself -on the edge of a sword. - -Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity of course. -Nobody had contemplated her for a moment. Feather cried for a week -when she first announced the probability of her advent. Afterwards -however she managed to forget the approaching annoyance and went -to parties and danced to the last hour continuing to be a great -success because her prettiness was delicious and her diaphanous -mentality was no train upon the minds of her admirers male and -female. - -That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light -weight when Robin in the form of a bundle of lace was carried down -by her nurse to be exhibited in the gaudy crowded little drawing-room -in the slice of a house in the Mayfair street. - -It was the Head of the House of Coombe who asked the first question -about her. - -"What will you DO with her?" he inquired detachedly. - -The frequently referred to "babe unborn" could not have presented -a gaze of purer innocence than did the lovely Feather. Her eyes of -larkspur blueness were clear of any thought or intention as spring -water is clear at its unclouded best. - -Her ripple of a laugh was clear also--enchantingly clear. - -"Do!" repeated. "What is it people 'do' with babies? I suppose -the nurse knows. I don't. I wouldn't touch her for the world. She -frightens me." - -She floated a trifle nearer and bent to look at her. - -"I shall call her Robin," she said. "Her name is really Roberta -as she couldn't be called Robert. People will turn round to look -at a girl when they hear her called Robin. Besides she has eyes -like a robin. I wish she'd open them and let you see." - -By chance she did open them at the moment--quite slowly. They were -dark liquid brown and seemed to be all lustrous iris which gazed -unmovingly at the object in of focus. That object was the Head of -the House of Coombe. - -"She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze," he said, -and stared back unmovingly also, but with a sort of cold interest. - - - - - - -CHAPTER II - - - - - -The Head of the House of Coombe was not a title to be found in -Burke or Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head's own and having -been accepted by his acquaintances was not infrequently used by -them in their light moments in the same spirit. The peerage recorded -him as a Marquis and added several lesser attendant titles. - -"When English society was respectable, even to stodginess at times," -was his point of view, "to be born 'the Head of the House' was a -weighty and awe-inspiring thing. In fearful private denunciatory -interviews with one's parents and governors it was brought up against -one as a final argument against immoral conduct such as debt and -not going to church. As the Head of the House one was called upon -to be an Example. In the country one appeared in one's pew and -announced oneself a 'miserable sinner' in loud tones, one had to -invite the rector to dinner with regularity and 'the ladies' of -one's family gave tea and flannel petticoats and baby clothes to -cottagers. Men and women were known as 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' -in those halcyon days. One Represented things--Parties in -Parliament--Benevolent Societies, and British Hospitality in the -form of astounding long dinners at which one drank healths and -made speeches. In roseate youth one danced the schottische and the -polka and the round waltz which Lord Byron denounced as indecent. -To recall the vigour of his poem gives rise to a smile--when one -chances to sup at a cabaret." - -He was considered very amusing when he analyzed his own mental -attitude towards his world in general. - -"I was born somewhat too late and somewhat too early," he explained -in his light, rather cold and detached way. "I was born and educated -at the closing of one era and have to adjust myself to living in -another. I was as it were cradled among treasured relics of the -ethics of the Georges and Queen Charlotte, and Queen Victoria in -her bloom. _I_ was in my bloom in the days when 'ladies' were -reproved for wearing dresses cut too low at Drawing Rooms. Such -training gives curious interest to fashions in which bodices are -unconsidered trifles and Greek nymphs who dance with bare feet -and beautiful bare legs may be one's own relations. I trust I do -not seem even in the shadowiest way to comment unfavourably. I -merely look on at the rapidities of change with unalloyed interest. -As the Head of the House of Coombe I am not sure WHAT I am an -Example of--or to. Which is why I at times regard myself in that -capacity with a slightly ribald lightness." - -The detachment of his question with regard to the newborn infant -of the airily irresponsible Feather was in entire harmony with his -attitude towards the singular incident of Life as illustrated by -the World, the Flesh and the Devil by none of which he was--as far -as could be observed--either impressed, disturbed or prejudiced. -His own experience had been richly varied and practically unlimited -in its opportunities for pleasure, sinful or unsinful indulgence, -mitigated or unmitigated wickedness, the gathering of strange -knowledge, and the possible ignoring of all dull boundaries. This -being the case a superhuman charity alone could have forborne to -believe that his opportunities had been neglected in the heyday -of his youth. Wealth and lady of limitations in themselves would -have been quite enough to cause the Nonconformist Victorian mind -to regard a young--or middle-aged--male as likely to represent a -fearsome moral example, but these three temptations combined with -good looks and a certain mental brilliance were so inevitably the -concomitants of elegant iniquity that the results might be taken -for granted. - -That the various worlds in which he lived in various lands accepted -him joyfully as an interesting and desirable of more or less -abominably sinful personage, the Head of the House of Coombe--even -many years before he became its head--regarded with the detachment -which he had, even much earlier, begun to learn. Why should it be -in the least matter what people thought of one? Why should it in -the least matter what one thought of oneself--and therefore--why -should one think at all? He had begun at the outset a brilliantly -happy young pagan with this simple theory. After the passing of -some years he had not been quite so happy but had remained quite -as pagan and retained the theory which had lost its first fine -careless rapture and gained a secret bitterness. He had not married -and innumerable stories were related to explain the reason why. -They were most of them quite false and none of them quite true. -When he ceased to be a young man his delinquency was much discussed, -more especially when his father died and he took his place as the -head of his family. He was old enough, rich enough, important enough -for marriage to be almost imperative. But he remained unmarried. -In addition he seemed to consider his abstinence entirely an affair -of his own. - -"Are you as wicked as people say you are?" a reckless young woman -once asked him. She belonged to the younger set which was that -season trying recklessness, in a tentative way, as a new fashion. - -"I really don't know. It is so difficult to decide," he answered. -"I could tell better if I knew exactly what wickedness is. When -I find out I will let you know. So good of you to take an interest." - -Thirty years earlier he knew that a young lady who had heard he was -wicked would have perished in flames before immodestly mentioning -the fact to him, but might have delicately attempted to offer "first -aid" to reformation, by approaching with sweetness the subject of -going to church. - -The reckless young woman looked at him with an attention which -he was far from being blind enough not to see was increased by his -answer. - -"I never know what you mean," she said almost wistfully. - -"Neither do I," was his amiable response. "And I am sure it would -not be worth while going into. Really, we neither of us know what -we mean. Perhaps I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may -have painful limitations--or I may not." - -After his father's death he spent rather more time in London and -rather less in wandering over the face of the globe. But by the -time he was forty he knew familiarly far countries and near and -was intimate with most of the peoples thereof. He could have found -his way about blind-folded in the most distinctive parts of most -of the great cities. He had seen and learned many things. The -most absorbing to his mind had been the ambitions and changes of -nations, statesmen, rulers and those they ruled or were ruled by. -Courts and capitals knew him, and his opportunities were such as -gave him all ease as an onlooker. He was outwardly of the type -which does not arouse caution in talkers and he heard much which -was suggestive even to illumination, from those to whom he remained -unsuspected of being a man who remembered things long and was -astute in drawing conclusions. The fact remained however that -he possessed a remarkable memory and one which was not a rag-bag -filled with unassorted and parti-coloured remnants, but a large and -orderly space whose contents were catalogued and filed and well -enclosed from observation. He was also given to the mental argument -which follows a point to its conclusion as a mere habit of mind. -He saw and knew well those who sat and pondered with knit brows and -cautiously hovering hand at the great chess-board which is formed -by the Map of Europe. He found an enormous interest in watching -their play. It was his fortune as a result of his position to know -persons who wore crowns and a natural incident in whose lives it -was to receive the homage expressed by the uncovering of the head -and the bending of the knee. At forty he looked back at the time -when the incongruousness, the abnormality and the unsteadiness of -the foundations on which such personages stood first struck him. -The realization had been in its almost sacrilegious novelty and -daring, a sort of thunderbolt passing through his mind. He had -at the time spoken of it only to one person. - -"I have no moral or ethical views to offer," he had said. "I only -SEE. The thing--as it is--will disintegrate. I am so at sea as -to what will take its place that I feel as if the prospect were -rather horrible. One has had the old landmarks and been impressed -by the old pomp and picturesqueness so many centuries, that one -cannot see the earth without them. There have been kings even in -the Cannibal Islands." - -As a statesman or a diplomat he would have seen far but he had been -too much occupied with Life as an entertainment, too self-indulgent -for work of any order. He freely admitted to himself that he was -a worthless person but the fact did not disturb him. Having been -born with a certain order of brain it observed and worked in spite -of him, thereby adding flavour and interest to existence. But that -was all. - -It cannot be said that as the years passed he quite enjoyed the -fact that he knew he was rarely spoken of to a stranger without -its being mentioned that he was the most perfectly dressed man in -London. He rather detested the idea though he was aware that the -truth was unimpeachable. The perfection of his accompaniments had -arisen in his youth from a secret feeling for fitness and harmony. -Texture and colour gave him almost abnormal pleasure. His expression -of this as a masculine creature had its limits which resulted in -a concentration on perfection. Even at five-and-twenty however he -had never been called a dandy and even at five-and-forty no one -had as yet hinted at Beau Brummel though by that time men as well -as women frequently described to each other the cut and colour -of the garments he wore, and tailors besought him to honour them -with crumbs of his patronage in the ambitious hope that they might -mention him as a client. And the simple fact that he appeared in -a certain colour or cut set it at once on its way to become a -fashion to be seized upon, worn and exaggerated until it was -dropped suddenly by its originator and lost in the oblivion of -cheap imitations and cheap tailor shops. The first exaggeration -of the harmony he had created and the original was seen no more. - -Feather herself had a marvellous trick in the collecting of her -garments. It was a trick which at times barely escaped assuming the -proportions of absolute creation. Her passion for self-adornment -expressed itself in ingenious combination and quite startling -uniqueness of line now and then. Her slim fairness and ash-gold -gossamer hair carried airily strange tilts and curves of little -or large hats or daring tints other women could not sustain -but invariably strove to imitate however disastrous the results. -Beneath soft drooping or oddly flopping brims hopelessly unbecoming -to most faces hers looked out quaintly lovely as a pictured child's -wearing its grandmother's bonnet. Everything draped itself about -or clung to her in entrancing folds which however whimsical were -never grotesque. - -"Things are always becoming to me," she said quite simply. "But -often I stick a few pins into a dress to tuck it up here and there, -or if I give a hat a poke somewhere to make it crooked, they are -much more becoming. People are always asking me how I do it but -I don't know how. I bought a hat from Cerise last week and I gave -it two little thumps with my fist--one in the crown and one in -the brim and they made it wonderful. The maid of the most grand -kind of person tried to find out from my maid where I bought it. -I wouldn't let her tell of course." - -She created fashions and was imitated as was the Head of the House -of Coombe but she was enraptured by the fact and the entire power -of such gray matter as was held by her small brain cells was -concentrated upon her desire to evolve new fantasies and amazements -for her world. - -Before he had been married for a year there began to creep into the -mind of Bob Gareth-Lawless a fearsome doubt remotely hinting that -she might end by becoming an awful bore in the course of -time--particularly if she also ended by being less pretty. She -chattered so incessantly about nothing and was such an empty-headed, -extravagant little fool in her insistence on clothes--clothes--clothes--as -if they were the breath of life. After watching her for about two -hours one morning as she sat before her mirror directing her maid -to arrange and re-arrange her hair in different styles--in delicate -puffs and curls and straying rings--soft bands and loops--in braids -and coils--he broke forth into an uneasy short laugh and expressed -himself--though she did not know he was expressing himself and -would not have understood him if she had. - -"If you have a soul--and I'm not at all certain you have--" he -said, "it's divided into a dressmaker's and a hairdresser's and -a milliner's shop. It's full of tumbled piles of hats and frocks -and diamond combs. It's an awful mess, Feather." - -"I hope it's a shoe shop and a jeweller's as well," she laughed -quite gaily. "And a lace-maker's. I need every one of them." - -"It's a rag shop," he said. "It has nothing but CHIFFONS in it." - -"If ever I DO think of souls I think of them as silly gauzy things -floating about like little balloons," was her cheerful response. - -"That's an idea," he answered with a rather louder laugh. "Yours -might be made of pink and blue gauze spangled with those things -you call paillettes." - -The fancy attracted her. - -"If I had one like that"--with a pleased creative air, "it would -look rather ducky floating from my shoulder--or even my hat--or my -hair in the evenings, just held by a tiny sparkling chain fastened -with a diamond pin--and with lovely little pink and blue streamers." -With the touch of genius she had at once relegated it to its place -in the scheme of her universe. And Robert laughed even louder than -before. - -"You mustn't make me laugh," she said holding up her hand. "I am -having my hair done to match that quakery thin pale mousey dress -with the tiny poke bonnet--and I want to try my face too. I must -look sweet and demure. You mustn't really laugh when you wear a -dress and hat like that. You must only smile." - -Some months earlier Bob would have found it difficult to believe -that she said this entirely without any touch of humour but he -realized now that it was so said. He had some sense of humour of -his own and one of his reasons for vaguely feeling that she might -become a bore was that she had none whatever. - -It was at the garden party where she wore the thin quakery mousey -dress and tiny poke bonnet that the Head of the House of Coombe -first saw her. It was at the place of a fashionable artist who -lived at Hampstead and had a garden and a few fine old trees. It -had been Feather's special intention to strike this note of delicate -dim colour. Every other woman was blue or pink or yellow or white -or flowered and she in her filmy coolness of unusual hue stood out -exquisitely among them. Other heads wore hats broad or curved or -flopping, hers looked like a little nun's or an imaginary portrait -of a delicious young great-grandmother. She was more arresting -than any other female creature on the emerald sward or under the -spreading trees. - -When Coombe's eyes first fell upon her he was talking to a group -of people and he stopped speaking. Someone standing quite near him -said afterwards that he had for a second or so become pale--almost -as if he saw something which frightened him. - -"Who is that under the copper beech--being talked to by Harlow?" -he inquired. - -Feather was in fact listening with a gentle air and with her eyelids -down drooped to the exact line harmonious with the angelic little -poke bonnet. - -"It is Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless--'Feather' we call her," he was -answered. "Was there ever anything more artful than that startling -little smoky dress? If it was flame colour one wouldn't see it as -quickly." - -"One wouldn't look at it as long," said Coombe. "One is in danger -of staring. And the little hat--or bonnet--which pokes and is -fastened under her pink ear by a satin bow held by a loose pale -bud! Will someone rescue me from staring by leading me to her. It -won't be staring if I am talking to her. Please." - -The paleness appeared again as on being led across the grass he -drew nearer to the copper beech. He was still rather pale when -Feather lifted her eyes to him. Her eyes were so shaped by Nature -that they looked like an angel's when they were lifted. There are -eyes of that particular cut. But he had not talked to her fifteen -minutes before he knew that there was no real reason why he should -ever again lose his colour at the sight of her. He had thought at -first there was. With the perception which invariably marked her -sense of fitness of things she had begun in the course of the -fifteen minutes--almost before the colour had quite returned to -his face--the story of her husband's idea of her soul, as a balloon -of pink and blue gauze spangled with paillettes. And of her own -inspiration of wearing it floating from her shoulder or her hair -by the light sparkling chain--and with delicate ribbon streamers. -She was much delighted with his laugh--though she thought it had a -rather cracked, harsh sound. She knew he was an important person -and she always felt she was being a success when people laughed. - -"Exquisite!" he said. "I shall never see you in the future without -it. But wouldn't it be necessary to vary the colour at times?" - -"Oh! Yes--to match things," seriously. "I couldn't wear a pink and -blue one with this--" glancing over the smoky mousey thing "--or -paillettes." - -"Oh, no--not paillettes," he agreed almost with gravity, the harsh -laugh having ended. - -"One couldn't imagine the exact colour in a moment. One would have -to think," she reflected. "Perhaps a misty dim bluey thing--like -the edge of a rain-cloud--scarcely a colour at all." - -For an instant her eyes were softly shadowed as if looking into -a dream. He watched her fixedly then. A woman who was a sort of -angel might look like that when she was asking herself how much -her pure soul might dare to pray for. Then he laughed again and -Feather laughed also. - -Many practical thoughts had already begun to follow each other -hastily through her mind. It would be the best possible thing -for them if he really admired her. Bob was having all sorts of -trouble with people they owed money to. Bills were sent in again -and again and disagreeable letters were written. Her dressmaker -and milliner had given her most rude hints which could indeed -be scarcely considered hints at all. She scarcely dared speak to -their smart young footman who she knew had only taken the place -in the slice of a house because he had been told that it might be -an opening to better things. She did not know the exact summing -up at the agency had been as follows: - -"They're a good looking pair and he's Lord Lawdor's nephew. -They're bound to have their fling and smart people will come to -their house because she's so pretty. They'll last two or three -years perhaps and you'll open the door to the kind of people who -remember a well set-up young fellow if he shows he knows his work -above the usual." - -The more men of the class of the Head of the House of Coombe who -came in and out of the slice of a house the more likely the owners -of it were to get good invitations and continued credit, Feather -was aware. Besides which, she thought ingenuously, if he was rich -he would no doubt lend Bob money. She had already known that certain -men who liked her had done it. She did not mind it at all. One -was obliged to have money. - -This was the beginning of an acquaintance which gave rise to much -argument over tea-cups and at dinner parties and in boudoirs--even -in corners of Feather's own gaudy little drawing-room. The argument -regarded the degree of Coombe's interest in her. There was always -curiosity as to the degree of his interest in any woman--especially -and privately on the part of the woman herself. Casual and shallow -observers said he was quite infatuated if such a thing were possible -to a man of his temperament; the more concentrated of mind said it -was not possible to a man of his temperament and that any attraction -Feather might have for him was of a kind special to himself and -that he alone could explain it--and he would not. - -Remained however the fact that he managed to see a great deal of -her. It might be said that he even rather followed her about and -more than one among the specially concentrated of mind had seen him -on occasion stand apart a little and look at her--watch her--with -an expression suggesting equally profound thought and the profound -intention to betray his private meditations in no degree. There -was no shadow of profundity of thought in his treatment of her. -He talked to her as she best liked to be talked to about herself, -her successes and her clothes which were more successful than -anything else. He went to the little but exceedingly lively dinners -the Gareth-Lawlesses gave and though he was understood not to be -fond of dancing now and then danced with her at balls. - -Feather was guilelessly doubtless concerning him. She was quite sure -that he was in love with her. Her idea of that universal emotion -was that it was a matter of clothes and propinquity and loveliness -and that if one were at all clever one got things one wanted as a -result of it. Her overwhelming affection for Bob and his for her -had given her life in London and its entertaining accompaniments. -Her frankness in the matter of this desirable capture when she -talked to her husband was at once light and friendly. - -"Of course you will be able to get credit at his tailor's as you -know him so well," she said. "When I persuaded him to go with me -to Madame Helene's last week she was quite amiable. He helped me -to choose six dresses and I believe she would have let me choose -six more." - -"Does she think he is going to pay for them?" asked Bob. - -"It doesn't matter what she thinks"; Feather laughed very prettily. - -"Doesn't it?" - -"Not a bit. I shall have the dresses. What's the matter, Rob? You -look quite red and cross." - -"I've had a headache for three days," he answered, "and I feel -hot and cross. I don't care about a lot of things you say, Feather." - -"Don't be silly," she retorted. "I don't care about a lot of things -you say--and do, too, for the matter of that." - -Robert Gareth-Lawless who was sitting on a chair in her dressing-room -grunted slightly as he rubbed his red and flushed forehead. - -"There's a--sort of limit," he commented. He hesitated a little -before he added sulkily "--to the things one--SAYS." - -"That sounds like Alice," was her undisturbed answer. "She used -to squabble at me because I SAID things. But I believe one of -the reasons people like me is because I make them laugh by SAYING -things. Lord Coombe laughs. He is a very good person to know," -she added practically. "Somehow he COUNTS. Don't you recollect -how before we knew him--when he was abroad so long--people used -to bring him into their talk as if they couldn't help remembering -him and what he was like. I knew quite a lot about him--about -his cleverness and his manners and his way of keeping women off -without being rude--and the things he says about royalties and the -aristocracy going out of fashion. And about his clothes. I adore -his clothes. And I'm convinced he adores mine." - -She had in fact at once observed his clothes as he had crossed the -grass to her seat under the copper beech. She had seen that his -fine thinness was inimitably fitted and presented itself to the -eye as that final note of perfect line which ignores any possibility -of comment. He did not wear things--they were expressions of his -mental subtleties. Feather on her part knew that she wore her -clothes--carried them about with her--however beautifully. - -"I like him," she went on. "I don't know anything about political -parties and the state of Europe so I don't understand the things -he says which people think are so brilliant, but I like him. He -isn't really as old as I thought he was the first day I saw him. -He had a haggard look about his mouth and eyes then. He looked -as if a spangled pink and blue gauze soul with little floating -streamers was a relief to him." - -The child Robin was a year old by that time and staggered about -uncertainly in the dingy little Day Nursery in which she passed her -existence except on such occasions as her nurse--who had promptly -fallen in love with the smart young footman--carried her down to -the kitchen and Servants' Hall in the basement where there was an -earthy smell and an abundance of cockroaches. The Servants' Hall -had been given that name in the catalogue of the fashionable -agents who let the home and it was as cramped and grimy as the -two top-floor nurseries. - -The next afternoon Robert Gareth-Lawless staggered into his wife's -drawing-room and dropped on to a sofa staring at her and breathing -hard. - -"Feather!" he gasped. "Don't know what's up with me. I believe -I'm--awfully ill! I can't see straight. Can't think." - -He fell over sidewise on to the cushions so helplessly that Feather -sprang at him. - -"Don't, Rob, don't!" she cried in actual anguish. "Lord Coombe -is taking us to the opera and to supper afterwards. I'm going to -wear--" She stopped speaking to shake him and try to lift his head. -"Oh! do try to sit up," she begged pathetically. "Just try. DON'T -give up till afterwards." But she could neither make him sit up nor -make him hear. He lay back heavily with his mouth open, breathing -stertorously and quite insensible. - -It happened that the Head of the House of Coombe was announced -at that very moment even as she stood wringing her hands over the -sofa. - -He went to her side and looked at Gareth-Lawless. - -"Have you sent for a doctor?" he inquired. - -"He's--only just done it!" she exclaimed. "It's more than I can -bear. You said the Prince would be at the supper after the opera -and--" - -"Were you thinking of going?" he put it to her quietly. - -"I shall have to send for a nurse of course--" she began. He went -so far as to interrupt her. - -"You had better not go--if you'll pardon my saying so," he suggested. - -"Not go? Not go at all?" she wailed. - -"Not go at all," was his answer. And there was such entire lack -of encouragement in it that Feather sat down and burst into sobs. - -In few than two weeks Robert was dead and she was left a lovely -penniless widow with a child. - - - - - - -CHAPTER III - - - - - -Two or three decades earlier the prevailing sentiment would have -been that "poor little Mrs. Gareth-Lawless" and her situation were -pathetic. Her acquaintances would sympathetically have discussed -her helplessness and absolute lack of all resource. So very pretty, -so young, the mother of a dear little girl--left with no income! -How very sad! What COULD she do? The elect would have paid her visits -and sitting in her darkened drawing-room earnestly besought her -to trust to her Maker and suggested "the Scriptures" as suitable -reading. Some of them--rare and strange souls even in their -time--would have known what they meant and meant what they said in -a way they had as yet only the power to express through the medium -of a certain shibboleth, the rest would have used the same forms -merely because shibboleth is easy and always safe and creditable. - -But to Feather's immediate circle a multiplicity of engagements, -fevers of eagerness in the attainment of pleasures and ambitions, -anxieties, small and large terrors, and a whirl of days left no time -for the regarding of pathetic aspects. The tiny house up whose -staircase--tucked against a wall--one had seemed to have the effect of -crowding even when one went alone to make a call, suddenly ceased -to represent hilarious little parties which were as entertaining -as they were up to date and noisy. The most daring things London -gossiped about had been said and done and worn there. Novel social -ventures had been tried--dancing and songs which seemed almost -startling at first--but which were gradually being generally adopted. -There had always been a great deal of laughing and talking of -nonsense and the bandying of jokes and catch phrases. And Feather -fluttering about and saying delicious, silly things at which her -hearers shouted with glee. Such a place could not suddenly become -pathetic. It seemed almost indecent for Robert Gareth-Lawless to -have dragged Death nakedly into their midst--to have died in his -bed in one of the little bedrooms, to have been put in his coffin -and carried down the stairs scraping the wall, and sent away in a -hearse. Nobody could bear to think of it. - -Feather could bear it less than anybody else. It seemed incredible -that such a trick could have been played her. She shut herself -up in her stuffy little bedroom with its shrimp pink frills and -draperies and cried lamentably. At first she cried as a child might -who was suddenly snatched away in the midst of a party. Then she -began to cry because she was frightened. Numbers of cards "with -sympathy" had been left at the front door during the first week -after the funeral, they had accumulated in a pile on the salver -but very few people had really come to see her and while she knew -they had the excuse of her recent bereavement she felt that it made -the house ghastly. It had never been silent and empty. Things had -always been going on and now there was actually not a sound to be -heard--no one going up and down stairs--Rob's room cleared of all -his belongings and left orderly and empty--the drawing-room like a -gay little tomb without an occupant. How long WOULD it be before -it would be full of people again--how long must she wait before -she could decently invite anyone?--It was really at this point that -fright seized upon her. Her brain was not given to activities of -reasoning and followed no thought far. She had not begun to ask -herself questions as to ways and means. Rob had been winning at -cards and had borrowed some money from a new acquaintance so no -immediate abyss had yawned at her feet. But when the thought of -future festivities rose before her a sudden check made her involuntarily -clutch at her throat. She had no money at all, bills were piled -everywhere, perhaps now Robert was dead none of the shops would -give her credit. She remembered hearing Rob come into the house -swearing only the day before he was taken ill and it had been -because he had met on the door-step a collector of the rent which -was long over-due and must be paid. She had no money to pay it, -none to pay the servants' wages, none to pay the household bills, -none to pay for the monthly hire of the brougham! Would they turn -her into the street--would the servants go away--would she be left -without even a carriage? What could she do about clothes! She -could not wear anything but mourning now and by the time she was -out of mourning her old clothes would have gone out of fashion. -The morning on which this aspect of things occurred to her, she -was so terrified that she began to run up and down the room like a -frightened little cat seeing no escape from the trap it is caught -in. - -"It's awful--it's awful--it's awful!" broke out between her sobs. -"What can I do? I can't do anything! There's nothing to do! It's -awful--it's awful--it's awful!" She ended by throwing herself on -the bed crying until she was exhausted. She had no mental resources -which would suggest to her that there was anything but crying to -be done. She had cried very little in her life previously because -even in her days of limitation she had been able to get more or -less what she wanted--though of course it had generally been less. -And crying made one's nose and eyes red. On this occasion she -actually forgot her nose and eyes and cried until she scarcely -knew herself when she got up and looked in the glass. - -She rang the bell for her maid and sat down to wait her coming. -Tonson should bring her a cup of beef tea. - -"It's time for lunch," she thought. "I'm faint with crying. And -she shall bathe my eyes with rose-water." - -It was not Tonson's custom to keep her mistress waiting but today -she was not prompt. Feather rang a second time and an impatient -third and then sat in her chair and waited until she began to feel -as she felt always in these dreadful days the dead silence of the -house. It was the thing which most struck terror to her soul--that -horrid stillness. The servants whose place was in the basement -were too much closed in their gloomy little quarters to have -made themselves heard upstairs even if they had been inclined to. -During the last few weeks feather had even found herself wishing -that they were less well trained and would make a little noise--do -anything to break the silence. - -The room she sat in--Rob's awful little room adjoining--which was -awful because of what she had seen for a moment lying stiff and -hard on the bed before she was taken away in hysterics--were dread -enclosures of utter silence. The whole house was dumb--the very -street had no sound in it. She could not endure it. How dare -Tonson? She sprang up and rang the bell again and again until its -sound came back to her pealing through the place. - -Then she waited again. It seemed to her that five minutes passed -before she heard the smart young footman mounting the stairs slowly. -She did not wait for his knock upon the door but opened it herself. - -"How dare Tonson!" she began. "I have rung four or five times! -How dare she!" - -The smart young footman's manner had been formed in a good school. -It was attentive, impersonal. - -"I don't know, ma'am," he answered. - -"What do you mean? What does SHE mean? Where is she?" Feather felt -almost breathless before his unperturbed good style. - -"I don't know, ma'am," he answered as before. Then with the same -unbiassed bearing added, "None of us know. She has gone away." - -Feather clutched the door handle because she felt herself swaying. - -"Away! Away!" the words were a faint gasp. - -"She packed her trunk yesterday and carried it away with her on a -four-wheeler. About an hour ago, ma'am." Feather dropped her hand -from the knob of the door and trailed back to the chair she had -left, sinking into it helplessly. - -"Who--who will dress me?" she half wailed. - -"I don't know, ma'am," replied the young footman, his excellent -manner presuming no suggestion or opinion whatever. He added -however, "Cook, ma'am, wishes to speak to you." - -"Tell her to come to me here," Feather said. "And I--I want a cup -of beef tea." - -"Yes, ma'am," with entire respect. And the door closed quietly -behind him. - -It was not long before it was opened again. "Cook" had knocked and -Feather had told her to come in. Most cooks are stout, but this -one was not. She was a thin, tall woman with square shoulders and -a square face somewhat reddened by constant proximity to fires. -She had been trained at a cooking school. She carried a pile of -small account books but she brought nothing else. - -"I wanted some beef tea, Cook," said Feather protestingly. - -"There is no beef tea, ma'am," said Cook. "There is neither beef, -nor stock, nor Liebig in the house." - -"Why--why not?" stammered Feather and she stammered because even -her lack of perception saw something in the woman's face which -was new to her. It was a sort of finality. - -She held out the pile of small books. - -"Here are the books, ma'am," was her explanation. "Perhaps as you -don't like to be troubled with such things, you don't know how -far behind they are. Nothing has been paid for months. It's been -an every-day fight to get the things that was wanted. It's not -an agreeable thing for a cook to have to struggle and plead. I've -had to do it because I had my reputation to think of and I couldn't -send up rubbish when there was company." - -Feather felt herself growing pale as she sat and stared at her. -Cook drew near and laid one little book after another on the small -table near her. - -"That's the butcher's book," she said. "He's sent nothing in for -three days. We've been living on leavings. He's sent his last, -he says and he means it. This is the baker's. He's not been for -a week. I made up rolls because I had some flour left. It's done -now--and HE'S done. This is groceries and Mercom & Fees wrote -to Mr. Gareth-Lawless when the last month's supply came, that it -would BE the last until payment was made. This is wines--and coal -and wood--and laundry--and milk. And here is wages, ma'am, which -CAN'T go on any longer." - -Feather threw up her hands and quite wildly. - -"Oh, go away!--go away!" she cried. "If Mr. Lawless were here--" - -"He isn't, ma'am," Cook interposed, not fiercely but in a way more -terrifying than any ferocity could have been--a way which pointed -steadily to the end of things. "As long as there's a gentleman -in a house there's generally a sort of a prospect that things MAY -be settled some way. At any rate there's someone to go and speak -your mind to even if you have to give up your place. But when -there's no gentleman and nothing--and nobody--respectable people -with their livings to make have got to protect themselves." - -The woman had no intention of being insolent. Her simple statement -that her employer's death had left "Nothing" and "Nobody" was -prompted by no consciously ironic realization of the diaphanousness -of Feather. As for the rest she had been professionally trained -to take care of her interests as well as to cook and the ethics -of the days of her grandmother when there had been servants with -actual affections had not reached her. - -"Oh! go away! Go AWA-AY!" Feather almost shrieked. - -"I am going, ma'am. So are Edward and Emma and Louisa. It's no -use waiting and giving the month's notice. We shouldn't save the -month's wages and the trades-people wouldn't feed us. We can't stay -here and starve. And it's a time of the year when places has to -be looked for. You can't hold it against us, ma'am. It's better -for you to have us out of the house tonight--which is when our -boxes will be taken away." - -Then was Feather seized with a panic. For the first time in her -life she found herself facing mere common facts which rose before -her like a solid wall of stone--not to be leapt, or crept under, -or bored through, or slipped round. She was so overthrown and -bewildered that she could not even think of any clever and rapidly -constructed lie which would help her; indeed she was so aghast -that she did not remember that there were such things as lies. - -"Do you mean," she cried out, "that you are all going to LEAVE -the house--that there won't be any servants to wait on me--that -there's nothing to eat or drink--that I shall have to stay here -ALONE--and starve!" - -"We should have to starve if we stayed," answered Cook simply. "And -of course there are a few things left in the pantry and closets. -And you might get in a woman by the day. You won't starve, ma'am. -You've got your family in Jersey. We waited because we thought -Mr. and Mrs. Darrel would be sure to come." - -"My father is ill. I think he's dying. My mother could not leave -him for a moment. Perhaps he's dead now," Feather wailed. - -"You've got your London friends, ma'am--" - -Feather literally beat her hands together. - -"My friends! Can I go to people's houses and knock at their front -door and tell them I haven't any servants or anything to eat! Can -I do that? Can I?" And she said it as if she were going crazy. - -The woman had said what she had come to say as spokeswoman for the -rest. It had not been pleasant but she knew she had been quite -within her rights and dealt with plain facts. But she did not -enjoy the prospect of seeing her little fool of a mistress raving -in hysterics. - -"You mustn't let yourself go, ma'am," she said. "You'd better lie -down a bit and try to get quiet." She hesitated a moment looking -at the pretty ruin who had risen from her seat and stood trembling. - -"It's not my place of course to--make suggestions," she said quietly. -"But--had you ever thought of sending for Lord Coombe, ma'am?" - -Feather actually found the torn film of her mind caught for a -second by something which wore a form of reality. Cook saw that -her tremor appeared to verge on steadying itself. - -"Coombe," she faintly breathed as if to herself and not to Cook. - -"Coombe." - -"His lordship was very friendly with Mr. Lawless and he seemed fond -of--coming to the house," was presented as a sort of added argument. -"If you'll lie down I'll bring you a cup of tea, ma'am--though it -can't be beef." - -Feather staggered again to her bed and dropped flat upon it--flat -as a slim little pancake in folds of thin black stuff which hung -and floated. - -"I can't bring you cream," said Cook as she went out of the room. -"Louisa has had nothing but condensed milk--since yesterday--to -give Miss Robin." - -"Oh-h!" groaned Feather, not in horror of the tea without cream -though that was awful enough in its significance, but because this -was the first time since the falling to pieces of her world that -she had given a thought to the added calamity of Robin. - - - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - - - - -If one were to devote one's mental energies to speculation as -to what is going on behind the noncommittal fronts of any row of -houses in any great city the imaginative mind might be led far. - -Bricks, mortar, windows, doors, steps which lead up to the threshold, -are what are to be seen from the outside. Nothing particular may -be transpiring within the walls, or tragedies, crimes, hideous suffering -may be enclosed. The conclusion is obvious to banality--but as -suggestive as banal--so suggestive in fact that the hyper-sensitive -and too imaginative had better, for their own comfort's sake, leave -the matter alone. In most cases the existing conditions would not be -altered even if one knocked at the door and insisted on entering -with drawn sword in the form of attendant policeman The outside -of the slice of a house in which Feather lived was still rather -fresh from its last decorative touching up. It had been painted -cream colour and had white and windows and green window boxes -with variegated vinca vines trailing from them and pink geraniums, -dark blue lobelia and ferns filling the earth stuffed in by the -florist who provided such adornments. Passers-by frequently -glanced at it and thought it a nice little house whose amusing -diminutiveness was a sort of attraction. It was rather like a new -doll's house. - -No one glancing at it in passing at the closing of this particular -day had reason to suspect that any unaccustomed event was taking -place behind the cream-coloured front. The front door "brasses" -had been polished, the window-boxes watered and no cries for aid -issued from the rooms behind them. The house was indeed quiet both -inside and out. Inside it was indeed even quieter than usual. The -servants' preparation for departure had been made gradually and -undisturbedly. There had been exhaustive quiet discussion of the -subject each night for weeks, even before Robert Gareth-Lawless' -illness. The smart young footman Edward who had means of gaining -practical information had constituted himself a sort of private -detective. He had in time learned all that was to be learned. -This, it had made itself clear to him on investigation, was not -one of those cases when to wait for evolutionary family events -might be the part of discretion. There were no prospects ahead--none -at all. Matters would only get worse and the whole thing would end -in everybody not only losing their unpaid back wages but having to -walk out into the street through the door of a disgraced household -whose owners would be turned out into the street also when their -belongings were sold over their heads. Better get out before -everything went to pieces and there were unpleasantnesses. There -would be unpleasantnesses because there was no denying that the -trades-people had been played tricks with. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -was only one of a lot of pretty daughters whose father was a poor -country doctor in Jersey. He had had "a stroke" himself and his -widow would have nothing to live on when he died. That was what -Mrs. Lawless had to look to. As to Lord Lawdor Edward had learned -from those who DID know that he had never approved of his nephew -and that he'd said he was a fool for marrying and had absolutely -refused to have anything to do with him. He had six boys and -a girl now and big estates weren't what they had been, everyone -knew. There was only one thing left for Cook and Edward and Emma -and Louisa to do and that was to "get out" without any talk or -argument. - -"She's not one that won't find someone to look after her," ended -Edward. "Somebody or other will take her up because they'll be sorry -for her. But us lot aren't widows and orphans. No one's going to -be sorry for us or care a hang what we've been let in for. The longer -we stay, the longer we won't be paid." He was not a particularly -depraved or cynical young footman but he laughed a little at the -end of his speech. "There's the Marquis," he added. "He's been -running in and out long enough to make a good bit of talk. Now's -his time to turn up." - -After she had taken her cup of tea without cream Feather had fallen -asleep in reaction from her excited agitation. It was in accord -with the inevitable trend of her being that even before her eyes -closed she had ceased to believe that the servants were really -going to leave the house. It seemed too ridiculous a thing to -happen. She was possessed of no logic which could lead her to a -realization of the indubitable fact that there was no reason why -servants who could neither be paid nor provided with food should -remain in a place. The mild stimulation of the tea also gave rise -to the happy thought that she would not give them any references -if they "behaved badly". It did not present itself to her that -references from a house of cards which had ignominiously fallen -to pieces and which henceforth would represent only shady failure, -would be of no use. So she fell asleep. - - * * * * * - -When she awakened the lights were lighted in the streets and one -directly across the way threw its reflection into her bedroom. It -lit up the little table near which she had sat and the first thing -she saw was the pile of small account books. The next was that the -light which revealed them also fell brightly on the glass knob of -the door which led into Robert's room. - -She turned her eyes away quickly with a nervous shudder. She had -a horror of the nearness of Rob's room. If there had been another -part of the house in which she could have slept she would have fled -to it as soon as he was taken ill. But the house was too small to -have "parts". The tiny drawing-rooms piled themselves on top of the -dining-room, the "master's bedrooms" on top of the drawing-rooms, -and the nurseries and attics where Robin and the servants slept -one on the other at the top of the house. So she had been obliged -to stay and endure everything. Rob's cramped quarters had always -been full of smart boots and the smell of cigars and men's clothes. -He had moved about a good deal and had whistled and laughed and -sworn and grumbled. They had neither of them had bad tempers -so that they had not quarrelled with each other. They had talked -through the open door when they were dressing and they had invented -clever tricks which helped them to get out of money scrapes and -they had gossiped and made fun of people. And now the door was -locked and the room was a sort of horror. She could never think of -it without seeing the stiff hard figure on the bed, the straight -close line of the mouth and the white hard nose sharpened and -narrowed as Rob's had never been. Somehow she particularly could -not bear the recollection of the sharp unnatural modeling of -the hard, white nose. She could not BEAR it! She found herself -recalling it the moment she saw the light on the door handle and -she got up to move about and try to forget it. - -It was then that she went to the window and looked down into the -street, probably attracted by some slight noise though she was not -exactly aware that she had heard anything. - -She must have heard something however. Two four-wheeled cabs were -standing at the front door and the cabman assisted by Edward were -putting trunks on top of them. They were servants' trunks and -Cook was already inside the first cab which was filled with paper -parcels and odds and ends. Even as her mistress watched Emma got -in carrying a sedate band-box. She was the house-parlourmaid and -a sedate person. The first cab drove away as soon as its door was -closed and the cabman mounted to his seat. Louisa looking wholly -unprofessional without her nurse's cap and apron and wearing a -tailor-made navy blue costume and a hat with a wing in it, entered -the second cab followed by Edward intensely suggesting private -life and possible connection with a Bank. The second cab followed -the first and Feather having lost her breath looked after them as -they turned the corner of the street. - -When they were quite out of sight she turned back into the room. -The colour had left her skin, and her eyes were so wide stretched -and her face so drawn and pinched with abject terror that her -prettiness itself had left her. - -"They've gone--all of them!" she gasped. She stopped a moment, her -chest rising and falling. Then she added even more breathlessly, -"There's no one left in the house. It's--empty!" - -This was what was going on behind the cream-coloured front, the -white windows and green flower-boxes of the slice of a house as -motors and carriages passed it that evening on their way to dinner -parties and theatres, and later as the policeman walked up and down -slowly upon his beat. - -Inside a dim light in the small hall showed a remote corner where -on a peg above a decorative seat hung a man's hat of the highest -gloss and latest form; and on the next peg a smart evening overcoat. -They had belonged to Robert Gareth-Lawless who was dead and needed -such things no more. The same dim light showed the steep narrowness -of the white-railed staircase mounting into gruesome little corners -of shadows, while the miniature drawing-rooms illumined only from -the street seemed to await an explanation of dimness and chairs -unfilled, combined with unnatural silence. - -It would have been the silence of the tomb but that it was now and -then broken by something like a half smothered shriek followed by -a sort of moaning which made their way through the ceiling from -the room above. - -Feather had at first run up and down the room like a frightened -cat as she had done in the afternoon. Afterwards she had had -something like hysterics, falling face downward upon the carpet -and clutching her hair until it fell down. She was not a person to -be judged--she was one of the unexplained incidents of existence. -The hour has passed when the clearly moral can sum up the -responsibilities of a creature born apparently without brain, or -soul or courage. Those who aspire to such morals as are expressed -by fairness--mere fairness--are much given to hesitation. Courage -had never been demanded of Feather so far. She had none whatever -and now she only felt panic and resentment. She had no time to -be pathetic about Robert, being too much occupied with herself. -Robert was dead--she was alive--here--in an empty house with no -money and no servants. She suddenly and rather awfully realized -that she did not know a single person whom it would not be frantic -to expect anything from. - -Nobody had money enough for themselves, however rich they were. -The richer they were the more they needed. It was when this thought -came to her that she clutched her hands in her hair. The pretty -and smart women and agreeable more or less good looking men who -had chattered and laughed and made love in her drawing-rooms were -chattering, laughing and making love in other houses at this very -moment--or they were at the theatre applauding some fashionable -actor-manager. At this very moment--while she lay on the carpet in -the dark and every little room in the house had horror shut inside -its closed doors--particularly Robert's room which was so hideously -close to her own, and where there seemed still to lie moveless -on the bed, the stiff hard figure. It was when she recalled this -that the unnatural silence of the drawing-rooms was intruded upon -by the brief half-stifled hysteric shriek, and the moaning which -made its way through the ceiling. She felt almost as if the door -handle might turn and something stiff and cold try to come in. - -So the hours went on behind the cream-coloured outer walls and -the white windows and gay flower-boxes. And the street became more -and more silent--so silent at last that when the policeman walked -past on his beat his heavy regular footfall seemed loud and almost -resounding. - -To even vaguely put to herself any question involving would not -have been within the scope of her mentality. Even when she began to -realize that she was beginning to feel faint for want of food she -did not dare to contemplate going downstairs to look for something -to eat. What did she know about downstairs? She had never there -and had paid no attention whatever to Louisa's complaints that the -kitchen and Servants' Hall were small and dark and inconvenient -and that cockroaches ran about. She had cheerfully accepted the -simple philosophy that London servants were used to these things -and if they did their work it did not really matter. But to go -out of one's room in the horrible stillness and creep downstairs, -having to turn up the gas as one went, and to face the basement -steps and cockroaches scuttling away, would be even more impossible -than to starve. She sat upon the floor, her hair tumbling about -her shoulders and her thin black dress crushed. - -"I'd give almost ANYTHING for a cup of coffee," she protested -feebly. "And there's no USE in ringing the bell!" - -Her mother ought to have come whether her father was ill or not. -He wasn't dead. Robert was dead and her mother ought to have come -so that whatever happened she would not be quite alone and SOMETHING -could be done for her. It was probably this tender thought of -her mother which brought back the recollection of her wedding day -and a certain wedding present she had received. It was a pretty -silver travelling flask and she remembered that it must be in her -dressing-bag now, and there was some cognac left in it. She got up -and went to the place where the bag was kept. Cognac raised your -spirits and made you go to sleep, and if she could sleep until -morning the house would not be so frightening by daylight--and -something might happen. The little flask was almost full. Neither -she nor Robert had cared much about cognac. She poured some into -a glass with water and drank it. - -Because she was unaccustomed to stimulant it made her feel quite -warm and in a few minutes she forgot that she had been hungry -and realized that she was not so frightened. It was such a relief -not to be terrified; it was as if a pain had stopped. She actually -picked up one or two of the account books and glanced at the -totals. If you couldn't pay bills you couldn't and nobody was -put in prison for debt in these days. Besides she would not have -been put in prison--Rob would--and Rob was dead. Something would -happen--something. - -As she began to arrange her hair for the night she remembered what -Cook had said about Lord Coombe. She has cried until she did not -look as lovely as usual, but after she had bathed her eyes with -cold rose-water they began to seem only shadowy and faintly flushed. -And her fine ash-gold hair was wonderful when it hung over each -shoulder in wide, soft plaits. She might be a school-girl of -fifteen. A delicate lacy night-gown was one of the most becoming -things one wore. It was a pity one couldn't wear them to parties. -There was nothing the least indecent about them. Millicent Hardwicke -had been photographed in one of hers and no one had suspected -what it was. Yes; she would send a little note to Coombe. She -knew Madame Helene had only let her have her beautiful mourning -because--. The things she had created were quite unique--thin, -gauzy, black, floating or clinging. She had been quite happy the -morning she gave Helene her orders. Tomorrow when she had slept -through the night and it was broad daylight again she would be -able to think of things to say in her letter to Lord Coombe. She -would have to be a little careful because he did not like things -to bore him.--Death and widows might--a little--at first. She had -heard him say once that he did not wish to regard himself in the -light of a charitable institution. It wouldn't do to frighten him -away. Perhaps if he continued coming to the house and seemed very -intimate the trades-people might be managed. - -She felt much less helpless and when she was ready for bed she -took a little more cognac. The flush had faded from her eye-lids -and bloomed in delicious rose on her cheeks. As she crept between -the cool sheets and nestled down on her pillow she had a delightful -sense of increasing comfort--comfort. What a beautiful thing it -was to go to sleep! - -And then she was disturbed-started out of the divine doze stealing -upon her-by a shrill prolonged wailing shriek! - -It came from the Night Nursery and at the moment it seemed almost -worse than anything which had occurred all through the day. It -brought everything back so hideously. She had of course forgotten -Robin again-and it was Robin! And Louisa had gone away with -Edward. She had perhaps put the child to sleep discreetly before -she went. And now she had wakened and was screaming. Feather had -heard that she was a child with a temper but by fair means or foul -Louisa had somehow managed to prevent her from being a nuisance. - -The shrieks shocked her into sitting upright in bed. Their -shrillness tearing through the utter soundlessness of the empty -house brought back all her terrors and set her heart beating at -a gallop. - -"I--I WON'T!" she protested, fairly with chattering teeth. "I won't! -I WON'T!" - -She had never done anything for the child since its birth, she did -not know how to do anything, she had not wanted to know. To reach -her now she would be obliged to go out in the dark-the gas-jet -she would have to light was actually close to the outer door of -Robert's bedroom--THE room! If she did not die of panic while she -was trying to light it she would have to make her way almost in -the dark up the steep crooked little staircase which led to the -nurseries. And the awful little creature's screams would be going -on all the time making the blackness and dead silence of the house -below more filled with horror by contrast-more shut off and at the -same time more likely to waken to some horror which was new. - -"I-I couldn't-even if I wanted to!" she quaked. "I daren't! -I daren't! I wouldn't do it--for A MILLION POUNDS?" And she flung -herself down again shuddering and burrowing her head under the -coverings and pillows she dragged over her ears to shut out the -sounds. - -The screams had taken on a more determined note and a fiercer -shrillness which the still house heard well and made the most of, -but they were so far deadened for Feather that she began beneath -her soft barrier to protest pantingly. - -"I shouldn't know what to do if I went. If no one goes near her -she'll cry herself to sleep. It's--it's only temper. Oh-h! what -a horrible wail! It--it sounds like a--a lost soul!" - -But she did not stir from the bed. She burrowed deeper under the -bed clothes and held the pillow closer to her ears. - - * * * * * - -It did sound like a lost soul at times. What panic possesses -a baby who cries in the darkness alone no one will ever know and -one may perhaps give thanks to whatever gods there be that the baby -itself does not remember. What awful woe of sudden unprotectedness -when life exists only through protection--what piteous panic in -the midst of black unmercifulness, inarticulate sound howsoever -wildly shrill can neither explain nor express. - -Robin knew only Louisa, warmth, food, sleep and waking. Or if she -knew more she was not yet aware that she did. She had reached the -age when she generally slept through the night. She might not have -disturbed her mother until daylight but Louisa had with forethought -given her an infant sleeping potion. It had disagreed with and -awakened her. She was uncomfortable and darkness enveloped her. -A cry or so and Louisa would ordinarily have come to her sleepy, -and rather out of temper, but knowing what to do. In this strange -night the normal cry of warning and demand produced no result. - -No one came. The discomfort continued--the blackness remained -black. The cries became shrieks--but nothing followed; the shrieks -developed into prolonged screams. No Louisa, no light, no milk. -The blackness drew in closer and became a thing to be fought -with wild little beating hands. Not a glimmer--not a rustle--not -a sound! Then came the cries of the lost soul--alone--alone--in -a black world of space in which there was not even another lost -soul. And then the panics of which there have been no records -and never will be, because if the panic stricken does not die in -mysterious convulsions he or she grows away from the memory of -a formless past--except that perhaps unexplained nightmares from -which one wakens quaking, with cold sweat, may vaguely repeat the -long hidden thing. - -What the child Robin knew in the dark perhaps the silent house -which echoed her might curiously have known. But the shrieks wore -themselves out at last and sobs came--awful little sobs shuddering -through the tiny breast and shaking the baby body. A baby's sobs -are unspeakable things--incredible things. Slower and slower -Robin's came--with small deep gasps and chokings between--and when -an uninfantile druglike sleep came, the bitter, hopeless, beaten -little sobs went on. - -But Feather's head was still burrowed under the soft protection -of the pillow. - - - - - - -CHAPTER V - - - - - -The morning was a brighter one than London usually indulges in -and the sun made its way into Feather's bedroom to the revealing -of its coral pink glow and comfort. She had always liked her bedroom -and had usually wakened in it to the sense of luxuriousness it -is possible a pet cat feels when it wakens to stretch itself on -a cushion with its saucer of cream awaiting it. - -But she did not awaken either to a sense of brightness or luxury -this morning. She had slept it was true, but once or twice when -the pillow had slipped aside she had found herself disturbed by -the far-off sound of the wailing of some little animal which had -caused her automatically and really scarcely consciously to replace -the pillow. It had only happened at long intervals because it is -Nature that an exhausted baby falls asleep when it is worn out. -Robin had probably slept almost as much as her mother. - -Feather staring at the pinkness around her reached at last, with -the assistance of a certain physical consciousness, a sort of -spiritless intention. - -"She's asleep now," she murmured. "I hope she won't waken for a -long time. I feel faint. I shall have to find something to eat--if -it's only biscuits." Then she lay and tried to remember what Cook -had said about her not starving. "She said there were a few things -left in the pantry and closets. Perhaps there's some condensed -milk. How do you mix it up? If she cries I might go and give her -some. It wouldn't be so awful now it's daylight." - -She felt shaky when she got out of bed and stood on her feet. She -had not had a maid in her girlhood so she could dress herself, -much as she detested to do it. After she had begun however she -could not help becoming rather interested because the dress she -had worn the day before had become crushed and she put on a fresh -one she had not worn at all. It was thin and soft also, and black -was quite startlingly becoming to her. She would wear this one -when Lord Coombe came, after she wrote to him. It was silly of -her not to have written before though she knew he had left town -after the funeral. Letters would be forwarded. - -"It will be quite bright in the dining-room now," she said -to encourage herself. "And Tonson once said that the only places -the sun came into below stairs were the pantry and kitchen and it -only stayed about an hour early in the morning. I must get there -as soon as I can." - -When she had so dressed herself that the reflection the mirror -gave back to her was of the nature of a slight physical stimulant -she opened her bedroom door and faced exploration of the deserted -house below with a quaking sense of the proportions of the -inevitable. She got down the narrow stairs casting a frightened -glance at the emptiness of the drawing-rooms which seemed to stare -at her as she passed them. There was sun in the dining-room and -when she opened the sideboard she found some wine in decanters and -some biscuits and even a few nuts and some raisins and oranges. -She put them on the table and sat down and ate some of them and -began to feel a little less shaky. - -If she had been allowed time to sit longer and digest and reflect -she might have reached the point of deciding on what she would write -to Lord Coombe. She had not the pen of a ready writer and it must -be thought over. But just when she was beginning to be conscious -of the pleasant warmth of the sun which shone on her shoulders from -the window, she was almost startled our of her chair by hearing -again stealing down the staircase from the upper regions that faint -wail like a little cat's. - -"Just the moment--the very MOMENT I begin to feel a little -quieted--and try to think--she begins again!" she cried out. "It's -worse then ANYTHING!" - -Large crystal tears ran down her face and upon the polished table. - -"I suppose she would starve to death if I didn't give her some -food--and then _I_ should be blamed! People would be horrid about -it. I've got nothing to eat myself." - -She must at any rate manage to stop the crying before she could -write to Coombe. She would be obliged to go down into the pantry -and look for some condensed milk. The creature had no teeth but -perhaps she could mumble a biscuit or a few raisins. If she could -be made to swallow a little port wine it might make her sleepy. The -sun was paying its brief morning visit to the kitchen and pantry -when she reached there, but a few cockroaches scuttled away before -her and made her utter a hysterical little scream. But there WAS -some condensed milk and there was a little warm water in a kettle -became the fire was not quite out. She imperfectly mixed a decoction -and filled a bottle which ought not to have been downstairs but -had been brought and left there by Louisa as a result of tender -moments with Edward. - -When she put the bottle and some biscuits and scraps of cold ham -on a tray because she could not carry them all in her hands, her -sense of outrage and despair made her almost sob. - -"I am just like a servant--carrying trays upstairs," she wept. -"I--I might be Edward--or--or Louisa." And her woe increased when -she added in the dining-room the port wine and nuts and raisins -and macaroons as viands which MIGHT somehow add to infant diet -and induce sleep. She was not sure of course--but she knew they -sucked things and liked sweets. - -A baby left unattended to scream itself to sleep and awakening -to scream itself to sleep again, does not present to a resentful -observer the flowerlike bloom and beauty of infancy. When Feather -carried her tray into the Night Nursery and found herself confronting -the disordered crib on which her offspring lay she felt the child -horrible to look at. Its face was disfigured and its eyes almost -closed. She trembled all over as she put the bottle to its mouth -and saw the fiercely hungry clutch of its hands. It was old enough -to clutch, and clutch it did, and suck furiously and starvingly--even -though actually forced to stop once or twice at first to give vent -to a thwarted remnant of a scream. - -Feather had only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in -Louisa's arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid -and brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked as they passed. - -"Who will give her a bath?" wailed Feather. "Who will change her -clothes? Someone must! Could a woman by the day do it? Cook said -I could get a woman by the day." - -And then she remembered that one got servants from agencies. And -where were the agencies? And even a woman "by the day" would demand -wages and food to eat. - -And then the front door bell rang. - -What could she do--what could she do? Go downstairs and open the -door herself and let everyone know! Let the ringer go on ringing -until he was tired and went away? She was indeed hard driven, -even though the wail had ceased as Robin clutched her bottle to -her breast and fed with frenzy. Let them go away--let them! And -then came the wild thought that it might be Something--the Something -which must happen when things were at their worst! And if it had -come and the house seemed to be empty! She did not walk down the -stairs, she ran. Her heart beat until she reached the door out of -breath and when she opened it stood their panting. - -The people who waited upon the steps were strangers. They were -very nice looking and quite young--a man and a woman very perfectly -dressed. The man took a piece of paper out of his pocketbook and -handed it to her with an agreeable apologetic courtesy. - -"I hope we have not called early enough to disturb you," he said. -"We waited until eleven but we are obliged to catch a train at -half past. It is an 'order to view' from Carson & Bayle." He added -this because Feather was staring at the paper. - -Carson & Bayle were the agents they had rented the house from. -It was Carson & Bayle's collector Robert had met on the threshold -and sworn at two days before he had been taken ill. They were -letting the house over her head and she would be turned out into -the street? - -The young man and woman finding themselves gazing at this exquisitely -pretty creature in exquisite mourning, felt themselves appallingly -embarrassed. She was plainly the widow Carson had spoken of. But -why did she open the door herself? And why did she look as if she -did not understand? Indignation against Carson & Bayle began to -stir the young man. - -"Beg pardon! So sorry! I am afraid we ought not to have come," he -protested. "Agents ought to know better. They said you were giving -up the house at once and we were afraid someone might take it." - -Feather held the "order to view" in her hand and snared at them -quite helplessly. - -"There--are no--no servants to show it to you," she said. "If you -could wait--a few days--perhaps--" - -She was so lovely and Madame Helene's filmy black creation was in -itself such an appeal, that the amiable young strangers gave up -at once. - -"Oh, certainly--certainly! Do excuse us! Carson and Bayle ought -not to have--! We are so sorry. Good morning, GOOD morning," they -gave forth in discomfited sympathy and politeness, and really -quite scurried away. - -Having shut the door on their retreat Feather stood shivering. - -"I am going to be turned out of the house! I shall have to live -in the street!" she thought. "Where shall I keep my clothes if I -live in the street!" - -Even she knew that she was thinking idiotically. Of course if -everything was taken from you and sold, you would have no clothes -at all, and wardrobes and drawers and closets would not matter. -The realization that scarcely anything in the house had been paid -for came home to her with a ghastly shock. She staggered upstairs -to the first drawing-room in which there was a silly pretty little -buhl writing table. - -She felt even more senseless when she sank into a chair before -it and drew a sheet of note-paper towards her. Her thoughts would -not connect themselves with each other and she could not imagine -what she ought to say in her letter to Coombe. In fact she seemed -to have no thoughts at all. She could only remember the things -which had happened, and she actually found she could write nothing -else. There seemed nothing else in the world. - -"Dear Lord Coombe," trailed tremulously over the page--"The house -is quite empty. The servants have gone away. I have no money. And -there is not any food. And I am going to be turned out into the -street--and the baby is crying because it is hungry." - -She stopped there, knowing it was not what she ought to say. And -as she stopped and looked at the words she began herself to wail -somewhat as Robin had wailed in the dark when she would not listen -or go to her. It was like a beggar's letter--a beggar's! Telling -him that she had no money and no food--and would be turned out for -unpaid rent. And that the baby was crying because it was starving! - -"It's a beggar's letter--just a beggar's," she cried out aloud -to the empty room. "And it's tru-ue!" Robin's wail itself had not -been more hopeless than hers was as she dropped her head and let -it lie on the buhl table. - -She was not however even to be allowed to let it lie there, for -the next instant there fell on her startled ear quite echoing -through the house another ring at the doorbell and two steely raps -on the smart brass knocker. It was merely because she did not know -what else to do, having just lost her wits entirely that she got -up and trailed down the staircase again. - -When she opened the door, Lord Coombe--the apotheosis of exquisite -fitness in form and perfect appointment as also of perfect -expression--was standing on the threshold. - - - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - - - - -If he had meant to speak he changed his mind after his first sight -of her. He merely came in and closed the door behind him. Curious -experiences with which life had provided him had added finish to -an innate aptness of observation, and a fine readiness in action. - -If she had been of another type he would have saved both her and -himself a scene and steered ably through the difficulties of the -situation towards a point where they could have met upon a normal -plane. A very pretty woman with whose affairs one has nothing -whatever to do, and whose pretty home has been the perfection of -modern smartness of custom, suddenly opening her front door in -the unexplained absence of a footman and confronting a visitor, -plainly upon the verge of hysteria, suggests the necessity of -promptness. - -But Feather gave him not a breath's space. She was in fact not -merely on the verge of her hysteria. She had gone farther. And -here he was. Oh, here he was! She fell down upon her knees and -actually clasped his immaculateness. - -"Oh, Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!" She said it three -times because he presented to her but the one idea. - -He did not drag himself away from her embrace but he distinctly -removed himself from it. - -"You must not fall upon your knees, Mrs. Lawless," he said. "Shall -we go into the drawing-room?" - -"I--was writing to you. I am starving--but it seemed too silly when -I wrote it. And it's true!" Her broken words were as senseless in -their sound as she had thought them when she saw them written. - -"Will you come up into the drawing-room and tell me exactly what -you mean," he said and he made her release him and stand upon her -feet. - -As the years had passed he had detached himself from so many -weaknesses and their sequelae of emotion that he had felt himself -a safely unreachable person. He was not young and he knew enough -of the disagreeableness of consequences to be adroit in keeping out -of the way of apparently harmless things which might be annoying. -Yet as he followed Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and watched her stumbling -up the stairs like a punished child he was aware that he was -abnormally in danger of pitying her as he did not wish to pity -people. The pity was also something apart from the feeling that it -was hideous that a creature so lovely, so shallow and so fragile -should have been caught in the great wheels of Life. - -He knew what he had come to talk to her about but he had really no -clear idea of what her circumstances actually were. Most people -had of course guessed that her husband had been living on the -edge of his resources and was accustomed to debt and duns, but a -lovely being greeting you by clasping your knees and talking about -"starving"--in this particular street in Mayfair, led one to ask -oneself what one was walking into. Feather herself had not known, -in fact neither had any other human being known, that there was -a special reason why he had drifted into seeming rather to allow -her about--why he had finally been counted among the frequenters -of the narrow house--and why he had seemed to watch her a good -deal sometimes with an expression of serious interest--sometimes -with an air of irritation, and sometimes with no expression at -all. But there existed this reason and this it was and this alone -which had caused him to appear upon her threshold and it had also -been the power which had prevented his disengaging himself with -more incisive finality when he found himself ridiculously clasped -about the knees as one who played the part of an obdurate parent -in a melodrama. - -Once in the familiar surroundings of her drawing-room her ash-gold -blondness and her black gauzy frock heightened all her effects -so extraordinarily that he frankly admitted to himself that she -possessed assets which would have modified most things to most -men. - -As for Feather, when she herself beheld him against the background -of the same intimate aspects, the effect of the sound of his voice, -the manner in which he sat down in a chair and a certain remotely -dim hint in the hue of his clothes and an almost concealed note of -some touch of colour which scarcely seemed to belong to anything -worn--were so reminiscent of the days which now seemed past forever -that she began to cry again. - -He received this with discreet lack of melodrama of tone. - -"You mustn't do that, Mrs. Lawless," he said, "or I shall burst -into tears myself. I am a sensitive creature." - -"Oh, DO say 'Feather' instead of Mrs. Lawless," she implored. -"Sometimes you said 'Feather'." - -"I will say it now," he answered, "if you will not weep. It is an -adorable name." - -"I feel as if I should never hear it again," she shuddered, trying -to dry her eyes. "It is all over!" - -"What is all over?" - -"This--!" turning a hopeless gaze upon the two tiny rooms crowded -with knick-knacks and nonsense. "The parties and the fun--and -everything in the world! I have only had some biscuits and raisins -to eat today--and the landlord is going to turn me out." - -It seemed almost too preposterous to quite credit that she was -uttering naked truth.--And yet--! After a second's gaze at her be -repeated what he had said below stairs. - -"Will you tell me exactly what you mean?" - -Then he sat still and listened while she poured it all forth. And -as he listened he realized that it was the mere every day fact that -they were sitting in the slice of a house with the cream-coloured -front and the great lady in her mansion on one side and the -millionaire and his splendours on the other, which peculiarly -added to a certain hint of gruesomeness in the situation. - -It was not necessary to add colour and desperation to the story. -Any effort Feather had made in that direction would only have -detracted from the nakedness of its stark facts. They were quite -enough in themselves in their normal inevitableness. Feather in -her pale and totally undignified panic presented the whole thing -with clearness which had--without being aided by her--an actual -dramatic value. This in spite of her mental dartings to and from -and dragging in of points and bits of scenes which were not connected -with each other. Only a brain whose processes of inclusion and -exclusion were final and rapid could have followed her. Coombe -watched her closely as she talked. No grief-stricken young widowed -loneliness and heart-break were the background of her anguish. She -was her own background and also her own foreground. The strength -of the fine body laid prone on the bed of the room she held in horror, -the white rigid face whose good looks had changed to something she -could not bear to remember, had no pathos which was not concerned -with the fact that Robert had amazingly and unnaturally failed -her by dying and leaving her nothing but unpaid bills. This truth -indeed made the situation more poignantly and finally squalid, -as she brought forth one detail after another. There were bills -which had been accumulating ever since they began their life in -the narrow house, there had been trades-people who had been juggled -with, promises made and supported by adroit tricks and cleverly -invented misrepresentations and lies which neither of the pair had -felt any compunctions about and had indeed laughed over. Coombe -saw it all though he also saw that Feather did not know all she was -telling him. He could realize the gradually increasing pressure -and anger at tricks which betrayed themselves, and the gathering -determination on the part of the creditors to end the matter in the -only way in which it could be ended. It had come to this before -Robert's illness, and Feather herself had heard of fierce interviews -and had seen threatening letters, but she had not believed they -could mean all they implied. Since things had been allowed to go on -so long she felt that they would surely go on longer in the same -way. There had been some serious threatening about the rent and -the unpaid-for furniture. Robert's supporting idea had been that -he might perhaps "get something out of Lawdor who wouldn't enjoy -being the relation of a fellow who was turned into the street!" - -"He ought to have done something," Feather plained. "Robert would -have been Lord Lawdor himself if his uncle had died before he had -all those disgusting children." - -She was not aware that Coombe frequently refrained from saying -things to her--but occasionally allowed himself NOT to refrain. -He did not refrain now from making a simple comment. - -"But he is extremely robust and he has the children. Six stalwart -boys and a stalwart girl. Family feeling has apparently gone out -of fashion." - -As she wandered on with her story he mentally felt himself actually -dragged into the shrimp-pink bedroom and standing an onlooker when -the footman outside the door "did not know" where Tonson had gone. -For a moment he felt conscious of the presence of some scent which -would have been sure to exhale itself from draperies and wardrobe. -He saw Cook put the account books on the small table, he heard her, -he also comprehended her. And Feather at the window breathlessly -watching the two cabs with the servants' trunks on top, and -the servants respectably unprofessional in attire and going away -quietly without an unpractical compunction--he saw these also -and comprehended knowing exactly why compunctions had no part in -latter-day domestic arrangements. Why should they? - -When Feather reached the point where it became necessary to refer -to Robin some fortunate memory of Alice's past warnings caused her -to feel--quite suddenly--that certain details might be eliminated. - -"She cried a little at first," she said, "but she fell asleep -afterwards. I was glad she did because I was afraid to go to her -in the dark." - -"Was she in the dark?" - -"I think so. Perhaps Louisa taught her to sleep without a light. -There was none when I took her some condensed milk this morning. -There was only c-con-d-densed milk to give her." - -She shed tears and choked as she described her journey into the -lower regions and the cockroaches scuttling away before her into -their hiding-places. - -"I MUST have a nurse! I MUST have one!" she almost sniffed. "Someone -must change her clothes and give her a bath!" - -"You can't?" Coombe said. - -"I!" dropping her handkerchief. "How--how CAN I?" - -"I don't know," he answered and picked up the handkerchief with -an aloof grace of manner. - -It was really Robin who was for Feather the breaking-point. - -He thought she was in danger of flinging herself upon him again. -She caught at his arm and her eyes of larkspur blue were actually -wild. - -"Don't you see where I am! How there is nothing and nobody--Don't -you SEE?" - -"Yes, I see," he answered. "You are quite right. There is nothing -AND nobody. I have been to Lawdor myself." - -"You have been to TALK to him?" - -"Yesterday. That was my reason for coming here. He will not see -you or be written to. He says he knows better to begin that sort -of thing. It may be that family feeling has not the vogue it once -had, but you may recall that your husband infuriated him years -ago. Also England is a less certain quantity than it once was--and -the man has a family. He will allow you a hundred a year but there -he draws the line." - -"A hundred a year!" Feather breathed. From her delicate shoulders -hung floating scarf-like sleeves of black transparency and she lifted -one of them and held it out like a night moth's wing--"This cost -forty pounds," she said, her voice quite faint and low. "A good -nurse would cost forty! A cook--and a footman and a maid--and a -coachman--and the brougham--I don't know how much they would cost. -Oh-h!" - -She drooped forward upon her sofa and laid face downward on a -cushion--slim, exquisite in line, lost in despair. - -The effect produced was that she gave herself into his hands. He -felt as well as saw it and considered. She had no suggestion to -offer, no reserve. There she was. - -"It is an incredible sort of situation," he said in an even, -low-pitched tone rather as if he were thinking aloud, "but it is -baldly real. It is actually simple. In a street in Mayfair a woman -and child might--" He hesitated a second and a wailed word came -forth from the cushion. - -"Starve!" - -He moved slightly and continued. - -"Since their bills have not been paid the trades-people will not -send in food. Servants will not stay in a house where they are -not fed and receive no wages. No landlord will allow a tenant to -occupy his property unless he pays rent. It may sound inhuman--but -it is only human." - -The cushion in which Feather's face was buried retained a faint -scent of Robert's cigar smoke and the fragrance brought back to her -things she had heard him say dispassionately about Lord Coombe as -well as about other men. He had not been a puritanic or condemnatory -person. She seemed to see herself groveling again on the floor -of her bedroom and to feel the darkness and silence through which -she had not dared to go to Robin. - -Not another night like that! No! No! - -"You must go to Jersey to your mother and father," Coombe said. -"A hundred a year will help you there in your own home." - -Then she sat upright and there was something in her lovely little -countenance he had never seen before. It was actually determination. - -"I have heard," she said, "of poor girls who were driven--by -starvation to--to go on the streets. I--would go ANYWHERE before -I would go back there." - -"Anywhere!" he repeated, his own countenance expressing--or rather -refusing to express something as new as the thing he had seen in -her own. - -"Anywhere!" she cried and then she did what he had thought her on -the verge of doing a few minutes earlier--she fell at his feet and -embraced his knees. She clung to him, she sobbed, her pretty hair -loosened itself and fell about her in wild but enchanting disorder. - -"Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe!" she cried as -she had cried in the hall. - -He rose and endeavoured to disengage himself as he had done before. -This time with less success because she would not let him go. He -had the greatest possible objection to scenes. - -"Mrs. Lawless--Feather--I beg you will get up," he said. - -But she had reached the point of not caring what happened if she -could keep him. He was a gentleman--he had everything in the world. -What did it matter? - -"I have no one but you and--and you always seemed to like me, I -would do anything--ANYONE asked me, if they would take care of me. -I have always liked you very much--and I did amuse you--didn't I? -You liked to come here." - -There was something poignant about her delicate distraught loveliness -and, in the remoteness of his being, a shuddering knowledge that -it was quite true that she would do anything for any man who would -take care of her, produced an effect on him nothing else would -have produced. Also a fantastic and finely ironic vision of Joseph -and Potiphar's wife rose before him and the vision of himself as -Joseph irked a certain complexness of his mentality. Poignant as -the thing was in its modern way, it was also faintly ridiculous. - -Then Robin awakened and shrieked again. The sound which had gained -strength through long sleep and also through added discomfort -quite rang through the house. What that sound added to the moment -he himself would not have been able to explain until long afterwards. -But it singularly and impellingly added. - -"Listen!" panted Feather. "She has begun again. And there is no -one to go to her." - -"Get up, Mrs. Lawless," he said. "Do I understand that you are -willing that _I_ arrange this for you!" - -He helped her to her feet. - -"Do you mean--really!" she faltered. "Will you--will you--?" - -Her uplifted eyes were like a young angel's brimming with crystal -drops which slipped--as a child's tears slip--down her cheeks. -She clasped her hands in exquisite appeal. He stood for a moment -quite still, his mind fled far away and he forgot where he was. -And because of this the little simpleton's shallow discretion -deserted her. - -"If you were a--a marrying man--?" she said foolishly--almost in -a whisper. - -He recovered himself. - -"I am not," with a finality which cut as cleanly as a surgical -knife. - -Something which was not the words was of a succinctness which -filled her with new terror. - -"I--I know!" she whimpered, "I only said if you were!" - -"If I were--in this instance--it would make no difference." He saw -the kind of slippery silliness he was dealing with and what it -might transform itself into if allowed a loophole. "There must be -no mistakes." - -In her fright she saw him for a moment more distinctly than she -had ever seen him before and hideous dread beset her lest she had -blundered fatally. - -"There shall be none," she gasped. "I always knew. There shall be -none at all." - -"Do you know what you are asking me?" he inquired. - -"Yes, yes--I'm not a girl, you know. I've been married. I won't -go home. I can't starve or live in awful lodgings. SOMEBODY must -save me!" - -"Do you know what people will say?" his steady voice was slightly -lower. - -"It won't be said to me." Rather wildly. "Nobody minds--really." - -He ceased altogether to look serious. He smiled with the light -detached air his world was most familiar with. - -"No--they don't really," he answered. "I had, however, a slight -preference for knowing whether you would or not. You flatter me -by intimating that you would not." - -He knew that if he had held out an arm she would have fallen upon -his breast and wept there, but he was not at the moment in the mood -to hold out an arm. He merely touched hers with a light pressure. - -"Let us sit down and talk it over," he suggested. - -A hansom drove up to the door and stopped before he had time to -seat himself. Hearing it he went to the window and saw a stout -businesslike looking man get out, accompanied by an attendant. -There followed a loud, authoritative ringing of the bell and an -equally authoritative rap of the knocker. This repeated itself. -Feather, who had run to the window and caught sight of the stout -man, clutched his sleeve. - -"It's the agent we took the house from. We always said we were -out. It's either Carson or Bayle. I don't know which." - -Coombe walked toward the staircase. - -"You can't open the door!" she shrilled. - -"He has doubtless come prepared to open it himself." he answered -and proceeded at leisure down the narrow stairway. - -The caller had come prepared. By the time Coombe stood in the hall -a latchkey was put in the keyhole and, being turned, the door -opened to let in Carson--or Bayle--who entered with an air of -angered determination, followed by his young man. - -The physical presence of the Head of the House of Coombe was always -described as a subtly impressive one. Several centuries of rather -careful breeding had resulted in his seeming to represent things -by silent implication. A man who has never found the necessity of -explaining or excusing himself inevitably presents a front wholly -unsuggestive of uncertainty. The front Coombe presented merely -awaited explanations from others. - -Carson--or Bayle--had doubtless contemplated seeing a frightened -servant trying to prepare a stammering obvious lie. He confronted -a tall, thin man about whom--even if his clothes had been totally -different--there could be no mistake. He stood awaiting an apology -so evidently that Carson--or Bayle--began to stammer himself -even before he had time to dismiss from his voice the suggestion -of bluster. It would have irritated Coombe immensely if he had -known that he--and a certain overcoat--had been once pointed out -to the man at Sandown and that--in consequence of the overcoat--he -vaguely recognized him. - -"I--I beg pardon," he began. - -"Quite so," said Coombe. - -"Some tenants came to look at the house this morning. They had an -order to view from us. They were sent away, my lord--and decline -to come back. The rent has not been paid since the first half -year. There is no one now who can even PRETEND it's going to be -paid. Some step had to be taken." - -"Quite so," said Coombe. "Suppose you step into the dining-room." - -He led the pair into the room and pointed to chairs, but neither -the agent nor his attendant was calm enough to sit down. - -Coombe merely stood and explained himself. - -"I quite understand," he said. "You are entirely within your -rights. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is, naturally, not able to attend to -business. For the present--as a friend of her late husband's--I -will arrange matters for her. I am Lord Coombe. She does not wish -to give up the house. Don't send any more possible tenants. Call -at Coombe House in an hour and I will give you a cheque." - -There were a few awkward apologetic moments and then the front door -opened and shut, the hansom jingled away and Coombe returned to -the drawing-room. Robin was still shrieking. - -"She wants some more condensed milk," he said. "Don't be frightened. -Go and give her some. I know an elderly woman who understands -children. She was a nurse some years ago. I will send her here at -once. Kindly give me the account books. My housekeeper will send -you some servants. The trades-people will come for orders." - -Feather was staring at him. - -"W-will they?" she stammered. "W-will everything--?" - -"Yes--everything," he answered. "Don't be frightened. Go upstairs -and try to stop her. I must go now. I never heard a creature yell -with such fury." - -She turned away and went towards the second flight of stairs with -a rather dazed air. She had passed through a rather tremendous crisis -and she WAS dazed. He made her feel so. She had never understood -him for a moment and she did not understand him now--but then she -never did understand people and the whole situation was a new one -to her. If she had not been driven to the wall she would have been -quite as respectable as she knew how to be. - -Coombe called a hansom and drove home, thinking of many things -and looking even more than usually detached. He had remarked the -facial expression of the short and stout man as he had got into -his cab and he was turning over mentally his own exact knowledge of -the views the business mind would have held and what the business -countenance would have decently covered if he--Coombe--had explained -in detail that he was so far--in this particular case--an entirely -blameless character. - - - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - - - - -The slice of a house from that time forward presented the external -aspect to which the inhabitants of the narrow and fashionable -street and those who passed through it had been accustomed. Such -individuals as had anticipated beholding at some early day notices -conspicuously placed announcing "Sale by Auction. Elegant Modern -Furniture" were vaguely puzzled as well as surprised by the fact -that no such notices appeared even inconspicuously. Also there -did not draw up before the door--even as the weeks went on--huge -and heavy removal vans with their resultant litter, their final -note of farewell a "To Let" in the front windows. - -On the contrary, the florist came and refilled the window boxes -with an admirable arrangement of fresh flowers; new and even more -correct servants were to be seen ascending and descending the area -step; a young footman quite as smart as the departed Edward opened -the front door and attended Mrs. Gareth-Lawless to her perfect -little brougham. The trades-people appeared promptly every day and -were obsequiously respectful in manner. Evidently the household -had not disintegrated as a result of the death of Mr. Gareth-Lawless. - -As it became an established fact that the household had not fallen to -pieces its frequenters gradually returned to it, wearing indeed -the air of people who had never really remained away from it. There -had been natural reasons enough for considerate absence from a -house of bereavement and a desolate widow upon whose grief it would -have been indelicate to intrude. As Feather herself had realized, -the circle of her intimates was not formed of those who could -readily adjust themselves to entirely changed circumstances. If -you dance on a tight rope and the rope is unexpectedly withdrawn, -where are you? You cannot continue dancing until the rope is -restrung. - -The rope, however, being apparently made absolutely secure, it -was not long before the dancing began again. Feather's mourning, -wonderfully shading itself from month to month, was the joy of all -beholders. Madame Helene treated her as a star gleaming through -gradually dispersing clouds. Her circle watched her with secretly -humorous interest as each fine veil of dimness was withdrawn. - -"The things she wears are priceless," was said amiably in her own -drawing-room. "Where does she get them? Figure to yourself Lawdor -paying the bills." - -"She gets them from Helene," said a long thin young man with -a rather good-looking narrow face and dark eyes, peering through -pince nez, "But I couldn't." - -In places where entertainment as a means of existence proceed so -to speak, fast and furiously, questions of taste are not dwelt -upon at leisure. You need not hesitate before saying anything you -liked in any one's drawing-room so long as it was amusing enough -to make somebody--if not everybody--laugh. Feather had made people -laugh in the same fashion in the past. The persons she most admired -were always making sly little impudent comments and suggestions, -and the thwarted years on the island of Jersey had, in her case, -resulted in an almost hectic desire to keep pace. Her efforts had -usually been successes because Nature's self had provided her with -the manner of a silly pretty child who did not know how far she -went. Shouts of laughter had often greeted her, and the first time -she had for a moment doubted her prowess was on an occasion when -she had caught a glimpse of Coombe who stared at her with an -expression which she would--just for one second--have felt might -be horror, if she had not been so sure it couldn't be, and must of -course be something else--one of the things nobody ever understood -in him. - -By the time the softly swathing veils of vaporous darkness were -withdrawn, and the tight rope assuring everyone of its permanent -security became a trusted support, Feather at her crowded little -parties and at other people's bigger ones did not remain wholly -unaware of the probability that even people who rather liked -her made, among themselves, more or less witty comments upon her -improved fortunes. They were improved greatly. Bills were paid, -trades-people were polite, servants were respectful; she had no -need to invent excuses and lies. She and Robert had always kept out -of the way of stodgy, critical people, so they had been intimate -with none of the punctilious who might have withdrawn themselves -from a condition of things they chose to disapprove: accordingly, -she found no gaps in her circle. Those who had formed the habit of -amusing themselves at her house were as ready as before to amuse -themselves again. - -The fact remained, however,--curiously, perhaps, in connection with -the usual slightness of all impressions made on her--that there -was a memory which never wholly left her. Even when she tried to -force it so far into the background of her existence that it might -almost be counted as forgotten, it had a trick of rising before -her. It was the memory of the empty house as its emptiness had -struck to the centre of her being when she had turned from her -bedroom window after watching the servants drive away in their -cabs. It was also the memory of the hours which had followed--the -night in which nobody had been in any of the rooms--no one had gone -up or down the stairs--when all had seemed dark and hollow--except -the Night Nursery where Robin screamed, and her own room where she -herself cowered under the bed clothes and pulled the pillow over -her head. But though the picture would not let itself be blotted -out, its effect was rather to intensify her sense of relief because -she had slipped so safely from under the wheels of destiny. - -"Sometimes," she revealed artlessly to Coombe, "while I am driving -in the park on a fine afternoon when every one is out and the -dresses look like the flower beds, I let myself remember it just -to make myself enjoy everything more by contrast." - -The elderly woman who had been a nurse in her youth and who had -been sent by Lord Coombe temporarily to replace Louisa had not -remained long in charge of Robin. She was not young and smart -enough for a house on the right side of the right street, and -Feather found a young person who looked exactly as she should when -she pushed the child's carriage before her around the square. - -The square--out of which the right street branches--and the "Gardens" -in the middle of the square to which only privileged persons were -admitted by private key, the basement kitchen and Servants' Hall, -and the two top floor nurseries represented the world to the -child Robin for some years. When she was old enough to walk in the -street she was led by the hand over the ground she had travelled -daily in her baby carriage. Her first memory of things was a memory -of standing on the gravel path in the Square Gardens and watching -some sparrows quarrel while Andrews, her nurse, sat on a bench -with another nurse and talked in low tones. They were talking in -a way Robin always connected with servants and which she naturally -accepted as being the method of expression of their species--much -as she accepted the mewing of cats and the barking of dogs. As -she grew older, she reached the stage of knowing that they were -generally saying things they did not wish her to hear. - -She liked watching the sparrows in the Gardens because she liked -watching sparrows at all times. They were the only friends she had -ever known, though she was not old enough to call them friends, -or to know what friends meant. Andrews had taught her, by means -of a system of her own, to know better than to cry or to make any -protesting noise when she was left alone in her ugly small nursery. -Andrews' idea of her duties did not involve boring herself to death -by sitting in a room on the top floor when livelier entertainment -awaited her in the basement where the cook was a woman of wide -experience, the housemaid a young person who had lived in gay -country houses, and the footman at once a young man of spirit -and humour. So Robin spent many hours of the day--taking them -altogether--quite by herself. She might have more potently resented -her isolations if she had ever known any other condition than -that of a child in whom no one was in the least interested and -in whom "being good" could only mean being passive under neglect -and calling no one's attention to the fact that she wanted anything -from anybody. As a bird born in captivity lives in its cage and -perhaps believes it to be the world, Robin lived in her nursery -and knew every square inch of it with a deadly if unconscious -sense of distaste and fatigue. She was put to bed and taken up, -she was fed and dressed in it, and once a day--twice perhaps if -Andrews chose--she was taken out of it downstairs and into the -street. That was all. And that was why she liked the sparrows so -much. - -And sparrows are worth watching if you live in a nursery where -nothing ever happens and where, when you look out, you are so high -up that it is not easy to see the people in the world below, in -addition to which it seems nearly always raining. Robin used to -watch them hopping about on the slate roofs of the homes on the -other side of the street. They fluttered their wings, they picked -up straws and carried them away. She thought they must have houses -of their own among the chimneys--in places she could not see. She -fancied it would be nice to hop about on the top of a roof oneself -if one were not at all afraid of falling. She liked the chippering -and chirping sounds the birds made became it sounded like talking -and laughing--like the talking and laughing she sometimes wakened -out of her sleep to lie and listen to when the Lady Downstairs had -a party. She often wondered what the people were doing because it -sounded as if they liked doing it very much. - -Sometimes when it had rained two or three days she had a feeling -which made her begin to cry to herself--but not aloud. She had -once had a little black and blue mark on her arm for a week where -Andrews had pinched her because she had cried loud enough to be -heard. It had seemed to her that Andrews twisted and pinched the -bit of flesh for five minutes without letting it go and she had -held her large hand over her mouth as she did it. - -"Now you keep that in your mind," she had said when she had finished -and Robin had almost choked in her awful little struggle to keep -back all sound. - -The one thing Andrews was surest of was that nobody would come -upstairs to the Nursery to inquire the meaning of any cries which -were not unearthly enough to disturb the household. So it was easy -to regulate the existence of her charge in such a manner as best -suited herself. - -"Just give her food enough and keep her from making silly noises -when she wants what she doesn't get," said Andrews to her companions -below stairs. "That one in the drawing-room isn't going to interfere -with the Nursery. Not her! I know my business and I know how to -manage her kind. I go to her politely now and then and ask her -permission to buy things from Best's or Liberty's or some other -good place. She always stares a minute when I begin, as if she -scarcely understood what I was talking about and then she says -'Oh, yes, I suppose she must have them.' And I go and get them. I -keep her as well dressed as any child in Mayfair. And she's been -a beauty since she was a year old so she looks first rate when I -wheel her up and down the street, so the people can see she's well -taken care of and not kept hidden away. No one can complain of her -looks and nobody is bothered with her. That's all that's wanted -of ME. I get good wages and I get them regular. I don't turn up -my nose at a place like this, whatever the outside talk is. Who -cares in these days anyway? Fashionable people's broader minded -than they used to be. In Queen Victoria's young days they tell -me servants were no class that didn't live in families where they -kept the commandments." - -"Fat lot the commandments give any one trouble in these times," -said Jennings, the footman, who was a wit. "There's one of 'em I -could mention that's been broken till there's no bits of it left -to keep. If I smashed that plate until it was powder it'd have -to be swept into the dust din. That's what happened to one or two -commandments in particular." - -"Well," remarked Mrs. Blayne, the cook, "she don't interfere and -he pays the bills prompt. That'll do ME instead of commandments. -If you'll believe me, my mother told me that in them Queen Victoria -days ladies used to inquire about cold meat and ask what was done -with the dripping. Civilisation's gone beyond that--commandments -or no commandments." - -"He's precious particular about bills being paid," volunteered -Jennings, with the air of a man of the world. "I heard him having -a row with her one day about some bills she hadn't paid. She'd -spent the money for some nonsense and he was pretty stiff in that -queer way of his. Quite right he was too. I'd have been the same -myself," pulling up his collar and stretching his neck in a manner -indicating exact knowledge of the natural sentiments of a Marquis -when justly annoyed. "What he intimated was that if them bills -was not paid with the money that was meant to pay them, the -money wouldn't be forthcoming the next time." Jennings was rather -pleased by the word "forthcoming" and therefore he repeated it -with emphasis, "It wouldn't be FORTHCOMING." - -"That'd frighten her," was Andrews' succinct observation. - -"It did!" said Jennings. "She'd have gone in hysterics if he hadn't -kept her down. He's got a way with him, Coombe has." - -Andrews laughed, a brief, dry laugh. - -"Do you know what the child calls her?" she said. "She calls her -the Lady Downstairs. She's got a sort of fancy for her and tries -to get peeps at her when we go out. I notice she always cranes -her little neck if we pass a room she might chance to be in. It's -her pretty clothes and her laughing that does it. Children's drawn -by bright colours and noise that sounds merry." - -"It's my belief the child doesn't know she IS her mother!" said -Mrs. Blayne as she opened an oven door to look at some rolls. - -"It's my belief that if I told her she was she wouldn't know what -the word meant. It was me she got the name from," Andrews still -laughed as she explained. "I used to tell her about the Lady -Downstairs would hear if she made a noise, or I'd say I'd let her -have a peep at the Lady Downstairs if she was very good. I saw -she had a kind of awe of her though she liked her so much, so it -was a good way of managing her. You mayn't believe me but for -a good bit I didn't take in that she didn't know there was such -things as mothers and, when I did take it in, I saw there wasn't -any use in trying to explain. She wouldn't have understood." - -"How would you go about to explain a mother, anyway?" suggested -Jennings. "I'd have to say that she was the person that had the -right to slap your head if you didn't do what she told you." - -"I'd have to say that she was the woman that could keep you slaving -at kitchen maid's work fifteen hours a day," said Mrs. Blayne; -"My mother was cook in a big house and trained me under her." - -"I never had one," said Andrews stiffly. The truth was that she -had taken care of eight infant brothers and sisters, while her -maternal parent slept raucously under the influence of beer when -she was not quarrelling with her offspring. - -Jane, the housemaid, had passed a not uncomfortable childhood in -the country and was perhaps of a soft nature. - -"I'd say that a mother's the one that you belong to and that's -fond of you, even if she does keep you straight," she put in. - -"Her mother isn't fond of her and doesn't keep herself straight," -said Jennings. "So that wouldn't do." - -"And she doesn't slap her head or teach her to do kitchen maid's -work," put in Mrs. Blayne, "so yours is no use, Mr. Jennings, and -neither is mine. Miss Andrews 'll have to cook up an explanation -of her own herself when she finds she has to." - -"She can get it out of a Drury Lane melodrama," said Jennings, with -great humour. "You'll have to sit down some night, Miss Andrews, -and say, 'The time has come, me chee-ild, when I must tell you -All'." - -In this manner were Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and her maternal affections -discussed below stairs. The interesting fact remained that to Robin -the Lady Downstairs was merely a radiant and beautiful being who -floated through certain rooms laughing or chattering like a bird, -and always wearing pretty clothes, which were different each time -one beheld her. Sometimes one might catch a glimpse of her through -a door, or, if one pressed one's face against the window pane at -the right moment, she might get into her bright little carnage in -the street below and, after Jennings had shut its door, she might -be seen to give a lovely flutter to her clothes as she settled -back against the richly dark blue cushions. - -It is a somewhat portentous thing to realize that a newborn -human creature can only know what it is taught. The teaching may -be conscious or unconscious, intelligent or idiotic, exquisite -or brutal. The images presented by those surrounding it, as its -perceptions awaken day by day, are those which record themselves -on its soul, its brain, its physical being which is its sole means -of expressing, during physical life, all it has learned. That -which automatically becomes the Law at the dawning of newborn -consciousness remains, to its understanding, the Law of Being, -the Law of the Universe. To the cautious of responsibility this -at times wears the aspect of an awesome thing, suggesting, however -remotely, that it might seem well, perhaps, to remove the shoes -from one's feet, as it were, and tread with deliberate and delicate -considering of one's steps, as do the reverently courteous even -on the approaching of an unknown altar. - -This being acknowledged a scientific, as well as a spiritual truth, -there remains no mystery in the fact that Robin at six years -old--when she watched the sparrows in the Square Gardens--did not -know the name of the feeling which had grown within her as a result -of her pleasure in the chance glimpses of the Lady Downstairs. It -was a feeling which made her eager to see her or anything which -belonged to her; it made her strain her child ears to catch the -sound of her voice; it made her long to hear Andrews or the other -servants speak of her, and yet much too shy to dare to ask any -questions. She had found a place on the staircase leading to the -Nursery, where, by squeezing against the balustrade, she could -sometimes see the Lady pass in and out of her pink bedroom. She -used to sit on a step and peer between the railing with beating -heart. Sometimes, after she had been put to bed for the night and -Andrews was safely entertained downstairs, Robin would be awakened -from her first sleep by sounds in the room below and would creep -out of bed and down to her special step and, crouching in a hectic -joy, would see the Lady come out with sparkling things in her hair -and round her lovely, very bare white neck and arms, all swathed -in tints and draperies which made her seem a vision of colour and -light. She was so radiant a thing that often the child drew in -her breath with a sound like a little sob of ecstasy, and her lip -trembled as if she were going to cry. But she did not know that what -she felt was the yearning of a thing called love--a quite simple -and natural common thing of which she had no reason for having -any personal knowledge. As she was unaware of mothers, so she was -unaware of affection, of which Andrews would have felt it to be -superfluously sentimental to talk to her. - -On the very rare occasions when the Lady Downstairs appeared on -the threshold of the Day Nursery, Robin--always having been freshly -dressed in one of her nicest frocks--stood and stared with immense -startled eyes and answered in a whisper the banal little questions -put to her. The Lady appeared at such rare intervals and remained -poised upon the threshold like a tropic plumaged bird for moments -so brief, that there never was time to do more than lose breath and -gaze as at a sudden vision. Why she came--when she did come--Robin -did not understand. She evidently did not belong to the small, -dingy nurseries which grew shabbier every year as they grew steadily -more grimy under the persistent London soot and fogs. - -Feather always held up her draperies when she came. She would not -have come at all but for the fact that she had once or twice been -asked if the child was growing pretty, and it would have seemed -absurd to admit that she never saw her at all. - -"I think she's rather pretty," she said downstairs. "She's round -and she has a bright colour--almost too bright, and her eyes are -round too. She's either rather stupid or she's shy--and one's as -bad as the other. She's a child that stares." - -If, when Andrews had taken her into the Gardens, she had played -with other children, Robin would no doubt have learned something -of the existence and normal attitude of mothers through the -mere accident of childish chatter, but it somehow happened that -she never formed relations with the charges of other nurses. She -took it for granted for some time that this was because Andrews -had laid down some mysterious law. Andrews did not seem to form -acquaintances herself. Sometimes she sat on a bench and talked -a little to another nurse, but she seldom sat twice with the same -person. It was indeed generally her custom to sit alone, crocheting -or sewing, with a rather lofty and exclusive air and to call Robin -back to her side if she saw her slowly edging towards some other -child. - -"My rule is to keep myself to myself," she said in the kitchen. -"And to look as if I was the one that would turn up noses, if -noses was to be turned up. There's those that would snatch away -their children if I let Robin begin to make up to them. Some -wouldn't, of course, but I'm not going to run risks. I'm going to -save my own pride." - -But one morning when Robin was watching her sparrows, a nurse, -who was an old acquaintance, surprised Andrews by appearing in the -Gardens with two little girls in her charge. They were children -of nine and eleven and quite sufficient for themselves, apart from -the fact that they regarded Robin as a baby and, therefore, took -no notice of her. They began playing with skipping ropes, which -left their nurse free to engage in delighted conversation with -Andrews. - -It was conversation so delightful that Robin was forgotten, even -to the extent of being allowed to follow her sparrows round a -clump of shrubbery and, therefore, out of Andrews' sight, though -she was only a few yards away. The sparrows this morning were -quarrelsome and suddenly engaged in a fight, pecking each other -furiously, beating their wings and uttering shrill, protesting -chipperings. Robin did not quite understand what they were doing -and stood watching them with spellbound interest. - -It was while she watched them that she heard footsteps on the -gravel walk which stopped near her and made her look up to see who -was at her side. A big boy in Highland kilts and bonnet and sporan -was standing by her, and she found herself staring into a pair of -handsome deep blue eyes, blue like the waters of a hillside tarn. -They were wide, glowing, friendly eyes and none like them had ever -looked into hers before. He seemed to her to be a very big boy -indeed, and in fact, he was unusually tall and broad for his age, -but he was only eight years old and a simple enough child pagan. -Robin's heart began to beat as it did when she watched the Lady -Downstairs, but there was something different in the beating. It -was something which made her red mouth spread and curve itself into -a smile which showed all her small teeth. - -So they stood and stared at each other and for some strange, strange -reason--created, perhaps, with the creating of Man and still hidden -among the deep secrets of the Universe--they were drawn to each -other--wanted each other--knew each other. Their advances were, of -course, of the most primitive--as primitive and as much a matter -of instinct as the nosing and sniffing of young animals. He spread -and curved his red mouth and showed the healthy whiteness of his -own handsome teeth as she had shown her smaller ones. Then he began -to run and prance round in a circle, capering like a Shetland pony -to exhibit at once his friendliness and his prowess. He tossed his -curled head and laughed to make her laugh also, and she not only -laughed but clapped her hands. He was more beautiful than anything -she had ever seen before in her life, and he was plainly trying -to please her. No child creature had ever done anything like it -before, because no child creature had ever been allowed by Andrews -to make friends with her. He, on his part, was only doing what -any other little boy animal would have done--expressing his child -masculinity by "showing off" before a little female. But to this -little female it had never happened before. - -It was all beautifully elemental. As does not too often happen, -two souls as well as two bodies were drawn towards each other by -the Magnet of Being. When he had exhibited himself for a minute -or two he came back to her, breathing fast and glowing. - -"My pony in Scotland does that. His name is Chieftain. He is a -Shetland pony and he is only that high," he measured forty inches -from the ground. "I'm called Donal. What are you called?" - -"Robin," she answered, her lips and voice trembling with joy. He -was so beautiful. His hair was bright and curly. His broad forehead -was clear white where he had pushed back his bonnet with the eagle -feather standing upright on it. His strong legs and knees were -white between his tartan kilt and his rolled back stockings. The -clasps which held his feather and the plaid over his shoulder were -set with fine stones in rich silver. She did not know that he was -perfectly equipped as a little Highland chieftain, the head of -his clan, should be. - -They began to play together, and the unknown Fates, which do their -work as they choose, so wrought on this occasion as to cause -Andrews' friend to set forth upon a journey through a story so -exciting in its nature that its hearer was held spellbound and -oblivious to her surroundings themselves. Once, it is true, she -rose as in a dream and walked round the group of shrubs, but the -Fates had arranged for that moment also. Robin was alone and was -busily playing with some leaves she had plucked and laid on the -seat of a bench for some mysterious reason. She looked good for -an hour's safe occupation, and Andrews returned to her friend's -detailed and intimate version of a great country house scandal, -of which the papers were full because it had ended in the divorce -court. - -Donal had, at that special moment, gone to pick some of the biggest -leaves from the lilac bush of which the Gardens contained numerous -sooty specimens. The leaves Robin was playing with were some he -had plucked first to show her a wonderful thing. If you laid a leaf -flat on the seat of the bench and were fortunate enough to possess -a large pin you could prick beautiful patterns on the leaf's -greenness--dots and circles, and borders and tiny triangles of a -most decorative order. Neither Donal nor Robin had a pin but Donal -had, in his rolled down stocking, a little dirk the point of which -could apparently be used for any interesting purpose. It was really -he who did the decoration, but Robin leaned against the bench and -looked on enthralled. She had never been happy before in the entire -course of her brief existence. She had not known or expected and -conditions other than those she was familiar with--the conditions -of being fed and clothed, kept clean and exercised, but totally -unloved and unentertained. She did not even know that this nearness -to another human creature, the exchange of companionable looks, -which were like flashes of sunlight, the mutual outbreaks of child -laughter and pleasure were happiness. To her, what she felt, the -glow and delight of it, had no name but she wanted it to go on -and on, never to be put an end to by Andrews or anyone else. - -The boy Donal was not so unconscious. He had been happy all his -life. What he felt was that he had liked this little girl the -minute he saw her. She was pretty, though he thought her immensely -younger than himself, and, when she had looked up at him with her -round, asking eyes, he had wanted to talk to her and make friends. -He had not played much with boys and he had no haughty objection -to girls who liked him. This one did, he saw at once. - -Through what means children so quickly convey to each other--while -seeming scarcely to do more than play--the entire history of their -lives and surroundings, is a sort of occult secret. It is not a -matter of prolonged conversation. Perhaps images created by the -briefest of unadorned statements produce on the unwritten tablets -of the child mind immediate and complete impressions. Safe as -the locked garden was, Andrews cannot have forgotten her charge -for any very great length of time and yet before Donal, hearing -his attendant's voice from her corner, left Robin to join her and -be taken home, the two children knew each other intimately. Robin -knew that Donal's home was in Scotland--where there are hills and -moors with stags on them. He lived there with "Mother" and he had -been brought to London for a visit. The person he called "Mother" -was a woman who took care of him and he spoke of her quite often. -Robin did not think she was like Andrews, though she did not in -the least know why. On his part Donal knew about the nurseries -and the sparrows who hopped about on the slates of the houses -opposite. Robin did not describe the nurseries to him, but Donal -knew that they were ugly and that there were no toys in them and -nothing to do. Also, in some mystic fashion, he realized that -Andrews would not let Robin play with him if she saw them together, -and that, therefore, they must make the most of their time. Full -of their joy in each other, they actually embarked upon an ingenious -infant intrigue, which involved their trying to meet behind the -shrubs if they were brought to the Gardens the next day. Donal was -sure he could come because his nurse always did what he asked of -her. He was so big now that she was not a real nurse, but she had -been his nurse when he was quite little and "Mother" liked her -to travel with them. He had a tutor but he had stayed behind in -Scotland at Braemarnie, which was their house. Donal would come -tomorrow and he would look for Robin and when she saw him she must -get away from Andrews and they would play together again. - -"I will bring one of my picture books," he said grandly. "Can you -read at all?" - -"No," answered Robin adoring him. "What are picture books?" - -"Haven't you any?" he blurted out. - -"No," said Robin. She looked at the gravel walk, reflecting a -moment thoughtfully on the Day Nursery and the Night Nursery. Then -she lifted her eyes to the glowing blueness of his and said quite -simply, "I haven't anything." - -He suddenly remembered things his Mother had told him about poor -people. Perhaps she was poor. Could she be poor when her frock -and hat and coat were so pretty? It was not polite to ask. But the -thought made him love her more. He felt something warm rush all -over his body. The truth, if he had been old enough to be aware of -it, was that the entire simpleness of her acceptance of things as -they were, and a something which was unconsciousness of any cause -for complaint, moved his child masculinity enormously. His old -nurse's voice came from her corner again. - -"I must go to Nanny," he said, feeling somehow as if he had been -running fast. "I'll come tomorrow and bring two picture books." - -He was a loving, warm blooded child human thing, and the expression -of affection was, to him, a familiar natural impulse. He put his -strong little eight-year-old arms round her and kissed her full -on her mouth, as he embraced her with all his strength. He kissed -her twice. - -It was the first time for Robin. Andrews did not kiss. There was -no one else. It was the first time, and Nature had also made her -a loving, warm blooded, human thing. How beautiful he was--how -big--how strong his arms were--and how soft and warm his mouth -felt. She stood and gazed at him with wide asking eyes and laughed a -little. She had no words because she did not know what had happened. - -"Don't you like to be kissed?" said Donal, uncertain because she -looked so startled and had not kissed him back. - -"Kissed," she repeated, with a small, caught breath, "ye-es." She -knew now what it was. It was being kissed. She drew nearer at once -and lifted up her face as sweetly and gladly, as a flower lifts -itself to the sun. "Kiss me again," she said quite eagerly. As -ingenuously and heartily as before, he kissed her again and, this -time, she kissed too. When he ran quickly away, she stood looking -after him with smiling, trembling lips, uplifted, joyful--wondering -and amazed. - - - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - - - - -When she went back to Andrews she carried the pricked leaves with -her. She could not have left them behind. From what source she -had drawn a characterizing passionate, though silent, strength of -mind and body, it would be difficult to explain. Her mind and her -emotions had been left utterly unfed, but they were not of the inert -order which scarcely needs feeding. Her feeling for the sparrows -had held more than she could have expressed; her secret adoration -of the "Lady Downstairs" was an intense thing. Her immediate -surrender to the desire in the first pair of human eyes--child eyes -though they were--which had ever called to her being for response, -was simple and undiluted rapture. She had passed over her little -soul without a moment's delay and without any knowledge of the -giving. It had flown from her as a bird might fly from darkness -into the sun. Eight-year-old Donal was the sun. - -No special tendency to innate duplicity was denoted by the fact -that she had acquired, through her observation of Andrews, Jennings, -Jane and Mrs. Blayne, the knowledge that there were things it was -best not to let other people know. You were careful about them. -From the occult communications between herself and Donal, which -had resulted in their intrigue, there had of course evolved a -realizing sense of the value of discretion. She did not let Andrews -see the decorated leaves, but put them into a small pocket in her -coat. Her Machiavellian intention was to slip them out when she -was taken up to the Nursery. Andrews was always in a hurry to go -downstairs to her lunch and she would be left alone and could find -a place where she could hide them. - -Andrews' friend started when Robin drew near to them. The child's -cheeks and lips were the colour of Jacqueminot rose petals. Her -eyes glowed with actual rapture. - -"My word! That's a beauty if I ever saw one," said the woman. -"First sight makes you jump. My word!" - -Robin, however, did not know what she was talking about and in -fact scarcely heard her. She was thinking of Donal. She thought -of him as she was taken home, and she did not cease thinking of -him during the whole rest of the day and far into the night. When -Andrews left her, she found a place to hide the pricked leaves and -before she put them away she did what Donal had done to her--she -kissed them. She kissed them several times because they were Donal's -leaves and he had made the stars and lines on them. It was almost -like kissing Donal but not quite so beautiful. - -After she was put to bed at night and Andrews left her she lay -awake for a long time. She did not want to go to sleep because -everything seemed so warm and wonderful and she could think and -think and think. What she thought about was Donal's face, his -delightful eyes, his white forehead with curly hair pushed back -with his Highland bonnet. His plaid swung about when he ran and -jumped. When he held her tight the buttons of his jacket hurt her -a little because they pressed against her body. What was "Mother" -like? Did he kiss her? What pretty stones there were in his clasps -and buckles! How nice it was to hear him laugh and how fond he -was of laughing. Donal! Donal! Donal! He liked to play with her -though she was a girl and so little. He would play with her tomorrow. -His cheeks were bright pink, his hair was bright, his eyes were -bright. He was all bright. She tried to see into the blueness of -his eyes again as it seemed when they looked at each other close -to. As she began to see the clear colour she fell asleep. - -The power which had on the first morning guided Robin to the -seclusion behind the clump of shrubs and had provided Andrews with -an enthralling companion, extended, the next day, an even more -beneficient and complete protection. Andrews was smitten with a -cold so alarming as to confine her to bed. Having no intention of -running any risks, whatsoever, she promptly sent for a younger -sister who, temporarily being "out of place", came into the house -as substitute. She was a pretty young woman who assumed no special -responsibilities and was fond of reading novels. - -"She's been trained to be no trouble, Anne. She'll amuse herself -without bothering you as long as you keep her out," Andrews said -of Robin. - -Anne took "Lady Audley's Secret" with her to the Gardens and, -having led her charge to a shady and comfortable seat which exactly -suited her, she settled herself for a pleasant morning. - -"Now, you can play while I read," she said to Robin. - -As they had entered the Gardens they had passed, not far from the -gate, a bench on which sat a highly respectable looking woman who -was hemming a delicate bit of cambric, and evidently in charge of -two picture books which lay on the seat beside her. A fine boy in -Highland kilts was playing a few yards away. Robin felt something -like a warm flood rush over her and her joy was so great and -exquisite that she wondered if Anne felt her hand trembling. Anne -did not because she was looking at a lady getting into a carriage -across the street. - -The marvel of that early summer morning in the gardens of a -splendid but dingy London square thing was not a thing for which -human words could find expression. It was not an earthly thing, -or, at least, not a thing belonging to an earth grown old. A child -Adam and Eve might have known something like it in the Garden of -Eden. It was as clear and simple as spring water and as warm as -the sun. - -Anne's permission to "play" once given, Robin found her way behind -the group of lilacs and snowballs. Donal would come, not only -because he was so big that Nanny would let him do what he wanted -to do, but because he would do everything and anything in the -world. Donal! Donal! Her heart was a mere baby's heart but it -beat as if she were seventeen--beat with pure rapture. He was all -bright and he would laugh and laugh. - -The coming was easy enough for Donal. He had told his mother and -Nanny rejoicingly about the little girl he had made friends with -and who had no picture books. But he did not come straight to -her. He took his picture books under his arm, and showing all his -white teeth in a joyous grin, set out to begin their play properly -with a surprise. He did not let her see him coming but "stalked" -her behind the trees and bushes until he found where she was -waiting, and then thrust his face between the branches of a tall -shrub near her and laughed the outright laugh she loved. And when -she turned she was looking straight into the clear blue she had -tried to see when she fell asleep. "Donal! Donal!" she cried like -a little bird with but one note. - -The lilac and the snowball were in blossom and there was a big -hawthorn tree which smelt sweet and sweet. They could not see the -drift of smuts on the blossoms, they only smelled the sweetness -and sat under the hawthorn and sniffed and sniffed. The sun was -deliciously warm and a piano organ was playing beautifully not -far away. They sat close to each other, so close that the picture -book could lie open on both pairs of knees and the warmth of each -young body penetrated the softness of the other. Sometimes Donal -threw an arm around her as she bent over the page. Love and -caresses were not amazements to him; he accepted them as parts of -the normal joy of life. To Robin they were absolute wonder. The -pictures were delight and amazement in one. Donal knew all about -them and told her stories. She felt that such splendour could have -emanated only from him. It could not occur to her that he had not -invented them and made the pictures. He showed her Robinson Crusoe -and Robin Hood. The scent of the hawthorn and lilac intoxicated -them and they laughed tremendously because Robin Hood's name was -like Robin's own and he was a man and she was a girl. They could -scarcely stop laughing and Donal rolled over and over on the grass, -half from unconquerable high spirits and half to make Robin laugh -still more. - -He had some beautiful coloured glass marbles in his pocket -and he showed her how to play with them, and gave her two of the -prettiest. He could shoot them over the ground in a way to thrill -the beholder. He could hop on one leg as far as he liked. He could -read out of books. - -"Do you like me?" he said once in a pause between displays of his -prowess. - -Robin was kneeling upon the grass watching him and she clasped -her little hands as if she were uttering a prayer. - -"Oh, yes, yes!" she yearned. "Yes! Yes!" - -"I like you," he answered; "I told my mother all about you." - -He came to her and knelt by her side. - -"Have you a mother?" he asked. - -"No," shaking her head. - -"Do you live with your aunt?" - -"No, I don't live with anybody." - -He looked puzzled. - -"Isn't there any lady in your house?" he put it to her. She -brightened a little, relieved to think she had something to tell -him. - -"There's the Lady Downstairs," she said. "She's so pretty--so -pretty." - -"Is she----" he stopped and shook his head. "She couldn't be your -mother," he corrected himself. "You'd know about HER." - -"She wears pretty clothes. Sometimes they float about and sparkle -and she wears little crowns on her head--or flowers. She laughs," -Robin described eagerly. "A great many people come to see her. -They all laugh. Sometimes they sing. I lie in bed and listen." - -"Does she ever come upstairs to the Nursery?" inquired Donal with -a somewhat reflective air. - -"Yes. She comes and stands near the door and says, 'Is she quite -well, Andrews?' She does not laugh then. She--she LOOKS at me." - -She stopped there, feeling suddenly that she wished very much that -she had more to tell. What she was saying was evidently not very -satisfactory. He seemed to expect more--and she had no more to -give. A sense of emptiness crept upon her and for no reason she -understood there was a little click in her throat. - -"Does she only stand near the door?" he suggested, as one putting -the situation to a sort of crucial test. "Does she never sit on a -big chair and take you on her knee?" - -"No, no," in a dropped voice. "She will not sit down. She says -the chairs are grubby." - -"Doesn't she LOVE you at all?" persisted Donal. "Doesn't she KISS -you?" - -There was a thing she had known for what seemed to her a long -time--God knows in what mysterious fashion she had learned it, -but learned it well she had. That no human being but herself was -aware of her knowledge was inevitable. To whom could she have -told it? But Donal--Donal wanted to know all about her. The little -click made itself felt in her throat again. - -"She--she doesn't LIKE me!" Her dropped voice was the whisper of -one humbled to the dust by confession, "She--doesn't LIKE me!" -And the click became another thing which made her put up her arm -over her eyes--her round, troubled child eyes, which, as she had -looked into Donal's, had widened with sudden, bewildered tears. - -Donal flung his arms round her and squeezed his buttons into her -tender chest. He hugged her close; he kissed her; there was a -choking in his throat. He was hot all over. - -"She does like you. She must like you. I'll make her!" he cried -passionately. "She's not your mother. If she was, she'd LOVE you! -She'd LOVE you!" - -"Do Mothers l-love you?" the small voice asked with a half sob. -"What's--what's LOVE you?" It was not vulgar curiosity. She only -wanted to find out. - -He loosed his embrace, sitting back on his heels to stare. - -"Don't you KNOW?" - -She shook her head with soft meekness. - -"N-no," she answered. - -Big boys like himself did not usually play with such little -girls. But something had drawn him to her at their first moment -of encounter. She wasn't like any other little girls. He felt it -all the time and that was part of the thing which drew him. He -was not, of course, aware that the male thrill at being regarded -as one who is a god had its power over the emotions. She wasn't -making silly fun and pretending. She really didn't know--because -she was different. - -"It's liking very much. It's more," he explained. "My mother loves -ME. I--I LOVE you!" stoutly. "Yes, I LOVE you. That's why I kissed -you when you cried." - -She was so uplifted, so overwhelmed with adoring gratitude that as -she knelt on the grass she worshipped him. - -"I love YOU," she answered him. "I LOVE you--LOVE you!" And she -looked at him with such actual prayerfulness that he caught at her -and, with manly promptness, kissed her again-this being mere Nature. - -Because he was eight years old and she was six her tears flashed -away and they both laughed joyously as they sat down on the grass -again to talk it over. - -He told her all the pleasant things he knew about Mothers. The -world was full of them it seemed--full. You belong to them from -the time you were a baby. He had not known many personally because -he had always lived at Braemarnie, which was in the country in -Scotland. There were no houses near his home. You had to drive -miles and miles before you came to a house or a castle. He had not -seen much of other children except a few who lived at the Manse -and belonged to the minister. Children had fathers as well as -mothers. Fathers did not love you or take care of you quite as -much as Mothers--because they were men. But they loved you too. -His own father had died when he was a baby. His mother loved him -as much as he loved her. She was beautiful but--it seemed to reveal -itself--not like the Lady Downstairs. She did not laugh very much, -though she laughed when they played together. He was too big now -to sit on her knee, but squeezed into the big chair beside her when -she read or told him stories. He always did what his mother told -him. She knew everything in the world and so knew what he ought to -do. Even when he was a big man he should do what his mother told -him. - -Robin listened to every word with enraptured eyes and bated breath. -This was the story of Love and Life and it was the first time she -had ever heard it. It was as much a revelation as the Kiss. She -had spent her days in the grimy Nursery and her one close intimate -had been a bony woman who had taught her not to cry, employing -the practical method of terrifying her into silence by pinching -her--knowing it was quite safe to do it. It had not been necessary -to do it often. She had seen people on the streets, but she had -only seen them in passing by. She had not watched them as she had -watched the sparrows. When she was taken down for a few minutes -into the basement, she vaguely knew that she was in the way and that -Mrs. Blayne's and Andrews' and Jennings' low voices and occasional -sidelong look meant that they were talking about her and did not -want her to hear. - -"I have no mother and no father," she explained quite simply to -Donal. "No one kisses me." - -"No one!" Donal said, feeling curious. "Has no one ever kissed you -but me?" - -"No," she answered. - -Donal laughed--because children always laugh when they do not know -what else to do. - -"Was that why you looked as if you were frightened when I said -good-bye to you yesterday?" - -"I-I didn't know," said Robin, laughing a little too--but not very -much, "I wasn't frightened. I liked you." - -"I'll kiss you as often as you want me to," he volunteered nobly. -"I'm used to it--because of my mother. I'll kiss you again now." -And he did it quite without embarrassment. It was a sort of manly -gratuity. - -Once Anne, with her book in her hand, came round the shrubs to -see how her charge was employing herself, and seeing her looking -at pictures with a handsomely dressed companion, she returned to -"Lady Audley's Secret" feeling entirely safe. - -The lilac and the hawthorn tree continued to breathe forth warmed -scents of paradise in the sunshine, the piano organ went on playing, -sometimes nearer, sometimes farther away, but evidently finding -the neighbourhood a desirable one. Sometimes the children laughed -at each other, sometimes at pictures Donal showed, or stories he -told, or at his own extreme wit. The boundaries were removed from -Robin's world. She began to understand that there was another -larger one containing wonderful and delightful things she had -known nothing about. Donal was revealing it to her in everything -he said even when he was not aware that he was telling her anything. -When Eve was formed from the rib of Adam the information it was -necessary for him to give her regarding her surroundings must have -filled her with enthralling interest and a reverence which adored. -The planted enclosure which was the central feature of the soot -sprinkled, stately London Square was as the Garden of Eden. - - * * * * * - -The Garden of Eden it remained for two weeks. Andrews' cold was -serious enough to require a doctor and her sister Anne continued -to perform their duties. The weather was exceptionally fine and, -being a vain young woman, she liked to dress Robin in her pretty -clothes and take her out because she was a beauty and attracted -attention to her nurse as well as to herself. Mornings spent -under the trees reading were entirely satisfactory. Each morning -the children played together and each night Robin lay awake and -lived again the delights of the past hours. Each day she learned -more wonders and her young mind and soul were fed. There began to -stir in her brain new thoughts and the beginning of questioning. -Scotland, Braemarnie, Donal's mother, even the Manse and the children -in it, combined to form a world of enchantment. There were hills -with stags living in them, there were moors with purple heather and -yellow brome and gorse; birds built their nests under the bushes -and Donal's pony knew exactly where to step even in the roughest -places. There were two boys and two girls at the Manse and they -had a father and a mother. These things were enough for a new heaven -and a new earth to form themselves around. The centre of the whole -Universe was Donal with his strength and his laugh and his eyes -which were so alive and glowing that she seemed always to see them. -She knew nothing about the thing which was their somehow--not-to-be-denied -allure. They were ASKING eyes--and eyes which gave. The boy was -in truth a splendid creature. His body and beauty were perfect life -and joyous perfect living. His eyes asked other eyes for everything. -"Tell me more," they said. "Tell me more! Like me! Answer me! Let -us give each other everything in the world." He had always been -well, he had always been happy, he had always been praised and -loved. He had known no other things. - -During the first week in which the two children played together, -his mother, whose intense desire it was to understand him, observed -in him a certain absorption of mood when he was not talking or -amusing himself actively. He began to fall into a habit of standing -at the windows, often with his chin in his hand, looking out as if -he were so full of thought that he saw nothing. It was not an old -habit, it was a new one. - -"What are you thinking about, Donal?" she asked one afternoon. - -He seemed to awaken, as it were, when he heard her. He turned -about with his alluring smile. - -"I am thinking it is FUNNY," he said. "It is funny that I should -like such a little girl such a lot. She is years and years younger -than I am. But I like her so. It is such fun to tell her things." -He marched over to his mother's writing table and leaned against -it. What his mother saw was that he had an impassioned desire -to talk about this child. She felt it was a desire even a trifle -abnormal in its eagerness. - -"She has such a queer house, I think," he explained. "She has a -nurse and such pretty clothes and she is so pretty herself, but -I don't believe she has any toys or books in her nursery." - -"Where is her mother?" - -"She must be dead. There is no lady in her house but the Lady -Downstairs. She is very pretty and is always laughing. But she is -not her mother because she doesn't like her and she never kisses -her. I think that's the queerest thing of all. No one had EVER -kissed her till I did." - -His mother was a woman given to psychological analysis. Her eyes -began to dwell on his face with slightly anxious questioning. - -"Did you kiss her?" she inquired. - -"Yes. I kissed her when I said good morning the first day. I thought -she didn't like me to do it but she did. It was only because no -one had ever done it before. She likes it very much." - -He leaned farther over the writing table and began to pour forth, -his smile growing and his eyes full of pleasure. His mother was -a trifle alarmedly struck by the feeling that he was talking like -a young man in love who cannot keep his tongue still, though in -his case even the youngest manhood was years away, and he made no -effort to conceal his sentiments which a young man would certainly -have striven to do. - -"She's got such a pretty little face and such a pretty mouth and -cheeks," he touched a Jacqueminot rose in a vase. "They are the -colour of that. Today a robin came with the sparrows and hopped -about near us. We laughed and laughed because her eyes are like -the robin's, and she is called Robin. I wish you would come into -the Gardens and see her, mother. She likes everything I do." - -"I must come, dear," she answered. - -"Nanny thinks she is lovely," he announced. "She says I am in love -with her. Am I, mother?" - -"You are too young to be in love," she said. "And even when you -are older you must not fall in love with people you know nothing -about." - -It was an unconscious bit of Scotch cautiousness which she at once -realized was absurd and quite out of place. But--! - -She realized it because he stood up and squared his shoulders in -an odd young-mannish way. He had not flushed even faintly before -and now a touch of colour crept under his fair skin. - -"But I DO love her," he said. "I DO. I can't stop." And though he -was quite simple and obviously little boy-like, she actually felt -frightened for a moment. - - - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - - - - -On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was -standing in Feather's drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand -and wearing the look of a man who is given up to reflection. - -"I saw Mrs. Muir today for the first time for several years," he -said after a silence. "She is in London with the boy." - -"Is she as handsome as ever?" - -"Quite. Hers is not the beauty that disappears. It is line and -bearing and a sort of splendid grace and harmony." - -"What is the boy like?" - -Coombe reflected again before he answered. - -"He is--amazing. One so seldom sees anything approaching physical -perfection that it strikes one a sort of blow when one comes upon -it suddenly face to face." - -"Is he as beautiful as all that?" - -"The Greeks used to make statues of bodies like his. They often -called them gods--but not always. The Creative Intention plainly -was that all human beings should be beautiful and he is the -expression of it." - -Feather was pretending to embroider a pink flower on a bit of -gauze and she smiled vaguely. - -"I don't know what you mean," she admitted with no abasement of -spirit, "but if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has -not been carried out." Her smile broke into a little laugh as she -stuck her needle into her work. "I'm thinking of Henry," she let -drop in addition. - -"So was I, it happened," answered Coombe after a second or so of -pause. - -Henry was the next of kin who was--to Coombe's great objection--his -heir presumptive, and was universally admitted to be a repulsive -sort of person both physically and morally. He had brought into -the world a weakly and rickety framework and had from mere boyhood -devoted himself to a life which would have undermined a Hercules. -A relative may so easily present the aspect of an unfortunate incident -over which one has no control. This was the case with Henry. His -character and appearance were such that even his connection with -an important heritage was not enough to induce respectable persons -to accept him in any form. But if Coombe remained without issue -Henry would be the Head of the House. - -"How is his cough?" inquired Feather. - -"Frightful. He is an emaciated wreck and he has no physical cause -for remaining alive." - -Feather made three or four stitches. - -"Does Mrs. Muir know?" she said. - -"If Mrs. Muir is conscious of his miserable existence, that is -all," he answered. "She is not the woman to inquire. Of course -she cannot help knowing that--when he is done with--her boy takes -his place in the line of succession." - -"Oh, yes, she'd know that," put in Feather. - -It was Coombe who smiled now--very faintly. - -"You have a mistaken view of her," he said. - -"You admire her very much," Feather bridled. The figure of this -big Scotch creature with her "line" and her "splendid grace and -harmony" was enough to make one bridle. - -"She doesn't admire me," said Coombe. "She is not proud of me as -a connection. She doesn't really want the position for the boy, -in her heart of hearts." - -"Doesn't want it!" Feather's exclamation was a little jeer only -because she would not have dared a big one. - -"She is Scotch Early Victorian in some things and extremely advanced -in others," he went on. "She has strong ideas of her own as to -how he shall be brought up. She's rather Greek in her feeling for -his being as perfect physically and mentally as she can help him -to be. She believes things. It was she who said what you did not -understand--about the Creative Intention." - -"I suppose she is religious," Feather said. "Scotch people often -are but their religion isn't usually like that. Creative Intention's -a new name for God, I suppose. I ought to know all about God. I've -heard enough about Him. My father was not a clergyman but he was -very miserable, and it made him so religious that he was ALMOST -one. We were every one of us christened and catechized and confirmed -and all that. So God's rather an old story." - -"Queer how old--from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral -strand," said Coombe. "It's an ancient search--that for the -Idea--whether it takes form in metal or wood or stone." - -"Well," said Feather, holding her bit of gauze away from her -the better to criticize the pink flower. "As ALMOST a clergyman's -daughter I must say that if there is one tiling God didn't do, it -was to fill the world with beautiful people and things as if it -was only to be happy in. It was made to-to try us by suffering -and-that sort of thing. It's a-a-what d'ye call it? Something -beginning with P." - -"Probation," suggested Coombe regarding her with an expression of -speculative interest. Her airy bringing forth of her glib time-worn -little scraps of orthodoxy--as one who fished them out of a bag of -long-discarded remnants of rubbish--was so true to type that it -almost fascinated him for a moment. - -"Yes. That's it--probation," she answered. "I knew it began with -a P. It means 'thorny paths' and 'seas of blood' and, if you are -religious, you 'tread them with bleeding feet--' or swim them as -the people do in hymns. And you praise and glorify all the time -you're doing it. Of course, I'm not religious myself and I can't -say I think it's pleasant--but I do KNOW! Every body beautiful -and perfect indeed! That's not religion--it's being irreligious. -Good gracious, think of the cripples and lepers and hunchbacks!" - -"And the idea is that God made them all--by way of entertaining -himself?" he put it to her quietly. - -"Well, who else did?" said Feather cheerfully. - -"I don't know," he said. "Certain things I heard Mrs. Muir say -suggested to one that it might be interesting to think it out." - -"Did she talk to you about God at afternoon tea?" said Feather. -"It's the kind of thing a religious Scotch woman might do." - -"No, she did not talk to me. Perhaps that was her mistake. She -might have reformed me. She never says more to me than civility -demands. And it was not at tea. I accidentally dropped in on the -Bethunes and found an Oriental had been lecturing there. Mrs. -Muir was talking to him and I heard her. The man seemed to be a -scholar and a deep thinker and as they talked a group of us stood -and listened or asked questions." - -"How funny!" said Feather. - -"It was not funny at all. It was astonishingly calm and serious--and -logical. The logic was the new note. I had never thought of reason -in that connection." - -"Reason has nothing to do with it. You must have faith. You -must just believe what you're told not think at all. Thinking is -wickedness--unless you think what you hear preached." Feather was -even a trifle delicately smug as she rattled off her orthodoxy--but -she laughed after she had done with it. "But it MUST have been -funny--a Turk or a Hindoo in a turban and a thing like a tea gown -and Mrs. Muir in her Edinburgh looking clothes talking about God." - -"You are quite out of it," Coombe did not smile at all as he -said it. "The Oriental was as physically beautiful as Donal Muir -is. And Mrs. Muir--no other woman in the room compared with her. -Perhaps people who think grow beautiful." - -Feather was not often alluring or coquettish in her manner to -Coombe but she tilted her head prettily and looked down at her -flower through lovely lashes. - -"_I_ don't think," she said. "And I am not so bad looking." - -"No," he answered coldly. "You are not. At times you look like a -young angel." - -"If Mrs. Muir is like that," she said after a brief pause, "I -should like to know what she thinks of me?" - -"No, you would not--neither should I--if she thinks at all," was -his answer. "But you remember you said you did not mind that sort -of thing." - -"I don't. Why should I? It can't harm me." Her hint of a pout -made her mouth entrancing. "But, if she thinks good looks are the -result of religiousness I should like to let her see Robin--and -compare her with her boy. I saw Robin in the park last week and -she's a perfect beauty." - -"Last week?" said Coombe. - -"She doesn't need anyone but Andrews. I should bore her to death if -I went and sat in the Nursery and stared at her. No one does that -sort of thing in these days. But I should like to see Mrs. Muir to -see the two children together!" "That could not easily be arranged, -I am afraid," he said. - -"Why not?" - -His answer was politely deliberate. - -"She greatly disapproves of me, I have told you. She is not proud -of the relationship." - -"She does not like ME you mean?" - -"Excuse me. I mean exactly what I said in telling you that she has -her own very strong views of the boy's training and surroundings. -They may be ridiculous but that sort of thing need not trouble -you." - -Feather held up her hand and actually laughed. - -"If Robin meets him in ten years from now-THAT for her very strong -views of his training and surroundings!" - -And she snapped her fingers. - -Mrs. Muir's distaste for her son's unavoidable connection the man -he might succeed had a firm foundation. She had been brought up in -a Scottish Manse where her father dominated as an omnipotent and -almost divine authority. As a child of imagination she had not been -happy but she had been obedient. In her girlhood she had varied -from type through her marriage with a young man who was a dreamer, -an advanced thinker, an impassioned Greek scholar and a lover -of beauty. After he had from her terrors of damnation, they had -been profoundly happy. They were young and at ease and they read -and thought together ardently. They explored new creeds and cults -and sometimes found themselves talking nonsense and sometimes -discovering untrodden paths of wisdom. They were youthful enough -to be solemn about things at times, and clever enough to laugh -at their solemnity when they awakened to it. Helen Muir left the -reverent gloom of the life at the Manse far behind despite her -respect for certain meanings they beclouded. - -"I live in a new structure," she said to her husband, "but it is -built on a foundation which is like a solid subterranean chamber. -I don't use the subterranean chamber or go into it. I don't want -to. But now and then echoes--almost noises--make themselves heard -in it. Sometimes I find I have listened in spite of myself." - -She had always been rather grave about her little son and when -her husband's early death left him and his dignified but not large -estate in her care she realized that there lay in her hands the -power to direct a life as she chose, in as far as was humanly -possible. The pure blood and healthy tendencies of a long and -fine ancestry expressing themselves in the boy's splendid body -and unusual beauty had set the minds of two imaginative people -working from the first. One of Muir's deepest interests was the -study of development of the race. It was he who had planted in -her mind that daringly fearless thought of a human perfection as -to the Intention of the Creative Cause. They used to look at the -child as he lay asleep and note the beauty of him--his hands, his -feet, his torso, the tint and texture and line of him. - -"This is what was MEANT--in the plan for every human being--How -could there be scamping and inefficiency in Creation. It is -we ourselves who have scamped and been incomplete in our thought -and life. Here he is. Look at him. But he will only develop as he -is--if living does not warp him." This was what his father said. -His mother was at her gravest as she looked down at the little god -in the crib. - -"It's as if some power had thrust a casket of loose jewels into -our hands and said, 'It is for you to see that not one is lost'," -she murmured. Then the looked up and smiled. - -"Are we being solemn--over a baby?" she said. - -"Perhaps," he was always even readier to smile than she was. "I've -an idea, however, that there's enough to be solemn about--not too -solemn, but just solemn enough. You are a beautiful thing, Fair -Helen! Why shouldn't he be like you? Neither of us will forget -what we have just said." - -Through her darkest hours of young bereavement she remembered -the words many times and felt as if they were a sort of light she -might hold in her hand as she trod the paths of the "Afterwards" -which were in the days before her. She lived with Donal at Braemarnie -and lived FOR him without neglecting her duty of being the head -of a household and an estate and also a good and gracious neighbour -to things and people. She kept watch over every jewel in his -casket, great and small. He was so much a part of her religion -that sometimes she realized that the echoes from the subterranean -chamber were perhaps making her a little strict but she tried to -keep guard over herself. - -He was handsome and radiant with glowing health and vitality. He -was a friendly, rejoicing creature and as full of the joy of life -as a scampering moor pony. He was clever enough but not too clever -and he was friends with the world. Braemarnie was picturesquely -ancient and beautiful. It would be a home of sufficient ease and -luxury to be a pleasure but no burden. Life in it could be perfect -and also supply freedom. Coombe Court and Coombe Keep were huge -and castellated and demanded great things. Even if the Head of the -House had been a man to like and be proud of--the accession of a -beautiful young Marquis would rouse the hounds of war, so to speak, -and set them racing upon his track. Even the totally unalluring -"Henry" had been beset with temptations from his earliest years. -That he promptly succumbed to the first only brought forth others. -It did not seem fair that a creature so different, a splendid -fearless thing, should be dragged from his hills and moors and -fair heather and made to breathe the foul scent of things, of whose -poison he could know nothing. She was not an ignorant childish -woman. In her fine aloof way she had learned much in her stays in -London with her husband and in their explorings of foreign cities. - -This was the reason for her views of her boy's training and -surroundings. She had not asked questions about Coombe himself, -but it had not been necessary. Once or twice she had seen Feather -by chance. In spite of herself she had heard about Henry. Now and -then he was furbished up and appeared briefly at Coombe Court or -at The Keep. It was always briefly because he inevitably began to -verge on misbehaving himself after twenty-four hours had passed. -On his last visit to Coombe House in town, where he had turned -up without invitation, he had become so frightfully drunk that he -had been barely rescued from the trifling faux pas of attempting -to kiss a very young royal princess. There were quite definite -objections to Henry. - -Helen Muir was NOT proud of the Coombe relationship and with -unvaried and resourceful good breeding kept herself and her boy from -all chance of being drawn into anything approaching an intimacy. -Donal knew nothing of his prospects. There would be time enough -for that when he was older, but, in the meantime, there should be -no intercourse if it could be avoided. - -She had smiled at herself when the "echo" had prompted her to the -hint of a quaint caution in connection with his little boy flame -of delight in the strange child he had made friends with. But it -HAD been a flame and, though she, had smiled, she sat very still -by the window later that night and she had felt a touch of weight -on her heart as she thought it over. There were wonderful years -when one could give one's children all the things they wanted, she -was saying to herself--the desires of their child hearts, the joy -of their child bodies, their little raptures of delight. Those -were divine years. They were so safe then. Donal was living -through those years now. He did not know that any happiness could -be taken from him. He was hers and she was his. It would be horrible -if there were anything one could not let him keep--in this early -unshadowed time! - -She was looking out at the Spring night with all its stars lit -and gleaming over the Park which she could see from her window. -Suddenly she left her chair and rang for Nanny. - -"Nanny," she said when the old nurse came, "tell me something about -the little girl Donal plays with in the Square gardens." - -"She's a bonny thing and finely dressed, ma'am," was the woman's -careful answer, "but I don't make friends with strange nurses and -I don't think much of hers. She's a young dawdler who sits novel -reading and if Master Donal were a young pickpocket with the -measles, the child would be playing with him just the same as far -as I can see. The young woman sits under a tree and reads and the -pretty little thing may do what she likes. I keep my eye on them, -however, and they're in no mischief. Master Donal reads out of -his picture books and shows himself off before her grandly and she -laughs and looks up to him as if he were a king. Every lad child -likes a woman child to look up to him. It's pretty to see the -pair of them. They're daft about each other. Just wee things in -love at first sight." - -"Donal has known very few girls. Those plain little things at the -Manse are too dull for him," his mother said slowly. - -"This one's not plain and she's not dull," Nanny answered. "My -word! but she's like a bit of witch fire dancing--with her colour -and her big silk curls in a heap. Donal stares at her like a young -man at a beauty. I wish, ma'am, we knew more of her forbears." - -"I must see her," Mrs. Muir said. "Tomorrow I'll go with you both -to the Gardens." - -Therefore the following day Donal pranced proudly up the path to -his trysting place and with him walked a tall lady at whom people -looked as she passed. She was fair like Donal and had a small head -softly swathed with lovely folds of hair. Also her eyes were very -clear and calm. Donal was plainly proud and happy to be with her -and was indeed prancing though his prance was broken by walking -steps at intervals. - -Robin was waiting behind the lilac bushes and her nurse was already -deep in the mystery of Lady Audley. - -"There she is!" cried Donal, and he ran to her. "My mother has come -with me. She wants to see you, too," and he pulled her forward by -her hand. "This is Robin, Mother! This is Robin." He panted with -elation and stood holding his prize as if she might get away before -he had displayed her; his eyes lifted to his tall mother's were -those of an exultant owner. - -Robin had no desire to run away. To adore anything which belonged -to Donal was only nature. And this tall, fair, wonderful person -was a Mother. No wonder Donal talked of her so much. The child could -only look up at her as Donal did. So they stood hand in hand like -little worshippers before a deity. - -Andrews' sister in her pride had attired the small creature like -a flower of Spring. Her exquisiteness and her physical brilliancy -gave Mrs. Muir something not unlike a slight shock. Oh! no wonder--since -she was like that. She stooped and kissed the round cheek delicately. - -"Donal wanted me to see his little friend," she said. "I always -want to see his playmates. Shall we walk round the Garden together -and you shall show me where you play and tell me all about it." - -She took the small hand and they walked slowly. Robin was at -first too much awed to talk but as Donal was not awed at all and -continued his prancing and the Mother lady said pretty things -about the flowers and the grass and the birds and even about the -pony at Braemarnie, she began now and then to break into a little -hop herself and presently into sudden ripples of laughter like -a bird's brief bubble of song. The tall lady's hand was not like -Andrews, or the hand of Andrews' sister. It did not pull or jerk -and it had a lovely feeling. The sensation she did not know was -happiness again welled up within her. Just one walk round the -Garden and then the tall lady sat down on a seat to watch them play. -It was wonderful. She did not read or work. She sat and watched -them as if she wanted to do that more than anything else. Donal -kept calling out to her and making her smile: he ran backwards -and forwards to her to ask questions and tell her what they were -"making up" to play. When they gathered leaves to prick stars and -circles on, they did them on the seat on which she sat and she -helped them with new designs. Several times, in the midst of -her play, Robin stopped and stood still a moment with a sort of -puzzled expression. It was because she did not feel like Robin. -Two people--a big boy and a lady--letting her play and talk to -them as if they liked her and had time! - -The truth was that Mrs. Muir's eyes followed Robin more than they -followed Donal. Their clear deeps yearned over her. Such a glowing -vital little thing! No wonder! No wonder! And as she grew older she -would be more vivid and compelling with every year. And Donal was -of her kind. His strength, his beauty, his fearless happiness-claiming -temperament. How could one--with dignity and delicacy--find out -why she had this obvious air of belonging to nobody? Donal was -an exact little lad. He had had foundation for his curious scraps -of her story. No mother--no playthings or books--no one had ever -kissed her! And she dressed and soignee like this! Who was the -Lady Downstairs? - -A victoria was driving past the Gardens. It was going slowly because -the two people in it wished to look at the spring budding out of -hyacinths and tulips. Suddenly one of the pair--a sweetly-hued -figure whose early season attire was hyacinth-like itself--spoke -to the coachman. - -"Stop here!" she said. "I want to get out." - -As the victoria drew up near a gate she made a light gesture. - -"What do you think, Starling," she laughed. "The very woman -we are talking about is sitting in the Gardens there. I know her -perfectly though I only saw her portrait at the Academy years ago. -Yes, there she is. Mrs. Muir, you know." She clapped her hands and -her laugh became a delighted giggle. "And my Robin is playing on -the grass near her--with a boy! What a joke! It must be THE boy! -And I wanted to see the pair together. Coombe said couldn't be -done. And more than anything I want to speak to HER. Let's get -out." - -They got out and this was why Helen Muir, turning her eyes a moment -from Robin whose hand she was holding, saw two women coming towards -her with evident intention. At least one of them had evident -intention. She was the one whose light attire produced the effect -of being made of hyacinth petals. - -Because Mrs. Muir's glance turned towards her, Robin's turned -also. She started a little and leaned against Mrs. Muir's knee, -her eyes growing very large and round indeed and filling with a -sudden worshipping light. - -"It is--" she ecstatically sighed or rather gasped, "the Lady -Downstairs!" - -Feather floated near to the seat and paused smiling. - -"Where is your nurse, Robin?" she said. - -Robin being always dazzled by the sight of her did not of course -shine. - -"She is reading under the tree," she answered tremulously. - -"She is only a few yards away," said Mrs. Muir. "She knows Robin -is playing with my boy and that I am watching them. Robin is your -little girl?" amiably. - -"Yes. So kind of you to let her play with your boy. Don't let her -bore you. I am Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." - -There was a little silence--a delicate little silence. - -"I recognized you as Mrs. Muir at once," said Feather. unperturbed -and smiling brilliantly, "I saw your portrait at the Grosvenor." - -"Yes," said Mrs. Muir gently. She had risen and was beautifully -tall,--"the line" was perfect, and she looked with a gracious calm -into Feather's eyes. - -Donal, allured by the hyacinth petal colours, drew near. Robin made -an unconscious little catch at his plaid and whispered something. - -"Is this Donal?" Feather said. - -"ARE you the Lady Downstairs, please?" Donal put in politely, -because he wanted so to know. - -Feather's pretty smile ended in the prettiest of outright laughs. -Her maid had told her Andrews' story of the name. - -"Yes, I believe that's what she calls me. It's a nice name for a -mother, isn't it?" - -Donal took a quick step forward. - -"ARE you her mother?" he asked eagerly. - -"Of course I am." - -Donal quite flushed with excitement. - -"She doesn't KNOW," he said. - -He turned on Robin. - -"She's your Mother! You thought you hadn't one! She's your Mother!" - -"But I am the Lady Downstairs, too." Feather was immensely amused. -She was not subtle enough to know why she felt a perverse kind of -pleasure in seeing the Scotch woman standing so still, and that -it led her into a touch of vulgarity. "I wanted very much to see -your boy," she said. - -"Yes," still gently from Mrs. Muir. - -"Because of Coombe, you know. We are such old friends. How queer -that the two little things have made friends, too. I didn't know. -I am so glad I caught a glimpse of you and that I had seen the -portrait. GOOD morning. Goodbye, children." - -While she strayed airily away they all watched her. She picked up -her friend, the Starling, who, not feeling concerned or needed, -had paused to look at daffodils. The children watched her until -her victoria drove away, the chiffon ruffles of her flowerlike -parasol fluttering in the air. - -Mrs. Muir had sat down again and Donal and Robin leaned against -her. They saw she was not laughing any more but they did not know -that her eyes had something like grief in them. - -"She's her Mother!" Donal cried. "She's lovely, too. But she's--her -MOTHER!" and his voice and face were equally puzzled. - -Robin's little hand delicately touched Mrs. Muir. - -"IS--she?" she faltered. - -Helen Muir took her in her arms and held her quite close. She -kissed her. - -"Yes, she is, my lamb," she said. "She's your mother." - -She was clear as to what she must do for Donal's sake. It was the -only safe and sane course. But--at this age--the child WAS a lamb -and she could not help holding her close for a moment. Her little -body was deliciously soft and warm and the big silk curls all in -a heap were a fragrance against her breast. - - - - - - -CHAPTER X - - - - - -Donal talked a great deal as he pranced home. Feather had excited -as well as allured him. Why hadn't she told Robin she was her -mother? Why did she never show her pictures in the Nursery and -hold her on her knee? She was little enough to be held on knees! -Did some mothers never tell their children and did the children -never find out? This was what he wanted to hear explained. He took -the gloved hand near him and held it close and a trifle authoritatively. - -"I am glad I know you are my mother," he said, "I always knew." - -He was not sure that the matter was explained very clearly. Not as -clearly as things usually were. But he was not really disturbed. -He had remembered a book he could show Robin tomorrow and he thought -of that. There was also a game in a little box which could be -easily carried under his arm. His mother was "thinking" and he was -used to that. It came on her sometimes and of his own volition he -always, on such occasion, kept as quiet as was humanly possible. - -After he was asleep, Helen sent for Nanny. - -"You're tired, ma'am," the woman said when she saw her, "I'm afraid -you've a headache." - -"I have had a good deal of thinking to do since this afternoon," -her mistress answered, "You were right about the nurse. The -little girl might have been playing with any boy chance sent in -her way--boys quite unlike Donal." - -"Yes, ma'am." And because she loved her and knew her face and -voice Nanny watched her closely. - -"You will be as--startled--as I was. By some queer chance the -child's mother was driving by and saw us and came in to speak to -me. Nanny--she is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." - -Nanny did start; she also reddened and spoke sharply. - -"And she came in and spoke to you, ma'am!" - -"Things have altered and are altering every day," Mrs. Muir said. -"Society is not at all inflexible. She has a smart set of her own--and -she is very pretty and evidently well provided for. Easy-going -people who choose to find explanations suggest that her husband -was a relation of Lord Lawdor's." - -"And him a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie," -offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir's hands clasped -strongly as they lay on the table before her. - -"That doesn't come within my bailiewick," she said in her quiet -voice. "Her life is her own and not mine. Words are the wind that -blows." She stopped just a moment and began again. "We must leave -for Scotland by the earliest train." - -"What'll he do?" the words escaped from the woman as if involuntarily. -She even drew a quick breath. "He's a strong feeling bairn--strong!" - -"He'll be stronger when he is a young man, Nanny!" desperately. -"That is why I must act now. There is no half way. I don't want -to be hard. Oh, am I hard--am I hard?" she cried out low as if she -were pleading. - -"No, ma'am. You are not. He's your own flesh and blood." Nanny had -never before seen her mistress as she saw her in the next curious -almost exaggerated moment. - -Her hand flew to her side. - -"He's my heart and my soul--" she said, "--he is the very entrails -of me! And it will hurt him so and I cannot explain to him because -he is too young to understand. He is only a little boy who must -go where he is taken. And he cannot help himself. It's--unfair!" - -Nanny was prone to become more Scotch as she became moved. But -she still managed to look grim. - -"He canna help himsel," she said, "an waur still, YOU canna." - -There was a moment of stillness and then she said: - -"I must go and pack up." And walked out of the room. - - * * * * * - -Donal always slept like a young roe in the bracken, and in deep -and rapturous ease he slept this night. Another perfectly joyful -day had passed and his Mother had liked Robin and kissed her. All -was well with the world. As long as he had remained awake--and it -had not been long--he had thought of delightful things unfeverishly. -Of Robin, somehow at Braemarnie, growing bigger very quickly--big -enough for all sorts of games--learning to ride Chieftain, even -to gallop. His mother would buy another pony and they could ride -side by side. Robin would laugh and her hair would fly behind her -if they went fast. She would see how fast he could go--she would -see him make Chieftain jump. They would have picnics--catch sight -of deer and fawns delicately lifting their feet as they stepped. -She would always look at him with that nice look in her eyes and -the little smile which came and went in a second. She was quite -different from the minister's little girls at the Manse. He liked -her--he liked her! - - * * * * * - -He was wakened by a light in his room and by the sound of moving -about. He sat up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed -and Nanny putting things into a travelling bag. He felt as if his -Mother looked taller than she had looked yesterday--and almost -thin--and her face was anxious and--shy. - -"We let you sleep as late as we could, Donal," she said. "You must -get up quickly now and have breakfast. Something has happened. We -are obliged to go back to Scotland by very early train. There is -not a minute to waste." - -At first he only said: - -"Back!" - -"Yes, dear. Get up." - -"To Braemarnie?" - -"Yes, dear laddie!" - -He felt himself grow hot and cold. - -"Away! Away!" he said again vaguely. - -"Yes. Get up, dear." - -He was as she had said only a little boy and accustomed to do as -he was told. He was also a fine, sturdy little Scot with a pride -of his own. His breeding had been of the sort which did not include -insubordinate scenes, so he got out of bed and began to dress. But -his mother saw that his hands shook. - -"I shall not see Robin," he said in a queer voice. "She won't -find me when she goes behind the lilac bushes. She won't know why -I don't come." - -He swallowed very hard and was dead still for a few minutes, -though he did not linger over his dressing. His mother felt that -the whole thing was horrible. He was acting almost like a young -man even now. She did not know how she could bear it. She spoke to -him in a tone which was actually rather humble. - -"If we knew where she lived you--you could write a little letter -and tell her about it. But we do not where she lives." - -He answered her very low. - -"That's it. And she's little--and she won't understand. She's very -little--really." There was a harrowingly protective note in his -voice. "Perhaps--she'll cry." - -Helen looking down at him with anguished eyes--he was buttoning his -shoes--made an unearthly effort to find words, but, as she said -them, she knew they were not the right ones. - -"She will be disappointed, of course, but she is so little that -she will not feel it as much as if she were bigger. She will get -over it, darling. Very little girls do not remember things long." -Oh, how coarse and crass and stupid it sounded--how course and -crass and stupid to say it to this small defiant scrap of what -seemed the inevitable suffering of the world! - -The clear blue of the eyes Robin had dwelt in, lifted itself to -her. There was something almost fierce in it--almost like impotent -hatred of something. - -"She won't," he said, and she actually heard him grind his little -teeth after it. - -He did not look like Donal when he was dressed and sat at the -breakfast table. He did not eat much of his porridge, but she saw -that he determinedly ate some. She felt several times as if he -actually did not look like anybody she had ever seen. And at the -same time his fair hair, his fair cheeks, and the fair sturdy -knees beneath his swinging kilt made him seem as much a little boy -as she had ever known him. It was his hot blue eyes which were -different. - -He obeyed her every wish and followed where she led. When the train -laboured out of the big station he had taken a seat in a corner -and sat with his face turned to the window, so that his back was -towards her. He stared and stared at the passing country and she -could only see part of his cheek and the side of his neck. She -could not help watching them and presently she saw a hot red glow -under the skin as if a flood had risen. It subsided in a few moments, -but presently she saw it rise again. This happened several times -and he was holding his lip with, his teeth. Once she saw his -shoulders more and he coughed obstinately two or three times. She -knew that he would die before he would let himself cry, but she -wished he would descend to it just this once, as the fields and -hedges raced past and he was carried "Away! Away!" It might be -that it was all his manhood she was saving for him. - -He really made her heart stand still for a moment just as she was -thinking this and saying it to herself almost fiercely. He suddenly -turned on her; the blue of his eyes was flaming and the tide had -risen again in his cheeks and neck. It was a thing like rage she -saw before her--a child's rage and impotently fierce. He cried out -as if he were ending a sentence he had not finished when he spoke -as he sat on the floor buttoning his shoes. - -"She has no one but me to remember!" he said. "No one but me had -ever even kissed her. She didn't know!" - -To her amazement he clenched both his savage young fists and shook -them before him. - -"It'll kill me!" he raged. - -She could not hold herself back. She caught at him with her arms -and meant to drag him to her breast. "No! No! Donal!" she cried. -"Darling! No--No!" But, as suddenly as the queer unchildish thing -had broken out, did he remember himself and boy shame at his -fantastic emotion overtook him. He had never spoken like that to -anyone before! It was almost as bad as bursting out crying! The -red tide ebbed away and he withdrew himself awkwardly from her -embrace. He said not another word and sat down in his corner with -his back turned toward the world. - - * * * * * - -That the Lady Downstairs, who was so fond of laughing and who knew -so many persons who seemed to laugh nearly all the time, might -have been joking about being her mother presented itself to Robin -as a vague solution of the problem. The Lady had laughed when she -said it, as people so often laughed at children. Perhaps she had -only been amusing herself as grown-up persons were apparently -entitled to do. Even Donal had not seemed wholly convinced and -though his mother had said the Lady Downstairs WAS--somehow the -subject had been changed at once. Mrs. Muir had so soon begun to -tell them a story. Robin was not in the least aware that she had -swiftly distracted their attention from a question, any discussion -of which would have involved explanations she could not have -produced. It would have been impossible to make it clear to any -child. She herself was helpless before the situation and therefore -her only refuge was to make the two think of other things. She had -so well done this that Robin had gone home later only remembering -the brightly transitory episode as she recalled others as brief and -bright, when she had stared at a light and lovely figure standing -on the nursery threshold and asking careless questions of Andrews, -without coming in and risking the freshness of her draperies by -contact with London top-floor grubbiness. The child was, in fact, -too full of the reality of her happiness with Donal and Donal's -mother to be more than faintly bewildered by a sort of visionary -conundrum. - -Robin, like Donal, slept perfectly through the night. Her sleep -was perhaps made more perfect by fair dreams in which she played -in the Gardens and she and Donal ran to and from the knees of -the Mother lady to ask questions and explain their games. As the -child had often, in the past, looked up at the sky, so she had looked -up into the clear eyes of the Mother lady. There was something in -them which she had never seen before but which she kept wanting to -see again. Then there came a queer bit of a dream about the Lady -Downstairs. She came dancing towards them dressed in hyacinths -and with her arms full of daffodils. She danced before Donal's -Mother--danced and laughed as if she thought they were all funny. -She threw a few daffodils at them and then danced away. The -daffodils lay on the gravel walk and they all looked at them but -no one picked them up. Afterwards--in the dream--Mrs. Muir suddenly -caught her in her arms and kissed her and Robin was glad and felt -warm all over--inside and out. - -She wakened smiling at the dingy ceiling of the dingy room. There -was but one tiny shadow in the world, which was the fear that -Andrews would get well too quickly. She was no longer in bed but -was well enough to sit up and sew a little before the tiny fire -in the atom of a servant's room grate. The doctor would not let -her go out yet; therefore, Anne still remained in charge. Founding -one's hope on previous knowledge of Anne's habits, she might be -trusted to sit and read and show no untoward curiosity. - -From her bed Robin could see the sky was blue. That meant that -she would be taken out. She lay as quiet as a mouse and thought -of the joy before her, until Anne came to dress her and give her -her breakfast. - -"We'll put on your rose-coloured smock this morning," the girl said, -when the dressing began. "I like the hat and socks that match." - -Anne was not quite like Andrews who was not talkative. She made -a conversational sort of remark after she had tied the white shoes. - -"You've got pretty little aristocratic legs of your own," she said -amiably. "I like my children to have nice legs." - -Robin was uplifted in spirit by the commendation, but she hoped -Anne would put on her own things quickly. Sometimes she was rather -a long time. The one course, however, towards which discretion -pointed as entirely safe was the continuance of being as quiet -as a mouse--even quieter, if such thing might be--so that nothing -might interfere with anything any one wanted to do. To interfere -would have been to attract attention and might lead to delay. So -she stood and watched the sparrows inoffensively until Anne called -her. - -When she found herself out on the street her step was so light on -the pavement that she was rather like a rose petal blown fluttering -along by soft vagrant puffs of spring air. Under her flopping -hat her eyes and lips and cheeks were so happy that more than one -passer-by turned head over shoulder to look after her. - -"Your name ought to be Rose," Anne giggled involuntarily as she -glanced down at her because someone had stared. She had not meant -to speak but the words said themselves. - -Because the time was young June even London sky and air were -wonderful. Stray breaths of fragrance came and went. The green of -the trees in the Gardens was light and fresh and in the bedded-out -curves and stars and circles there were more flowers every hour, -so that it seemed as if blooming things with scents grew thick -about one's feet. It was no wonder one felt light and smiled back -at nurses and governesses who looked up. Robin drew eyes became she -was like a summer bloom suddenly appearing in the Spring Garden. - -Nanny was not sitting on the bench near the gate and Donal was -not to be seen amusing himself. But he was somewhere just out of -sight, or, if he had chanced to be late, he would come very soon -even if his Mother could not come with him--though Robin could -not believe she would not. To a child thing both happiness and -despair cannot be conceived of except as lasting forever. - -Anne sat down and opened her book. She had reached an exciting -part and looked forward to a thoroughly enjoyable morning. - -Robin hopped about for a few minutes. Donal had taught her to hop -and she felt it an accomplishment. Entangled in the meshes of the -feathery, golden, if criminal, ringlets of Lady Audley, Anne did -not know when she hopped round the curve of the walk behind the -lilac and snowball bushes. - -Once safe in her bit of enchanted land, the child stood still and -looked about her. There was no kilted figure to be seen, but it -would come towards her soon with swinging plaid and eagle's feather -standing up grandly in its Highland bonnet. He would come soon. -Perhaps he would come running--and the Mother lady would walk -behind more slowly and smile. Robin waited and looked--she waited -and looked. - -She was used to waiting but she had never watched for anyone -before. There had never been any one or anything to watch for. The -newness of the suspense gave it a sort of deep thrill at first. How -long was "at first"? She did not know. She stood--and stood--and -stood--and looked at every creature who entered the gate. She did -not see any one who looked in the least like Donal or his Mother or -Nanny. There were nurses and governesses and children and a loitering -lady or two. There were never many people in the Gardens--only -those who had keys. She knew nothing about time but at length she -knew that on other mornings they had been playing together before -this. - -The small rose-coloured figure stood so still for so long that it -began to look rigid and a nurse sitting at some distance said to -another, - -"What is that child waiting for?" - -What length of time had passed before she found herself looking -slowly down at her feet because of something. The "something" -which had drawn her eyes downward was that she had stood so long -without moving that her tense feet had begun vaguely to hurt her -and the ache attracted her attention. She changed her position -slightly and turned her eyes upon the gate again. He was coming very -soon. He would be sure to run fast now and he would be laughing. -Donal! Donal! She even laughed a little low, quivering laugh -herself. - -"What is that child waiting for? I should really like to know," -the distant nurse said again curiously. - -If she had been eighteen years old she would have said to herself -that she was waiting hours and hours. She would have looked at a -little watch a thousand times; she would have walked up and down -and round and round the garden never losing sight of the gate--or -any other point for that matter--for more than a minute. Each -sound of the church clock striking a few streets away would have -brought her young heart thumping into her throat. - -But a child has no watch, no words out of which to build hopes -and fears and reasons, arguments battling against anguish which -grows--palliations, excuses. Robin, could only wait in the midst -of a slow dark, rising tide of something she had no name for. This -slow rising of an engulfing flood she felt when pins and needles -began to take possession of her feet, when her legs ached, and her -eyes felt as if they had grown big and tightly strained. Donal! -Donal! Donal! - -Who knows but that some echo of the terror against which she had -fought and screamed on the night when she had lain alone in the dark -in her cradle and Feather had hid her head under the pillow--came -back and closed slowly around and over her, filling her inarticulate -being with panic which at last reached its unbearable height? -She had not really stood waiting the entire morning, but she was -young enough to think that she had and that at any moment Anne -might come and take her away. He had not come running--he had not -come laughing--he had not come with his plaid swinging and his -feather standing high! There came a moment when her strained eyes -no longer seemed to see clearly! Something like a big lump crawled -up into her throat! Something of the same sort happened the day -she had burst into a wail of loneliness and Andrews had pinched -her. Panic seized her; she clutched the breast of her rose-coloured -frock and panic-driven turned and fled into a thick clump of bushes -where there was no path and where even Donal had never pierced. - -"That child has run away at last," the distant nurse remarked, -"I'd like to find out what she WAS waiting for." - -The shrubs were part of the enclosing planting of the Gardens. The -children who came to play on the grass and paths felt as if they -formed a sort of forest. Because of this, Robin had made her -frantic dash to their shelter. No one would come--no one would -see her--no one would hear her, beneath them it was almost dark. -Bereft, broken and betrayed, a little mad thing, she pushed her -way into their shadow and threw herself face downward, a small, -writhing, rose-coloured heap, upon the damp mould. She could not -have explained what she was doing or why she had given up all, -as if some tidal wave had overwhelmed her. Suddenly she knew that -all her new world had gone--forever and ever. As it had come so -it had gone. As she had not doubted the permanence of its joy, -so she KNEW that the end had come. Only the wisdom of the occult -would dare to suggest that from her child mate, squaring his sturdy -young shoulders against the world as the flying train sped on its -way, some wave of desperate, inchoate thinking rushed backward. -There was nothing more. He would not come back running. He was -GONE! - -There was no Andrews to hear. Hidden in the shadow under the shrubs, -the rattle and roar of the street outside the railing drowned her -mad little cries. All she had never done before, she did then. Her -hands beat on the damp mould and tore at it--her small feet beat -it and dug into it. She cried, she sobbed; the big lump in her -throat almost strangled her--she writhed and did not know she was -writhing. Her tears pouring forth wet her hair, her face, her dress. -She did not cry out, "Donal! Donal!" because he was nowhere--nowhere. -If Andrews had seen her she would have said she was "in a tantrum," -But she was not. The world had been torn away. - -A long time afterwards, as it seemed to her, she crawled out from -under the shrubs, carrying her pretty flopping hat in her earth-stained -hand. It was not pretty any more. She had been lying on it and it -was crushed and flat. She crept slowly round the curve to Anne. - -Seeing her, Anne sprang to her feet. The rose was a piteous thing -beaten to earth by a storm. The child's face was swollen and stained, -her hair was tangled and damp there were dark marks of mould on -her dress, her hat, her hands, her white cheeks; her white shoes -were earth-stained also, and the feet in the rose-coloured socks -dragged themselves heavily--slowly. - -"My gracious!" the young woman almost shrieked. "What's happened! -Where have you been? Did you fall down? Ah, my good gracious! Mercy -me!" - -Robin caught her breath but did not say a word. - -"You fell down on a flower bed where they'd been watering the -plants!" almost wept Anne. "You must have. There isn't that much -dirt anywhere else in the Gardens." - -And when she took her charge home that was the story she told -Andrews. Out of Robin she could get nothing, and it was necessary -to have an explanation. - -The truth, of which she knew nothing, was but the story of a child's -awful dismay and a child's woe at one of Life's first betrayals. -It would be left behind by the days which came and went--it would -pass--as all things pass but the everlasting hills--but in this way -it was that it came and wrote itself upon the tablets of a child's -day. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - - - - -"The child's always been well, ma'am," Andrews was standing, the -image of exact correctness, in her mistress' bedroom, while Feather -lay in bed with her breakfast on a convenient and decorative little -table. "It's been a thing I've prided myself on. But I should say -she isn't well now." - -"Well, I suppose it's only natural that she should begin sometime," -remarked Feather. "They always do, of course. I remember we all had -things when we were children. What does the doctor say? I hope it -isn't the measles, or the beginning of anything worse?" - -"No, ma'am, it isn't. It's nothing like a child's disease. I could -have managed that. There's good private nursing homes for them in -these days. Everything taken care of exactly as it should be and no -trouble of disinfecting and isolating for the family. I know what -you'd have wished to have done, ma'am." - -"You do know your business, Andrews," was Feather's amiable comment. - -"Thank you, ma'am," from Andrews. "Infectious things are easy -managed if they're taken away quick. But the doctor said you must -be spoken to because perhaps a change was needed." - -"You could take her to Ramsgate or somewhere bracing." said Feather. -"But what did he SAY?" - -"He seemed puzzled, ma'am. That's what struck me. When I told him -about her not eating--and lying awake crying all night--to judge from -her looks in the morning--and getting thin and pale--he examined -her very careful and he looked queer and he said, 'This child hasn't -had a SHOCK of any kind, has she? This looks like what we should -call shock--if she were older'." - -Feather laughed. - -"How could a baby like that have a shock?" - -"That's what I thought myself, ma'am," answered Andrews. "A child -that's had her hours regular and is fed and bathed and sleeps by -the clock, and goes out and plays by herself in the Gardens, well -watched over, hasn't any chance to get shocks. I told him so and -he sat still and watched her quite curious, and then he said very -slow: 'Sometimes little children are a good deal shaken up by a -fall when they are playing. Do you remember any chance fall when -she cried a good deal?'" - -"But you didn't, of course," said Feather. - -"No, ma'am, I didn't. I keep my eye on her pretty strict and -shouldn't encourage wild running or playing. I don't let her play -with other children. And she's not one of those stumbling, falling -children. I told him the only fall I ever knew of her having was a -bit of a slip on a soft flower bed that had just been watered--to -judge from the state her clothes were in. She had cried because -she's not used to such things, and I think she was frightened. But -there wasn't a scratch or a shadow of a bruise on her. Even that -wouldn't have happened if I'd been with her. It was when I was -ill and my sister Anne took my place. Ann thought at first that -she'd been playing with a little boy she had made friends with--but -she found out that the boy hadn't come that morning--" - -"A boy!" Andrews was sharp enough to detect a new and interested -note. "What boy?" - -"She wouldn't have played with any other child if I'd been there" -said Andrews, "I was pretty sharp with Anne about it. But she said -he was an aristocratic looking little fellow--" - -"Was he in Highland costume?" Feather interrupted. - -"Yes, ma'am. Anne excused herself by saying she thought you must -know something about him. She declares she saw you come into the -Gardens and speak to his Mother quite friendly. That was the day -before Robin fell and ruined her rose-coloured smock and things. -But it wasn't through playing boisterous with the boy--because -he didn't come that morning, as I said, and he never has since." - -Andrews, on this, found cause for being momentarily puzzled by the -change of expression in her mistress' face. Was it an odd little -gleam of angry spite she saw? - -"And never has since, has he?" Mrs. Gareth-Lawless said with a -half laugh. - -"Not once, ma'am," answered Andrews. "And Anne thinks it queer -the child never seemed to look for him. As if she'd lost interest. -She just droops and drags about and doesn't try to play at all." - -"How much did she play with him?" - -"Well, he was such a fine little fellow and had such a respectable, -elderly, Scotch looking woman in charge of him that Anne owned up -that she hadn't thought there was any objections to them playing -together. She says they were as well behaved and quiet as children -could be." Andrews thought proper to further justify herself by -repeating, "She didn't think there could be any objection." - -"There couldn't," Mrs. Gareth-Lawless remarked. "I do know the -boy. He is a relation of Lord Coombe's." - -"Indeed, ma'am," with colourless civility, "Anne said he was a -big handsome child." - -Feather took a small bunch of hothouse grapes from her breakfast -tray and, after picking one off, suddenly began to laugh. - -"Good gracious, Andrews!" she said. "He was the 'shock'! How -perfectly ridiculous! Robin had never played with a boy before -and she fell in love with him. The little thing's actually pining -away for him." She dropped the grapes and gave herself up to -delicate mirth. "He was taken away and disappeared. Perhaps she -fainted and fell into the wet flower bed and spoiled her frock, -when she first realized that he wasn't coming." - -"It did happen that morning," admitted Andrews, smiling a little -also. "It does seem funny. But children take to each other in a -queer way now and then. I've seen it upset them dreadful when they -were parted." - -"You must tell the doctor," laughed Feather. "Then he'll see -there's nothing to be anxious about. She'll get over it in a week." - -"It's five weeks since it happened, ma'am," remarked Andrews, with -just a touch of seriousness. - -"Five! Why, so it must be! I remember the day I spoke to Mrs. -Muir. If she's that sort of child you had better keep her away from -boys. HOW ridiculous! How Lord Coombe--how people will laugh when -I tell them!" - -She had paused a second because--for that second--she was not quite -sure that Coombe WOULD laugh. Frequently she was of the opinion -that he did not laugh at things when he should have done so. But -she had had a brief furious moment when she had realized that the -boy had actually been whisked away. She remembered the clearness of -the fine eyes which had looked directly into hers. The woman had -been deciding then that she would have nothing to do with her--or -even with her child. - -But the story of Robin worn by a bereft nursery passion for a little -boy, whose mamma snatched him away as a brand from the burning, -was far too edifying not to be related to those who would find it -delicious. - -It was on the occasion, a night or so later, of a gathering at -dinner of exactly the few elect ones, whose power to find it -delicious was the most highly developed, that she related it. It -was a very little dinner--only four people. One was the long thin -young man, with the good looking narrow face and dark eyes peering -through a pince nez--the one who had said that Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -"got her wondrous clothes from Helene" but that he couldn't. His -name was Harrowby. Another was the Starling who was a Miss March -who had, some years earlier, led the van of the girls who prostrated -their relatives by becoming what was then called "emancipated"; the -sign thereof being the demanding of latchkeys and the setting up -of bachelor apartments. The relatives had astonishingly settled -down, with the unmoved passage of time, and more modern emancipation -had so far left latchkeys and bachelor apartments behind it that -they began to seem almost old-fogeyish. Clara March, however, -had progressed with her day. The third diner was an adored young -actor with a low, veiled voice which, combining itself with almond -eyes and a sentimental and emotional curve of cheek and chin, made -the most commonplace "lines" sound yearningly impassioned. He was -not impassioned at all--merely fond of his pleasures and comforts -in a way which would end by his becoming stout. At present his -figure was perfect--exactly the thing for the uniforms of royal -persons of Ruritania and places of that ilk--and the name by which -programmes presented him was Gerald Vesey. - -Feather's house pleased him and she herself liked being spoken -to in the veiled voice and gazed at by the almond eyes, as though -insuperable obstacles alone prevented soul-stirring things from -being said. That she knew this was not true did not interfere with -her liking it. Besides he adored and understood her clothes. - -Over coffee in the drawing-room, Coombe joined them. He had not -known of the little dinner and arrived just as Feather was on the -point of beginning her story. - -"You are just in time," she greeted him, "I was going to tell them -something to make them laugh." - -"Will it make me laugh?" he inquired. - -"It ought to. Robin is in love. She is five years old and she has -been deserted, and Andrews came to tell me that she can neither -eat nor sleep. The doctor says she has had a shock." - -Coombe did not join in the ripple of amused laughter but, as he -took his cup of coffee, he looked interested. - -Harrowby was interested too. His dark eyes quite gleamed. - -"I suppose she is in bed by now," he said. "If it were not so late, -I should beg you to have her brought down so that we might have a -look at her. I'm by way of taking a psychological interest." - -"I'm psychological myself," said the Starling. "But what do you -mean, Feather? Are you in earnest?" - -"Andrews is," Feather answered. "She could manage measles but she -could not be responsible for shock. But she didn't find out about -the love affair. I found that out--by mere chance. Do you remember -the day we got out of the victoria and went into the Gardens, -Starling?" - -"The time you spoke to Mrs. Muir?" - -Coombe turned slightly towards them. - -Feather nodded, with a lightly significant air. - -"It was her boy," she said, and then she laughed and nodded at -Coombe. - -"He was quite as handsome as you said he was. No wonder poor Robin -fell prostrate. He ought to be chained and muzzled by law when he -grows up." - -"But so ought Robin," threw in the Starling in her brusque, young -mannish way. - -"But Robin's only a girl and she's not a parti," laughed Feather. -Her eyes, lifted to Coombe's, held a sort of childlike malice. -"After his mother knew she was Miss Gareth-Lawless, he was not -allowed to play in the Gardens again. Did she take him back to -Scotland?" - -"They went back to Scotland," answered Coombe, "and, of course, -the boy was not left behind." - -"Have YOU a child five years old?" asked Vesey in his low voice -of Feather. "You?" - -"It seems absurd to ME," said Feather, "I never quite believe in -her." - -"I don't," said Vesey. "She's impossible." - -"Robin is a stimulating name," put in Harrowby. "IS it too late -to let us see her? If she's such a beauty as Starling hints, she -ought to be looked at." - -Feather actually touched the bell by the fireplace. A sudden -caprice moved her. The love story had not gone off quite as well -as she had thought it would. And, after all, the child was pretty -enough to show off. She knew nothing in particular about her -daughter's hours, but, if she was asleep, she could be wakened. - -"Tell Andrews," she said to the footman when he appeared, "I wish -Miss Robin to be brought downstairs." - -"They usually go to bed at seven, I believe," remarked Coombe, -"but, of course, I am not an authority." - -Robin was not asleep though she had long been in bed. Because she -kept her eyes shut Andrews had been deceived into carrying on a -conversation with her sister Anne, who had come to see her. Robin -had been lying listening to it. She had begun to listen because -they had been talking about the day she had spoiled her rose-coloured -smock and they had ended by being very frank about other things. - -"As sure as you saw her speak to the boy's mother the day before, -just so sure she whisked him back to Scotland the next morning," -said Andrews. "She's one of the kind that's particular. Lord -Coombe's the reason. She does not want her boy to see or speak to -him, if it can be helped. She won't have it--and when she found -out--" - -"Is Lord Coombe as bad as they say?" put in Anne with bated breath. -"He must be pretty bad if a boy that's eight years old has to be -kept out of sight and sound of him." - -So it was Lord Coombe who had somehow done it. He had made Donal's -mother take him away. It was Lord Coombe. Who was Lord Coombe? It -was because he was wicked that Donal's mother would not let him -play with her--because he was wicked. All at once there came to -her a memory of having heard his name before. She had heard it -several times in the basement Servants' Hall and, though she had -not understood what was said about him, she had felt the atmosphere -of cynical disapproval of something. They had said "him" and "her" -as if he somehow belonged to the house. On one occasion he had -been "high" in the manner of some reproof to Jennings, who, being -enraged, freely expressed his opinions of his lordship's character -and general reputation. The impression made on Robin then had been -that he was a person to be condemned severely. That the condemnation -was the mere outcome of the temper of an impudent young footman -had not conveyed itself to her, and it was the impression which -came back to her now with a new significance. He was the cause--not -Donal, not Donal's Mother--but this man who was so bad that servants -were angry because he was somehow connected with the house. - -"As to his badness," she heard Andrews answer, "there's some that -can't say enough against him. Badness is smart these days. He's -bad enough for the boy's mother to take him away from. It's what -he is in this house that does it. She won't have her boy playing -with a child like Robin." - -Then--even as there flashed upon her bewilderment this strange -revelation of her own unfitness for association with boys whose -mothers took care of them--Jennings, the young footman, came to -the door. - -"Is she awake, Miss Andrews?" he said, looking greatly edified by -Andrews' astonished countenance. - -"What on earth--?" began Andrews. - -"If she is," Jennings winked humorously, "she's to be dressed up -and taken down to the drawing-room to be shown off. I don't know -whether it's Coombe's idea or not. He's there." - -Robin's eyes flew wide open. She forgot to keep them shut. She -was to go downstairs! Who wanted her--who? - -Andrews had quite gasped. - -"Here's a new break out!" she exclaimed. "I never heard such a -thing in my life. She's been in bed over two hours. I'd like to -know--" - -She paused here because her glance at the bed met the dark liquidity -of eyes wide open. She got up and walked across the room. - -"You are awake!" she said. "You look as if you hadn't been asleep -at all. You're to get up and have your frock put on. The Lady -Downstairs wants you in the drawing-room." - -Two months earlier such a piece of information would have awakened -in the child a delirium of delight. But now her vitality was lowered -because her previously unawakened little soul had soared so high -and been so dashed down to cruel earth again. The brilliancy of -the Lady Downstairs had been dimmed as a candle is dimmed by the -light of the sun. - -She felt only a vague wonder as she did as Andrews told her--wonder -at the strangeness of getting up to be dressed, as it seemed to -her, in the middle of the night. - -"It's just the kind of thing that would happen in a house like -this," grumbled Andrews, as she put on her frock. "Just anything -that comes into their heads they think they've a right to do. I -suppose they have, too. If you're rich and aristocratic enough to -have your own way, why not take it? I would myself." - -The big silk curls, all in a heap, fell almost to the child's hips. -The frock Andrews chose for her was a fairy thing. - -"She IS a bit thin, to be sure," said the girl Anne. "But it points -her little face and makes her eyes look bigger." - -"If her mother's got a Marquis, I wonder what she'll get," said -Andrews. "She's got a lot before her: this one!" - -When the child entered the drawing-room, Andrews made her go in -alone, while she held herself, properly, a few paces back like a -lady in waiting. The room was brilliantly lighted and seemed full -of colour and people who were laughing. There were pretty things -crowding each other everywhere, and there were flowers on all sides. -The Lady Downstairs, in a sheathlike sparkling dress, and only -a glittering strap seeming to hold it on over her fair undressed -shoulders, was talking to a tall thin man standing before the -fireplace with a gold cup of coffee in his hand. - -As the little thing strayed in, with her rather rigid attendant -behind her, suddenly the laughing ceased and everybody involuntarily -drew a half startled breath--everybody but the tall thin man, who -quietly turned and set his coffee cup down on the mantel piece -behind him. - -"Is THIS what you have been keeping up your sleeve!" said Harrowby, -settling his pince nez. - -"I told you!" said the Starling. - -"You couldn't tell us," Vesey's veiled voice dropped in softly. -"It must be seen to be believed. But still--" aside to Feather, -"I don't believe it." - -"Enter, my only child!" said Feather. "Come here, Robin. Come to -your mother." - -Now was the time! Robin went to her and took hold of a very small -piece of her sparkling dress. - -"ARE you my Mother?" she said. And then everybody burst into a -peal of laughter, Feather with the rest. - -"She calls me the Lady Downstairs," she said. "I really believe -she doesn't know. She's rather a stupid little thing." - -"Amazing lack of filial affection," said Lord Coombe. - -He was not laughing like the rest and he was looking down at Robin. -She thought him ugly and wicked looking. Vesey and Harrowby were -beautiful by contrast. Before she knew who he was, she disliked -him. She looked at him askance under her eyelashes, and he saw her -do it before her mother spoke his name, taking her by the tips of -her fingers and leading her to him. - -"Come and let Lord Coombe look at you," she said. So it revealed -itself to her that it was he--this ugly one--who had done it, and -hatred surged up in her soul. It was actually in the eyes she -raised to his face, and Coombe saw it as he had seen the sidelong -glance and he wondered what it meant. - -"Shake hands with Lord Coombe," Feather instructed. - -"If you can make a curtsey, make one." She turned her head over -her shoulders, "Have you taught her to curtsey, Andrews?" - -But Andrews had not and secretly lost temper at finding herself made -to figure as a nurse who had been capable of omission. Outwardly -she preserved rigid calm. - -"I'm afraid not, ma'am. I will at once, if you wish it." - -Coombe was watching the inner abhorrence in the little face. Robin -had put her hand behind her back--she who had never disobeyed since -she was born! She had crossed a line of development when she had -seen glimpses of the new world through Donal's eyes. - -"What are you doing, you silly little thing," Feather reproved -her. "Shake hands with Lord Coombe." - -Robin shook her head fiercely. - -"No! No! No! No!" she protested. - -Feather was disgusted. This was not the kind of child to display. - -"Rude little thing! Andrews, come and make her do it--or take her -upstairs," she said. - -Coombe took his gold coffee cup from the mantel. - -"She regards me with marked antipathy, as she did when she first -saw me," he summed the matter up. "Children and animals don't hate -one without reason. It is some remote iniquity in my character -which the rest of us have not yet detected." To Robin he said, -"I do not want to shake hands with you if you object. I prefer to -drink my coffee out of this beautiful cup." - -But Andrews was seething. Having no conscience whatever, she -had instead the pride of a female devil in her perfection in her -professional duties. That the child she was responsible for should -stamp her with ignominious fourth-ratedness by conducting herself -with as small grace as an infant costermonger was more than -her special order of flesh and blood could bear-and yet she must -outwardly control the flesh and blood. - -In obedience to her mistress' command, she crossed the room and -bent down and whispered to Robin. She intended that her countenance -should remain non-committal, but, when she lifted her head, she -met Coombe's eyes and realized that perhaps it had not. She added -to her whisper nursery instructions in a voice of sugar. - -"Be pretty mannered, Miss Robin, my dear, and shake hands with -his lordship." - -Each person in the little drawing-room saw the queer flame in the -child-face--Coombe himself was fantastically struck by the sudden -thought that its expression might have been that of an obstinate -young martyr staring at the stake. Robin shrilled out her words: - -"Andrews will pinch me--Andrews will pinch me! But--No!--No!" and -she kept her hand behind her back. - -"Oh, Miss Robin, you naughty child!" cried Andrews, with pathos. -"Your poor Andrews that takes such care of you!" - -"Horrid little thing!" Feather pettishly exclaimed. "Take her -upstairs, Andrews. She shall not come down again." - -Harrowby, settling his pince nez a little excitedly in the spurred -novelty of his interest, murmured, - -"If she doesn't want to go, she will begin to shriek. This looks -as if she were a little termagant." - -But she did not shriek when Andrews led her towards the door. -The ugly one with the wicked face was the one who had done it. He -filled her with horror. To have touched him would have been like -touching some wild beast of prey. That was all. She went with -Andrews quite quietly. - -"Will you shake hands with me?" said the Starling, goodnaturedly, -as she passed, "I hope she won't snub me," she dropped aside to -Harrowby. - -Robin put out her hand prettily. - -"Shake mine," suggested Harrowby, and she obeyed him. - -"And mine?" smiled Vesey, with his best allure. She gave him -her hand, and, as a result of the allure probably, a tiny smile -flickered about the corners of her mouth. He did not look wicked. - -"I remain an outcast," remarked Coombe, as the door closed behind -the little figure. - -"I detest an ill-mannered child," said Feather. "She ought to be -slapped. We used to be slapped if we were rude." - -"She said Andrews would pinch her. Is pinching the customary -discipline?" - -"It ought to be. She deserves it." Feather was quite out of temper. -"But Andrews is too good to her. She is a perfect creature and -conducts herself like a clock. There has never been the slightest -trouble in the Nursery. You see how the child looks--though her -face ISN'T quite as round as it was." She laughed disagreeably -and shrugged her white undressed shoulders. "I think it's a little -horrid, myself--a child of that age fretting herself thin about -a boy." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - - - - -But though she had made no protest on being taken out of the -drawing-room, Robin had known that what Andrews' soft-sounding -whisper had promised would take place when she reached the Nursery. -She was too young to feel more than terror which had no defense -whatever. She had no more defense against Andrews than she had -had against the man who had robbed her of Donal. They were both -big and powerful, and she was nothing. But, out of the wonders -she had begun to know, there had risen in her before almost inert -little being a certain stirring. For a brief period she had learned -happiness and love and woe, and, this evening, inchoate rebellion -against an enemy. Andrews led by the hand up the narrow, top-story -staircase something she had never led before. She was quite unaware -of this and, as she mounted each step, her temper mounted also, -and it was the temper of an incensed personal vanity abnormally -strong in this particular woman. When they were inside the Nursery -and the door was shut, she led Robin to the middle of the small -and gloomy room and released her hand. - -"Now, my lady," she said. "I'm going to pay you out for disgracing -me before everybody in the drawing-room." She had taken the child -below stairs for a few minutes before bringing her up for the -night. She had stopped in the kitchen for something she wanted for -herself. She laid her belongings on a chest of drawers and turned -about. - -"I'm going to teach you a lesson you won't forget," she said. - -What happened next turned the woman quite sick with the shock of -amazement. The child had, in the past, been a soft puppet. She -had been automatic obedience and gentleness. Privately Andrews -had somewhat looked down on her lack of spirit, though it had been -her own best asset. The outbreak downstairs had been an abnormality. - -And now she stood before her with hands clenched, her little face -wild with defiant rage. - -"I'll scream! I'll scream! I'll SCREAM!" she shrieked. Andrews -actually heard herself gulp; but she sprang up and forward. - -"You'll SCREAM!" she could scarcely believe her own feelings--not -to mention the evidence of her ears, "YOU'LL scream!" - -The next instant was more astonishing still. Robin threw herself on -her knees and scrambled like a cat. She was under the bed and in -the remotest corner against the wall. She was actually unreachable, -and she lay on her back kicking madly, hammering her heels against -the floor and uttering piercing shrieks. As something had seemed -to let itself go when she writhed under the bushes in the Gardens, -so did something let go now. In her overstrung little mind there -ruled for this moment the feeling that if she was to be pinched, -she would be pinched for a reason. - -Andrews knelt by the side of the bed. She had a long, strong, -thin arm and it darted beneath and clutched. But it was not long -enough to attain the corner where the kicking and screaming was -going on. Her temper became fury before her impotence and her -hideous realization of being made ridiculous by this baby of six. -Two floors below the afterglow of the little dinner was going on. -Suppose even far echoes of the screams should be heard and make -her more ridiculous still. She knew how they would laugh and her -mistress would make some silly joke about Robin's being too much -for her. Her fury rose so high that she had barely sense to realize -that she must not let herself go too far when she got hold of the -child. Get hold of her she would and pay her out--My word! She -would pay her out! - -"You little devil!" she said between her teeth, "Wait till I get -hold of you." And Robin shrieked and hammered more insanely still. - -The bed was rather a low one and it was difficult for any one larger -than a child to find room beneath it. The correct and naturally -rigid Andrews lay flat upon her stomach and wriggled herself partly -under the edge. Just far enough for her long and strong arm, and -equally long and strong clutching fingers to do their work. In her -present state of mind, Andrews would have broken her back rather -than not have reached the creature who so defied her. The strong -fingers clenched a flying petticoat and dragged at it fiercely--the -next moment they clutched a frantic foot, with a power which could -not be broken away from. A jerk and a remorseless dragging over -the carpet and Robin was out of the protecting darkness and in -the gas light again, lying tumbled and in an untidy, torn little -heap on the nursery floor. Andrews was panting, but she did not -loose her hold as she scrambled, without a rag of professional -dignity, to her feet. - -"My word!" she breathlessly gave forth. "I've got you now! I've -got you now." - -She so looked that to Robin she seemed--like the ugly man -downstairs--a sort of wicked wild beast, whose mere touch would -have been horror even if it did not hurt. And the child knew what -was coming. She felt herself dragged up from the floor and also -dragged between Andrew's knees, which felt bony and hard as iron. -There was no getting away from them. Andrews had seated herself -firmly on a chair. - -Holding her between the iron knees, she put her large hand over -her mouth. It was a hand large enough to cover more than her mouth. -Only the panic-stricken eyes seemed to flare wide and lustrous -above it. - -"YOU'LL scream!" she said, "YOU'LL hammer on the floor with your -heels! YOU'LL behave like a wildcat--you that's been like a kitten! -You've never done it before and you'll never do it again! If it -takes me three days, I'll make you remember!" - -And then her hand dropped--and her jaw dropped, and she sat staring -with a furious, sick, white face at the open door--which she had -shut as she came in. The top floor had always been so safe. The -Nursery had been her own autocratic domain. There had been no -human creature to whom it would have occurred to interfere. That -was it. She had been actually SAFE. - -Unheard in the midst of the struggle, the door had been opened -without a knock. There on the threshold, as stiff as a ramrod, -and with his hateful eyes uncovering their gleam, Lord Coombe was -standing--no other than Lord Coombe. - -Having a sharp working knowledge of her world, Andrews knew that -it was all up. He had come upstairs deliberately. She knew what -he had come for. He was as clever as he was bad, and he had seen -something when he glanced at her in the drawing-room. Now he had -heard and seen her as she dragged Robin from under the bed. He'd -come up for that--for some queer evil reason of his own. The -promptings of a remote gutter training made her feel a desire to -use language such as she still had wisdom enough to restrain. - -"You are a very great fool, young woman," he said. "You have -nothing but your character as a nurse to live on. A scene in a -police court would ruin you. There is a Society which interferes -with nursery torture." - -Robin, freed from the iron grasp, had slunk behind a chair. He -was there again. - -Andrews' body, automatically responsive to rule and habit, rose from -its seat and stood before this member of a class which required -an upright position. She knew better than to attempt to excuse or -explain. She had heard about the Society and she knew publicity would -spell ruin and starvation. She had got herself into an appalling -mess. Being caught--there you were. But that this evil-reputationed -swell should actually have been awakened by some whim to notice -and follow her up was "past her," as she would have put it. - -"You were going to pinch her--by instalments, I suppose," he -said. "You inferred that it might last three days. When she said -you would--in the drawing-room--it occurred to me to look into it. -What are your wages?" - -"Thirty pounds a year, my lord." - -"Go tomorrow morning to Benby, who engaged you for Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. -He will be at his office by nine and will pay you what is owed to -you--and a month's wages in lieu of notice." - -"The mistress--" began Andrews. - -"I have spoken to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." It was a lie, serenely -told. Feather was doing a new skirt dance in the drawing-room. -"She is engaged. Pack your box. Jennings will call a cab." - -It was the utter idiotic hopelessness of saying anything to -him which finished her. You might as well talk to a front door or -a street lamp. Any silly thing you might try wouldn't even reach -his ears. He had no ears for you. You didn't matter enough. - -"Shall I leave her here--as she is?" she said, denoting Robin. - -"Undress her and put her to bed before you pack your box," absolutely -certain, fine cold modulations in the voice, which stood for his -special plane of breeding, had their effect on her grovelling -though raging soul. He was so exactly what he was and what she -was not and could never attain. "I will stay here while you do -it. Then go." - -No vocabulary of the Servants' Hall could have encompassed the fine -phrase grand seigneur, but, when Mrs. Blayne and the rest talked -of him in their least resentful and more amiable moods, they -unconsciously made efforts to express the quality in him which -these two words convey. He had ways of his own. Men that paid a -pretty woman's bills and kept her going in luxury, Jennings and -Mrs. Blayne and the others knew something about. They sometimes -began well enough but, as time went on, they forgot themselves -and got into the way of being familiar and showing they realized -that they paid for things and had their rights. Most of them began -to be almost like husbands--speak slighting and sharp and be a bit -stiff about accounts--even before servants. They ran in and out -or--after a while--began to stay away and not show up for weeks. -"He" was different--so different that it was queer. Queer it certainly -was that he really came to the place very seldom. Wherever they -met, it didn't noticeably often happen in the slice of a house. -He came as if he were a visitor. He took no liberties. Everything -was punctiliously referred to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. Mr. Benby, who -did everything, conducted himself outwardly as if he were a sort -of man of business in Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' employ. It was open to -the lenient to believe that she depended on some mysterious private -income. There were people who preferred to try to believe this, -but there were those who, in some occult way, knew exactly where -her income came from. There were, in fact, hypercritical persons -who did not know or notice her, but she had quite an entertaining, -smart circle which neither suspicions nor beliefs prevented from -placing her in their visiting lists. Coombe DID keep it up in the -most perfect manner, some of them said admiringly among themselves. -He showed extraordinarily perfect taste. Many fashionable open -secrets, accepted by a brilliant world, were not half so fastidiously -managed. Andrews knew he had unswervingly lied when he said he -had "spoken to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." But he never failed to place -her in the position of authority. That he should have presented -himself on the nursery floor was amazingly abnormal enough to -mean some state of mind unregulated by all natural rules. "Him," -Andrews thought, "that never steps out of a visitor's place in -the drawing-room turning up on the third floor without a word!" -One thing she knew, and that came first. Behind all the polite show -he was the head of everything. And he was one that you'd better -not give back a sound to if you knew what was good for yourself. -Whatever people said against his character, he was one of the -grand and high ones. A word from him--ever so quiet--and you'd be -done for. - -She was shaking with fear inwardly, but she undressed Robin and -put her in bed, laying everything away and making things tidy for -the night. - -"This is the Night Nursery, I suppose," Coombe had said when she -began. He put up his glasses and looked the uninviting little room -over. He scrutinized it and she wondered what his opinion of it -might be. - -"Yes, my lord. The Day Nursery is through that door." He walked -through the door in question and she could see that he moved slowly -about it, examining the few pieces of furniture curiously, still -with his glass in his eye. She had finished undressing Robin -and had put her in her bed before he came back into the sleeping -apartment. By that time, exhausted by the unknown tempest she had -passed through, the child had dropped asleep in spite of herself. -She was too tired to remember that her enemy was in the next room. - -"I have seen the child with you several times when you have not -been aware of it," Coombe said to her before he went downstairs. -"She has evidently been well taken care of as far as her body -is concerned. If you were not venomous--if you had merely struck -her, when you lost your temper, you might have had another trial. -I know nothing about children, but I know something about the -devil, and if ever the devil was in a woman's face and voice the -devil was in yours when you dragged the little creature from under -the bed. If you had dared, you would have killed her. Look after -that temper, young woman. Benby shall keep an eye on you if you -take another place as nurse, and I shall know where you are." - -"My lord!" Andrews gasped. "You wouldn't overlook a woman and take -her living from her and send her to starvation!" - -"I would take her living from her and send her to starvation -without a shadow of compunction," was the reply made in the fine -gentleman's cultivated voice, "--if she were capable of what you -were capable of tonight. You are, I judge, about forty, and, though -you are lean, you are a powerful woman; the child is, I believe, -barely six." And then, looking down at her through his glass, he -added--to her quite shuddering astonishment--in a tone whose very -softness made it really awful to her, "Damn you! Damn you!" - -"I'll--I swear I'll never let myself go again, my lord!" the woman -broke out devoutly. - -"I don't think you will. It would cost you too much," he said. - -Then he went down the steep, crooked little staircase quite -soundlessly and Andrews, rather white and breathless, went and -packed her trunk. Robin--tired baby as she was--slept warm and -deeply. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - - - - -It was no custom of his to outstay other people; in fact, he -usually went away comparatively early. Feather could not imagine -what his reason could be, but she was sure there was a reason. -She was often disturbed by his reasons, and found it difficult to -adjust herself to them. How--even if one had a logically brilliant -mind--could one calculate on a male being, who seemed not exactly -to belong to the race of men. - -As a result of the skirt dancing, the furniture of the empty -drawing-room was a little scattered and untidy, but Feather had -found a suitable corner among cushions on a sofa, after everyone -had gone leaving Coombe alone with her. She wished he would sit -down, but he preferred to stand in his still, uncomfortable way. - -"I know you are going to tell me something," she broke the silence. - -"I am. When I went out of the room, I did not drive round to my -club as I said I found myself obliged to. I went upstairs to the -third floor--to the Nursery." - -Feather sat quite upright. - -"YOU went up to the Nursery!" If this was the reason for his staying, -what on earth had he come upon in the region of the third floor, -and how ridiculously unlike him to allow himself to interfere. -Could it be Andrews and Jennings? Surely Andrews was too old.--This -passed across her mind in a flash. - -"You called Andrews to use her authority with the child when she -would not shake hands with me. The little creature, for some reason -of her own, evidently feels an antipathy to me. That interested -me and I watched her as Andrews whispered in her ear. The woman's -vanity was stung. I realized that she whispered a threat. A hint -of actual ferocity showed in her eyes in spite of herself. Robin -turned pale." - -"Andrews was quite right. Children must be punished when they are -rude." Feather felt this at once silly and boring. What did he -know about such matters? - -"The child said, 'Andrews will pinch me!' and I caught Andrews' eye -and knew it was true--also that she had done it before. I looked -at the woman's long, thin, strong fingers. They were cruel fingers. -I do not take liberties, as a rule, but I took a liberty. I excused -myself and climbed three flights of stairs." - -Never had Feather been so surprised in her life. She looked like -a bewildered child. - -"But--what COULD it matter to YOU?" she said in soft amaze. - -"I don't know," his answer came after a moment's pause. "I have -caprices of mood. Certain mental images made my temperature rise. -Momentarily it did matter. One is like that at times. Andrews' -feline face and her muscular fingers--and the child's extraordinarily -exquisite flesh--gave me a second's furious shudder." - -Feather quite broke in upon him. - -"Are you--are you FOND of children?" - -"No," he was really abrupt. "I never thought of such a thing in -my life--as being FOND of things." - -"That was what--I mean I thought so." Feather faltered, as if in -polite acquiescence with a quite natural fact. - -Coombe proceeded: - -"As I went up the stairs I heard screams and I thought that -the pinching had begun. I got up quickly and opened the door and -found the woman lying flat on the floor by the bed, dragging out -the child who had hidden under it. The woman's face was devilish, -and so was her voice. I heard her threats. She got on her feet and -dragged the child up and held her between her knees. She clapped -her hand over mouth to stifle her shrieks. There I stopped her. -She had a fright at sight of me which taught her something." He -ended rather slowly. "I took the great liberty of ordering her -to pack her box and leave the house--course," with a slight bow, -"using you as my authority." - -"Andrews!" cried Feather, aghast. "Has she--gone?" - -"Would you have kept her?" he inquired. - -"It's true that--that PINCHING" Feather's voice almost held tears, -"--really HARD pinching is--is not proper. But Andrews has been -invaluable. Everyone says Robin is better dressed and better kept -than other children. And she is never allowed to make the least -noise--" - -"One wouldn't if one were pinched by those devilish, sinewy fingers -every time one raised one's voice. Yes. She has gone. I ordered -her to put her charge to bed before she packed. I did not leave -her alone with Robin. In fact, I walked about the two nurseries -and looked them over." - -He had walked about the Night Nursery and the Day Nursery! He--the -Head of the House of Coombe, whose finely acrid summing up of -things, they were all secretly afraid of, if the truth were known. -"They" stood for her smart, feverishly pleasure-chasing set. In -their way, they half unconsciously tried to propitiate something -in him, always without producing the least effect. Her mental -vision presented to her his image as he had walked about the horrid -little rooms, his somewhat stiffly held head not much below the -low ceilings. He had taken in shabby carpets, furniture, faded -walls, general dim dinginess. - -"It's an unholy den for anything to spend its days in--that third -floor," he made the statement detachedly, in a way. "If she's six, -she has lived six years there--and known nothing else." - -"All London top floors are like it," said Feather, "and they are -all nurseries and school rooms--where there are children." - -His faintly smiling glance took in her girl-child slimness in its -glittering sheath--the zephyr scarf floating from the snow of her -bared loveliness--her delicate soft chin deliciously lifted as she -looked up at him. - -"How would YOU like it?" he asked. - -"But I am not a child," in pretty protest. "Children are--are -different!" - -"You look like a child," he suddenly said, queerly--as if the -aspect of her caught him for an instant and made him absent-minded. -"Sometimes--a woman does. Not often." - -She bloomed into a kind of delighted radiance. - -"You don't often pay me compliments," she said. "That is a beautiful -one. Robin--makes it more beautiful." - -"It isn't a compliment," he answered, still watching her in the -slightly absent manner. "It is--a tragic truth." - -He passed his hand lightly across his eyes as if he swept something -away, and then both looked and spoke exactly as before. - -"I have decided to buy the long lease of this house. It is for -sale," he said, casually. "I shall buy it for the child." - -"For Robin!" said Feather, helplessly. - -"Yes, for Robin." - -"It--it would be an income--whatever happened. It is in the very -heart of Mayfair," she said, because, in her astonishment--almost -consternation--she could think of nothing else. He would not buy -it for her. He thought her too silly to trust. But, if it were -Robin's--it would be hers also. A girl couldn't turn her own -mother into the street. Amid the folds of her narrow being hid -just one spark of shrewdness which came to life where she herself -was concerned. - -"Two or three rooms--not large ones--can be added at the back," -he went on. "I glanced out of a window to see if it could be done." - -Incomprehensible as he was, one might always be sure of a certain -princeliness in his inexplicable methods. He never was personal -or mean. An addition to the slice of a house! That really WAS -generous! Entrancement filled her. - -"That really is kind of you," she murmured, gratefully. "It seems -too much to ask!" - -"You did not ask it," was his answer. - -"But I shall benefit by it. Nothing COULD BE nicer. These rooms -are so much too small," glancing about her in flushed rapture, "And -my bedroom is dreadful. I'm obliged to use Rob's for a dressing-room." - -"The new rooms will be for Robin," he said. An excellent method he -had discovered, of entirely detaching himself from the excitements -and emotions of other persons, removed the usual difficulties -in the way of disappointing--speaking truths to--or embarrassing -people who deserved it. It was this method which had utterly cast -down the defences of Andrews. Feather was so wholly left out of the -situation that she was actually almost saved from its awkwardness. -"When one is six," he explained, "one will soon be seven--nine--twelve. -Then the teens begin to loom up and one cannot be concealed in -cupboards on a top floor. Even before that time a governess is -necessary, and, even from the abyss of my ignorance, I see that no -respectable woman would stand either the Night or the Day Nursery. -Your daughter--" - -"Oh, don't call her THAT!" cried Feather. "My daughter! It sounds -as if she were eighteen!" She felt as if she had a sudden hideous -little shock. Six years HAD passed since Bob died! A daughter! A -school girl with long hair and long legs to keep out of the way. -A grown-up girl to drag about with one. Never would she do it! - -"Three sixes are eighteen," Coombe continued, "as was impressed -upon one in early years by the multiplication table." - -"I never saw you so interested in anything before," Feather faltered. -"Climbing steep, narrow, horrid stairs to her nursery! Dismissing -her nurse!" She paused a second, because a very ugly little idea -had clutched at her. It arose from and was complicated with many -fantastic, half formed, secret resentments of the past. It made -her laugh a shade hysterical. - -"Are you going to see that she is properly brought up and educated, -so that if--anyone important falls in love with her she can make -a good match?" - -Hers was quite a hideous little mind, he was telling himself--fearful -in its latter day casting aside of all such small matters as taste -and feeling. People stripped the garments from things in these -days. He laughed inwardly at himself and his unwitting "these -days." Senile severity mouthed just such phrases. Were they not -his own days and the outcome of a past which had considered itself -so much more decorous? Had not boldly questionable attitudes been -held in those other days? How long was it since the Prince Regent -himself had flourished? It was only that these days brought it -all close against one's eyes. But this exquisite creature had a -hideous little mind of her own whatsoever her day. - -Later, he confessed to himself that he was unprepared to see her -spring to her feet and stand before him absurdly, fantastically -near being impassioned. - -"You think I as too silly to SEE anything," she broke forth. "But -I do see--a long way sometimes. I can't bear it but I do--I do! -I shall have a grown-up daughter. She will be the kind of girl -everyone will look at--and someone--important--may want to marry -her. But, Oh!--" He was reminded of the day when she had fallen -at his feet, and clasped his rigid and reluctant knees. This was -something of the same feeble desperation of mood. "Oh, WHY couldn't -someone like that have wanted to marry ME! See!" she was like -a pathetic fairy as she spread her nymphlike arms, "how PRETTY I -am!" - -His gaze held her a moment in the singular fashion with which she -had become actually familiar, because--at long intervals--she kept -seeing it again. He quite gently took her fingers and returned -her to her sofa. - -"Please sit down again," he requested. "It will be better." - -She sat down without another imbecile word to say. As for him, he -changed the subject. - -"With your permission, Benby will undertake the business of the -lease and the building," he explained. "The plans will be brought -to you. We will go over them together, if you wish. There will be -decent rooms for Robin and her governess. The two nurseries can be -made fit for human beings to live in and used for other purposes. -The house will be greatly improved." - -It was nearly three o'clock when Feather went upstairs to her -dozing maid, because, after he had left her, she sat some time in -the empty, untidy little drawing-room and gazed straight before -her at a painted screen on which shepherdesses and swains were -dancing in a Watteau glade infested by flocks of little Loves. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - - - - - -When, from Robin's embarrassed young consciousness, there had -welled up the hesitating confession, "She--doesn't like me," she -could not, of course, have found words in which to make the reasons -for her knowledge clear, but they had for herself no obscurity. -The fair being who, at rare intervals, fluttered on the threshold -of her world had a way of looking at her with a shade of aloof -distaste in her always transient gaze. - -The unadorned fact was that Feather did NOT like her. She had been -outraged by her advent. A baby was absurdly "out of the picture." -So far as her mind encompassed a future, she saw herself flitting -from flower to flower of "smart" pleasures and successes, -somehow, with more money and more exalted invitations--"something" -vaguely--having happened to the entire Lawdor progeny, and she, -therefore, occupying a position in which it was herself who could -gracefully condescend to others. There was nothing so "stodgy" -as children in the vision. When the worst came to the worst, she -had been consoled by the thought that she had really managed the -whole thing very cleverly. It was easier, of course, to so arrange -such things in modern days and in town. The Day Nursery and the -Night Nursery on the third floor, a smart-looking young woman -who knew her business, who even knew what to buy for a child and -where to buy it, without troubling any one simplified the situation. -Andrews had been quite wonderful. Nobody can bother one about -a healthy, handsome child who is seen meticulously cared for and -beautifully dressed, being pushed or led or carried out in the open -air every day. - -But there had arrived the special morning when she had seen a -child who so stood out among a dozen children that she had been -startled when she recognized that it was Robin. Andrews had taken -her charge to Hyde Park that day and Feather was driving through -the Row on her way to a Knightsbridge shop. First her glance had -been caught by the hair hanging to the little hips--extraordinary -hair in which Andrews herself had a pride. Then she had seen the -slender, exquisitely modeled legs, and the dancing sway of the -small body. A wonderfully cut, stitched, and fagotted smock and hat -she had, of course, taken in at a flash. When the child suddenly -turned to look at some little girls in a pony cart, the amazing -damask of her colour, and form and depth of eye had given her another -slight shock. She realized that what she had thrust lightly away -in a corner of her third floor produced an unmistakable effect when -turned out into the light of a gay world. The creature was tall -too--for six years old. Was she really six? It seemed incredible. -Ten more years and she would be sixteen. - -Mrs. Heppel-Bevill had a girl of fifteen, who was a perfect -catastrophe. She read things and had begun to talk about her "right -to be a woman." Emily Heppel-Bevill was only thirty-seven--three -years from forty. Feather had reached the stage of softening in -her disdain of the women in their thirties. She had found herself -admitting that--in these days--there were women of forty who had -not wholly passed beyond the pale into that outer darkness where -there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But there -was no denying that this six year old baby, with the dancing step, -gave one--almost hysterically--"to think." Her imagination could -not--never had and never would she have allowed it to--grasp any -belief that she herself could change. A Feather, No! But a creature -of sixteen, eighteen--with eyes that shape--with lashes an inch -long--with yards of hair--standing by one's side in ten years! It -was ghastly! - -Coombe, in his cold perfunctory way, climbing the crooked, narrow -stairs, dismissing Andrews--looking over the rooms--dismissing -them, so to speak, and then remaining after the rest had gone -to reveal to her a new abnormal mood--that, in itself alone, was -actually horrible. It was abnormal and yet he had always been more -or less like that in all things. Despite everything--everything--he -had never been in love with her at all. At first she had believed -he was--then she had tried to make him care for her. He had never -failed her, he had done everything in his grand seigneur fashion. -Nobody dare make gross comment upon her, but, while he saw her -loveliness as only such a man could--she had gradually realized -that she had never had even a chance with him. She could not -even think that if she had not been so silly and frightened that -awful day six years ago, and had not lost her head, he might have -admired her more and more and in the end asked her to marry him. -He had said there must be no mistakes, and she had not been allowed -to fall into making one. The fact that she had not, had, finally, -made her feel the power of a certain fascination in him. She thought -it was a result of his special type of looks, his breeding, the -wonderful clothes he wore--but it was, in truth, his varieties of -inaccessibility. - -"A girl might like him," she had said to herself that night--she -sat up late after he left her. "A girl who--who had up-to-date sense -might. Modern people don't grow old as they used to. At fifty-five -he won't be fat, or bald and he won't have lost his teeth. People -have found out they needn't. He will be as thin and straight as -he is today--and nothing can alter his nose. He will be ten years -cleverer than he is now. Buying the house for a child of that -age--building additional rooms for her!" - -In the fevered, rapid, deep-dipping whirl of the life which was -the only one she knew, she had often seen rather trying things -happen--almost unnatural changes in situations. People had overcome -the folly of being afraid to alter their minds and their views -about what they had temporarily believed were permanent bonds and -emotions. Bonds had become old fogeyish. Marriages went to pieces, -the parties in love affairs engaged in a sort of "dance down the -middle" and turn other people's partners. The rearrangement of -figures sometimes made for great witticism. Occasionally people -laughed at themselves as at each other. The admirers of engaging -matrons had been known to renew their youth at the coming-out balls -of lovely daughters in their early teens, and to end by assuming -the flowery chains of a new allegiance. Time had, of course, -been when such a volte face would have aroused condemnation and -indignant discussion, but a humorous leniency spent but little -time in selecting terms of severity. Feather had known of several -such contretemps ending in quite brilliant matches. The enchanting -mothers usually consoled themselves with great ease, and, if the -party of each part was occasionally wittily pungent in her comments -on the other, everybody laughed and nobody had time to criticize. -A man who had had much to bestow and who preferred in youth -to bestow it upon himself was not infrequently more in the mood -for the sharing of marriage when years had revealed to him the -distressing fact that he was not, and had never been, the centre of -the universe, which distressing fact is one so unfairly concealed -from youth in bloom. - -It was, of course, but as a vaguely outlined vision that these -recognitions floated through what could only be alleged to be -Feather's mind because there was no other name for it. The dark -little staircase, the rejected and despised third floor, and Coombe -detachedly announcing his plans for the house, had set the--so to -speak--rather malarious mist flowing around her. A trying thing -was that it did not really dispel itself altogether, but continued -to hang about the atmosphere surrounding other and more cheerful -things. Almost impalpably it added to the familiar feeling--or lack -of feeling--with regard to Robin. She had not at all hated the -little thing; it had merely been quite true that, in an inactive -way, she had not LIKED her. In the folds of the vague mist quietly -floated the truth that she now liked her less. - -Benby came to see and talk to her on the business of the -structural changes to be made. He conducted himself precisely as -though her views on the matter were of value and could not, in -fact, be dispensed with. He brought the architect's plans with him -and explained them with care. They were clever plans which made -the most of a limited area. He did not even faintly smile when -it revealed itself to him, as it unconsciously did, that Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless regarded their adroit arrangement as a singular -misuse of space which could have been much better employed for -necessities of her own. She was much depressed by the ground floor -addition which might have enlarged her dining-room, but which was -made into a sitting-room for Robin and her future governess. - -"And that is in ADDITION to her schoolroom which might have been -thrown into the drawing-room--besides the new bedrooms which I -needed so much," she said. - -"The new nurse, who is a highly respectable person," explained -Benby, "could not have been secured if she had not known that -improvements were being made. The reconstruction of the third floor -will provide suitable accommodations." - -The special forte of Dowson, the new nurse, was a sublimated -respectability far superior to smartness. She had been mystically -produced by Benby and her bonnets and jackets alone would have -revealed her selection from almost occult treasures. She wore -bonnets and "jackets," not hats and coats. - -"In the calm days of Her Majesty, nurses dressed as she does. I do -not mean in the riotous later years of her reign--but earlier--when -England dreamed in terms of Crystal Palaces and Great Exhibitions. -She can only be the result of excavation," Coombe said of her. - -She was as proud of her respectability as Andrews had been of her -smartness. This had, in fact, proved an almost insuperable obstacle -to her engagement. The slice of a house, with its flocking in and -out of chattering, smart people in marvellous clothes was not the -place for her, nor was Mrs. Gareth-Lawless the mistress of her -dreams. But her husband had met with an accident and must be kept -in a hospital, and an invalid daughter must live by the seaside--and -suddenly, when things were at their worst with her, had come -Benby with a firm determination to secure her with wages such as -no other place would offer. Besides which she had observed as she -had lived. - -"Things have changed," she reflected soberly. "You've got to resign -yourself and not be too particular." - -She accepted the third floor, as Benby had said, because it was to -be rearranged and the Night and Day Nurseries, being thrown into -one, repainted and papered would make a decent place to live in. -At the beautiful little girl given into her charge she often looked -in a puzzled way, because she knew a good deal about children, and -about this one there was something odd. Her examination of opened -drawers and closets revealed piles of exquisite garments of all -varieties, all perfectly kept. In these dingy holes, which called -themselves nurseries, she found evidence that money had been spent -like water so that the child, when she was seen, might look like -a small princess. But she found no plaything--no dolls or toys, -and only one picture book, and that had "Donal" written on the -fly leaf and evidently belonged to someone else. - -What exactly she would have done when she had had time to think -the matter over, she never knew, because, a few days after her -arrival, a tall, thin gentleman, coming up the front steps as she -was going out with Robin, stopped and spoke to her as if he knew -who she was. - -"You know the kind of things children like to play with, nurse?" -he said. - -She respectfully replied that she had had long experience with -young desires. She did not know as yet who he was, but there was -that about him which made her feel that, while there was no knowing -what height his particular exaltation in the matter of rank might -reach, one would be safe in setting it high. - -"Please go to one of the toy shops and choose for the child what -she will like best. Dolls--games--you will know what to select. -Send the bill to me at Coombe House. I am Lord Coombe." - -"Thank you, my lord," Dowson answered, with a sketch of a curtsey, -"Miss Robin, you must hold out your little hand and say 'thank -you' to his lordship for being so kind. He's told Dowson to buy -you some beautiful dolls and picture books as a present." - -Robin's eyelashes curled against her under brows in her wide, still -glance upward at him. Here was "the one" again! She shut her hand -tightly into a fist behind her back. - -Lord Coombe smiled a little--not much. - -"She does not like me," he said. "It is not necessary that -she should give me her hand. I prefer that she shouldn't, if she -doesn't want to. Good morning, Dowson." - -To the well-regulated mind of Dowson, this seemed treating too -lightly a matter as serious as juvenile incivility. She remonstrated -gravely and at length with Robin. - -"Little girls must behave prettily to kind gentlemen who are -friends of their mammas. It is dreadful to be rude and not say -'thank you'," she said. - -But as she talked she was vaguely aware that her words passed by -the child's ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a -bit of temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At -the same time, there WAS something queer about the little thing. -She had a listless way of sitting staring out of the window and -seeming to have no desire to amuse herself. She was too young -to be listless and she did not care for her food. Dowson asked -permission to send for the doctor and, when he came, he ordered -sea air. - -"Of course, you can take her away for a few weeks," Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -said. Here she smiled satirically and added, "But I can tell you -what it is all about. The little minx actually fell in love with -a small boy she met in the Square Gardens and, when his mother -took him from London, she began to mope like a tiresome girl in -her teens. It's ridiculous, but is the real trouble." - -"Oh!" said Dowson, the low and respectful interjection expressing -a shade of disapproval, "Children do have fancies, ma'am. She'll -get over it if we give her something else to think of." - -The good woman went to one of the large toy shops and bought a -beautiful doll, a doll's house, and some picture books. When they -were brought up to the Day Nursery, Robin was asleep after a rather -long walk, which Dowson had decided would be good for her. When -she came later into the room, after the things had been unpacked, -she regarded them with an expression of actual dislike. - -"Isn't that a beautiful doll?" said Dowson, good-humouredly. "And -did you ever see such a lovely house? It was kind Lord Coombe who -gave them to you. Just you look at the picture books." - -Robin put her hands behind her back and would not touch them. Dowson, -who was a motherly creature with a great deal of commonsense, was -set thinking. She began to make guesses, though she was not yet -sufficiently familiar with the household to guess from any firm -foundation of knowledge of small things. - -"Come here, dear," she said, and drew the small thing to her knee. -"Is it because you don't love Lord Coombe?" she asked. - -"Yes," she answered. - -"But why?" said Dowson. "When he is such a kind gentleman?" - -But Robin would not tell her why and never did. She never told -any one, until years had passed, how this had been the beginning -of a hatred. The toys were left behind when she was taken to the -seaside. Dowson tried to persuade her to play with them several -times, but she would not touch them, so they were put away. Feeling -that she was dealing with something unusual, and, being a kindly -person, Dowson bought her some playthings on her own account. They -were simple things, but Robin was ready enough to like them. - -"Did YOU give them to me?" she asked. - -"Yes, I did, Miss Robin." - -The child drew near her after a full minute of hesitation. - -"I will KISS you!" she said solemnly, and performed the rite as -whole-souledly as Donal had done. - -"Dear little mite!" exclaimed the surprised Dowson. "Dear me!" And -there was actual moisture in her eyes as she squeezed the small -body in her arms. - -"She's the strangest mite I ever nursed," was her comment to Mrs. -Blayne below stairs. "It was so sudden, and she did it as if she'd -never done it before. I'd actually been thinking she hadn't any -feeling at all." - -"No reason why she should have. She's been taken care of by the -clock and dressed like a puppet, but she's not been treated human!" -broke forth Mrs. Blayne. - -Then the whole story was told--the "upstairs" story with much vivid -description, and the mentioning of many names and the dotting of -many "i's". Dowson had heard certain things only through vague -rumour, but now she knew and began to see her way. She had not -heard names before, and the definite inclusion of Lord Coombe's -suggested something to her. - -"Do you think the child could be JEALOUS of his lordship?" she -suggested. - -"She might if she knew anything about him--but she never saw him -until the night she was taken down into the drawing-room. She's -lived upstairs like a little dog in its kennel." - -"Well," Dowson reflected aloud, "it sounds almost silly to talk -of a child's hating any one, but that bit of a thing's eyes had -fair hate in them when she looked up at him where he stood. That -was what puzzled me." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - - - - -Before Robin had been taken to the seaside to be helped by the -bracing air of the Norfolk coast to recover her lost appetite -and forget her small tragedy, she had observed that unaccustomed -things were taking place in the house. Workmen came in and out -through the mews at the back and brought ladders with them and -tools in queer bags. She heard hammerings which began very early -in the morning and went on all day. As Andrews had trained her not -to ask tiresome questions, she only crept now and then to a back -window and peeped out. But in a few days Dowson took her away. - -When she came back to London, she was not taken up the steep dark -stairs to the third floor. Dowson led her into some rooms she had -never seen before. They were light and airy and had pretty walls -and furniture. A sitting-room on the ground floor had even a round -window with plants in it and a canary bird singing in a cage. - -"May we stay here?" she asked Dowson in a whisper. - -"We are going to live here," was the answer. - -And so they did. - -At first Feather occasionally took her intimates to see the -additional apartments. - -"In perfect splendour is the creature put up, and I with a bedroom -like a coalhole and such drawing-rooms as you see each time you -enter the house!" she broke forth spitefully one day when she -forgot herself. - -She said it to the Starling and Harrowby, who had been simply gazing -about them in fevered mystification, because the new development -was a thing which must invoke some more or less interesting -explanation. At her outbreak, all they could do was to gaze at her -with impartial eyes, which suggested question, and Feather shrugged -pettish shoulders. - -"You knew _I_ didn't do it. How could I?" she said. "It is a queer -whim of Coombe's. Of course, it is not the least like him. I call -it morbid." - -After which people knew about the matter and found it a subject -for edifying and quite stimulating discussion. There was something -fantastic in the situation. Coombe was the last man on earth to -have taken the slightest notice of the child's existence! It was -believed that he had never seen her--except in long clothes--until -she had glared at him and put her hand behind her back the night -she was brought into the drawing-room. She had been adroitly kept -tucked away in an attic somewhere. And now behold an addition of -several wonderful, small rooms built, furnished and decorated for -her alone, where she was to live as in a miniature palace attended -by servitors! Coombe, as a purveyor of nursery appurtenances, was -regarded with humour, the general opinion being that the eruption -of a volcano beneath his feet alone could have awakened his somewhat -chill self-absorption to the recognition of any child's existence. - -"To be exact we none of us really know anything in particular about -his mental processes." Harrowby pondered aloud. "He's capable of -any number of things we might not understand, if he condescended -to tell us about them--which he would never attempt. He has a -remote, brilliantly stored, cynical mind. He owns that he is of an -inhuman selfishness. I haven't a suggestion to make, but it sets one -searching through the purlieus of one's mind for an approximately -reasonable explanation." - -"Why 'purlieus'?" was the Starling's inquiry. Harrowby shrugged -his shoulders ever so lightly. - -"Well, one isn't searching for reasons founded on copy-book axioms," -he shook his head. "Coombe? No." - -There was a silence given to occult thought. - -"Feather is really in a rage and is too Feathery to be able to -conceal it," said Starling. - -"Feather would be--inevitably," Harrowby lifted his near-sighted -eyes to her curiously. "Can you see Feather in the future--when -Robin is ten years older?" - -"I can," the Starling answered. - - * * * * * - -The years which followed were changing years--growing years. Life -and entertainment went on fast and furiously in all parts of London, -and in no part more rapidly than in the slice of a house whose -front always presented an air of having been freshly decorated, -in spite of summer rain and winter soot and fog. The plants in -the window boxes seemed always in bloom, being magically replaced -in the early morning hours when they dared to hint at flagging. -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was said, must be renewed in some such -mysterious morning way, as she merely grew prettier as she neared -thirty and passed it. Women did in these days! Which last phrase -had always been a useful one, probably from the time of the Flood. -Old fogeys, male and female, had used it in the past as a means of -scathingly unfavourable comparison, growing flushed and almost -gobbling like turkey cocks in their indignation. Now, as a phrase, it -was a support and a mollifier. "In these days" one knew better how -to amuse oneself, was more free to snatch at agreeable opportunity, -less in bondage to old fancies which had called themselves beliefs; -everything whirled faster and more lightly--danced, two-stepped, -instead of marching. - -Robin vaguely connected certain changes in her existence with the -changes which took place in the fashion of sleeves and skirts -which appeared to produce radical effects in the world she caught -glimpses of. Sometimes sleeves were closely fitted to people's -arms, then puffs sprang from them and grew until they were enormous -and required delicate manipulation when coats were put on; then -their lavishness of material fell from the shoulder to the wrists -and hung there swaying until some sudden development of skirt seemed -to distract their attention from themselves and they shrank into -unimportance and skirts changed instead. Afterwards, sometimes -figures were slim and encased in sheathlike draperies, sometimes -folds rippled about feet, "fullness" crept here or there or -disappeared altogether, trains grew longer or shorter or wider or -narrower, cashmeres, grosgrain silks and heavy satins were suddenly -gone and chiffon wreathed itself about the world and took possession -of it. Bonnets ceased to exist and hats were immense or tiny, tall -or flat, tilted at the back, at the side, at the front, worn over -the face or dashingly rolled back from it; feathers drooped or -stood upright at heights which rose and fell and changed position -with the changing seasons. No garment or individual wore the same -aspect for more than a month's time. It was necessary to change -all things with a rapidity matching the change of moods and fancies -which altered at the rate of the automobiles which dashed here -and there and everywhere, through country roads, through town, -through remote places with an unsparing swiftness which set a new -pace for the world. - -"I cannot hark back regretfully to stage coaches," said Lord Coombe. -"Even I was not born early enough for that. But in the days of -my youth and innocence express trains seemed almost supernatural. -One could drive a pair of horses twenty miles to make a country -visit, but one could not drive back the same day. One's circle -had its limitations and degrees of intimacy. Now it is possible -motor fifty miles to lunch and home to dine with guests from the -remotest corners of the earth. Oceans are crossed in six days, -and the eager flit from continent to continent. Engagements can be -made by cable and the truly enterprising can accept an invitation -to dine in America on a fortnight's notice. Telephones communicate -in a few seconds and no one is secure from social intercourse for -fifteen minutes. Acquaintances and correspondence have no limitations -because all the inhabitants of the globe can reach one by motor or -electricity. In moments of fatigue I revert to the days of Queen -Anne with pleasure." - -While these changes went on, Robin lived in her own world in her -own quarters at the rear of the slice of a house. During the early -years spent with Dowson, she learned gradually that life was a -better thing than she had known in the dreary gloom of the third -floor Day and Night Nurseries. She was no longer left to spend -hours alone, nor was she taken below stairs to listen blankly to -servants talking to each other of mysterious things with which she -herself and the Lady Downstairs and "him" were somehow connected, -her discovery of this fact being based on the dropping of voices -and sidelong glances at her and sudden warning sounds from Andrews. -She realized that Dowson would never pinch her, and the rooms she -lived in were pretty and bright. - -Gradually playthings and picture books appeared in them, which she -gathered Dowson presented her with. She gathered this from Dowson -herself. - -She had never played with the doll, and, by chance a day arriving -when Lord Coombe encountered Dowson in the street without her -charge, he stopped her again and spoke as before. - -"Is the little girl well and happy, Nurse?" he asked. - -"Quite well, my lord, and much happier than she used to be." - -"Did she," he hesitated slightly, "like the playthings you bought -her?" - -Dowson hesitated more than slightly but, being a sensible woman -and at the same time curious about the matter, she spoke the truth. - -"She wouldn't play with them at all, my lord. I couldn't persuade -her to. What her child's fancy was I don't know." - -"Neither do I--except that it is founded on a distinct dislike," -said Coombe. There was a brief pause. "Are you fond of toys -yourself, Dowson?" he inquired coldly. - -"I am that--and I know how to choose them, your lordship," replied -Dowson, with a large, shrewd intelligence. - -"Then oblige me by throwing away the doll and its accompaniments -and buying some toys for yourself, at my expense. You can present -them to Miss Robin as a personal gift. She will accept them from -you." - -He passed on his way and Dowson looked after him interestedly. - -"If she was his," she thought, "I shouldn't be puzzled. But she's -not--that I've ever heard of. He's got some fancy of his own the -same as Robin has, though you wouldn't think it to look at him. -I'd like to know what it is." - -It was a fancy--an old, old fancy--it harked back nearly thirty -years--to the dark days of youth and passion and unending tragedy -whose anguish, as it then seemed, could never pass--but which, -nevertheless, had faded with the years as they flowed by. And yet -left him as he was and had been. He was not sentimental about it, -he smiled at himself drearily--though never at the memory--when -it rose again and, through its vague power, led him to do strange -things curiously verging on the emotional and eccentric. But even -the child--who quite loathed him for some fantastic infant reason -of her own--even the child had her part in it. His soul oddly -withdrew itself into a far remoteness as he walked away and -Piccadilly became a shadow and a dream. - -Dowson went home and began to pack neatly in a box the neglected -doll and the toys which had accompanied her. Robin seeing her -doing it, asked a question. - -"Are they going back to the shop?" - -"No. Lord Coombe is letting me give them to a little girl who is -very poor and has to lie in bed because her back hurts her. His -lordship is so kind he does not want you to be troubled with them. -He is not angry. He is too good to be angry." - -That was not true, thought Robin. He had done THAT THING she -remembered! Goodness could not have done it. Only badness. - -When Dowson brought in a new doll and other wonderful things, a -little hand enclosed her wrist quite tightly as she was unpacking -the boxes. It was Robin's and the small creature looked at her -with a questioning, half appealing, half fierce. - -"Did he send them, Dowson?" - -"They are a present from me," Dowson answered comfortably, and -Robin said again, - -"I want to kiss you. I like to kiss you. I do." - -To those given to psychical interests and speculations, it might -have suggested itself that, on the night when the creature who had -seemed to Andrews a soft tissued puppet had suddenly burst forth -into defiance and fearless shrillness, some cerebral change had -taken place in her. From that hour her softness had become a thing -of the past. Dowson had not found a baby, but a brooding, little, -passionate being. She was neither insubordinate nor irritable, -but Dowson was conscious of a certain intensity of temperament -in her. She knew that she was always thinking of things of which -she said almost nothing. Only a sensible motherly curiosity, such -as Dowson's could have made discoveries, but a rare question put -by the child at long intervals sometimes threw a faint light. -There were questions chiefly concerning mothers and their habits -and customs. They were such as, in their very unconsciousness, -revealed a strange past history. Lights were most unconsciously -thrown by Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself. Her quite amiable detachment -from all shadow of responsibility, her brilliantly unending -occupations, her goings in and out, the flocks of light, almost -noisy, intimates who came in and out with her revealed much to a -respectable person who had soberly watched the world. - -"The Lady Downstairs is my mother, isn't she?" Robin inquired -gravely once. - -"Yes, my dear," was Dowson's answer. - -A pause for consideration of the matter and then from Robin: - -"All mothers are not alike, Dowson, are they?" - -"No, my dear," with wisdom. - -Though she was not yet seven, life had so changed for her that it -was a far cry back to the Spring days in the Square Gardens. She -went back, however, back into that remote ecstatic past. - -"The Lady Downstairs is not--alike," she said at last, "Donal's -mother loved him. She let him sit in the same chair with her and -read in picture books. She kissed him when he was in bed." - -Jennings, the young footman who was a humourist, had, of course, -heard witty references to Robin's love affair while in attendance, -and he had equally, of course, repeated them below stairs. Therefore, - -Dowson had heard vague rumours but had tactfully refrained from -mentioning the subject to her charge. - -"Who was Donal?" she said now, but quite quietly. Robin did not -know that a confidante would have made her first agony easier to -bear. She was not really being confidential now, but, realizing -Dowson's comfortable kindliness, she knew that it would be safe -to speak to her. - -"He was a big boy," she answered keeping her eyes on Dowson's -face. "He laughed and ran and jumped. His eyes--" she stopped -there because she could not explain what she had wanted to say about -these joyous young eyes, which were the first friendly human ones -she had known. - -"He lives in Scotland," she began again. "His mother loved him. -He kissed me. He went away. Lord Coombe sent him." - -Dawson could not help her start. - -"Lord Coombe!" she exclaimed. - -Robin came close to her and ground her little fist into her knee, -until its plumpness felt almost bruised. - -"He is bad--bad--bad!" and she looked like a little demon. - -Being a wise woman, Dowson knew at once that she had come upon a -hidden child volcano, and it would be well to let it seethe into -silence. She was not a clever person, but long experience had -taught her that there were occasions when it was well to leave -a child alone. This one would not answer if she were questioned. -She would only become stubborn and furious, and no child should -be goaded into fury. Dowson had, of course, learned that the boy -was a relative of his lordship's and had a strict Scottish mother -who did not approve of the slice of a house. His lordship might -have been concerned in the matter--or he might not. But at least -Dowson had gained a side light. And how the little thing had cared! -Actually as if she had been a grown girl, Dowson found herself -thinking uneasily. - -She was rendered even a trifle more uneasy a few days later -when she came upon Robin sitting in a corner on a footstool with -a picture book on her knee, and she recognized it as the one she -had discovered during her first exploitation of the resources -of the third floor nursery. It was inscribed "Donal" and Robin -was not looking at it alone, but at something she held in her -hand--something folded in a crumpled, untidy bit of paper. - -Making a reason for nearing her corner, Dowson saw what the paper -held. The contents looked like the broken fragments of some dried -leaves. The child was gazing at them with a piteous, bewildered -face--so piteous that Dowson was sorry. - -"Do you want to keep those?" she asked. - -"Yes," with a caught breath. "Yes." - -"I will make you a little silk bag to hold them in," Dowson said, -actually feeling rather piteous herself. The poor, little lamb -with her picture book and her bits of broken dry leaves--almost -like senna. - -She sat down near her and Robin left her footstool and came to her. -She laid the picture book on her lap and the senna like fragments -of leaves on its open page. - -"Donal brought it to show me," she quavered. "He made pretty things -on the leaves--with his dirk." She recalled too much--too much all -at once. Her eyes grew rounder and larger with inescapable woe; -"Donal did! Donal!" And suddenly she hid her face deep in Dowson's -skirts and the tempest broke. She was so small a thing--so -inarticulate--and these were her dead! Dowson could only catch -her in her arms, drag her up on her knee, and rock her to and fro. - -"Good Lord! Good Lord!" was her inward ejaculation. "And she not -seven! What'll she do when she's seventeen! She's one of them -there's no help for!" - -It was the beginning of an affection. After this, when Dowson tucked -Robin in bed each night, she kissed her. She told her stories and -taught her to sew and to know her letters. Using some discretion -she found certain little playmates for her in the Gardens. But there -were occasions when all did not go well, and some pretty, friendly -child, who had played with Robin for a few days, suddenly seemed -to be kept strictly by her nurse's side. Once, when she was about -ten years old, a newcomer, a dramatic and too richly dressed little -person, after a day of wonderful imaginative playing appeared in the -Gardens the morning following to turn an ostentatious cold shoulder. - -"What is the matter?" asked Robin. - -"Oh, we can't play with you any more," with quite a flounce -superiority. - -"Why not?" said Robin, becoming haughty herself. - -"We can't. It's because of Lord Coombe." The little person had -really no definite knowledge of how Lord Coombe was concerned, -but certain servants' whisperings of names and mysterious phrases -had conveyed quite an enjoyable effect of unknown iniquity connected -with his lordship. - -Robin said nothing to Dowson, but walked up and down the paths -reflecting and building a slow fire which would continue to burn -in her young heart. She had by then passed the round, soft baby -period and had entered into that phase when bodies and legs grow -long and slender and small faces lose their first curves and begin -to show sharper modeling. - -Accepting the situation in its entirety, Dowson had seen that it -was well to first reach Lord Coombe with any need of the child's. -Afterwards, the form of presenting it to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless must -be gone through, but if she were first spoken to any suggestion -might be forgotten or intentionally ignored. - -Dowson became clever in her calculations as to when his lordship -might be encountered and where--as if by chance, and therefore, -quite respectfully. Sometimes she remotely wondered if he himself -did not make such encounters easy for her. But his manner never -altered in its somewhat stiff, expressionless chill of indifference. -He never was kindly in his manner to the child if he met her. -Dowson felt him at once casual and "lofty." Robin might have been -a bit of unconsidered rubbish, the sight of which slightly bored -him. Yet the singular fact remained that it was to him one must -carefully appeal. - -One afternoon Feather swept him, with one or two others, into the -sitting-room with the round window in which flowers grew. Robin -was sitting at a low table making pothooks with a lead pencil on -a piece of paper Dowson had given her. Dowson had, in fact, set -her at the task, having heard from Jennings that his lordship -and the other afternoon tea drinkers were to be brought into the -"Palace" as Feather ironically chose to call it. Jennings rather -liked Dowson, and often told her little things she wanted to know. -It was because Lord Coombe would probably come in with the rest -that Dowson had set the low, white table in the round windows and -suggested the pothooks. - -In course of time there was a fluttering and a chatter in the -corridor. Feather was bringing some new guests, who had not seen -the place before. - -"This is where my daughter lives. She is much grander than I am," -she said. - -"Stand up, Miss Robin, and make your curtsey," whispered Dowson. -Robin did as she was told, and Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' pretty brows -ran up. - -"Look at her legs," she said. "She's growing like Jack and the -Bean Stalk--though, I suppose, it was only the Bean Stalk that -grew. She'll stick through the top of the house soon. Look at her -legs, I ask you." - -She always spoke as if the child were an inanimate object and she -had, by this time and by this means, managed to sweep from Robin's -mind all the old, babyish worship of her loveliness and had planted -in its place another feeling. At this moment the other feeling -surged and burned. - -"They are beautiful legs," remarked a laughing young man jocularly, -"but perhaps she does not particularly want us to look at them. -Wait until she begins skirt dancing." And everybody laughed at once -and the child stood rigid--the object of their light ridicule--not -herself knowing that her whole little being was cursing them aloud. - -Coombe stepped to the little table and bestowed a casual glance -on the pencil marks. - -"What is she doing?" he asked as casually of Dowson. - -"She is learning to make pothooks, my lord," Dowson answered. -"She's a child that wants to be learning things. I've taught her -her letters and to spell little words. She's quick--and old enough, -your lordship." - -"Learning to read and write!" exclaimed Feather. - -"Presumption, I call it. I don't know how to read and write--least -I don't know how to spell. Do you know how to spell, Collie?" to -the young man, whose name was Colin. "Do you, Genevieve? Do you, -Artie?" - -"You can't betray me into vulgar boasting," said Collie. "Who does -in these days? Nobody but clerks at Peter Robinson's." - -"Lord Coombe does--but that's his tiresome superior way," said -Feather. - -"He's nearly forty years older than most of you. That is the -reason," Coombe commented. "Don't deplore your youth and innocence." - -They swept through the rooms and examined everything in them. -The truth was that the--by this time well known--fact that the -unexplainable Coombe had built them made them a curiosity, and -a sort of secret source of jokes. The party even mounted to the -upper story to go through the bedrooms, and, it was while they -were doing this, that Coombe chose to linger behind with Dowson. - -He remained entirely expressionless for a few moments. Dowson did -not in the least gather whether he meant to speak to her or not. -But he did. - -"You meant," he scarcely glanced at her, "that she was old enough -for a governess." - -"Yes, my lord," rather breathless in her hurry to speak before -she heard the high heels tapping on the staircase again. "And one -that's a good woman as well as clever, if I may take the liberty. -A good one if--" - -"If a good one would take the place?" - -Dowson did not attempt refutation or apology. She knew better. - -He said no more, but sauntered out of the room. - -As he did so, Robin stood up and made the little "charity bob" of -a curtsey which had been part of her nursery education. She was -too old now to have refused him her hand, but he never made any -advances to her. He acknowledged her curtsey with the briefest -nod. - -Not three minutes later the high heels came tapping down the -staircase and the small gust of visitors swept away also. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - - - - -The interview which took place between Feather and Lord Coombe a -few days later had its own special character. - -"A governess will come here tomorrow at eleven o'clock," he said. -"She is a Mademoiselle Valle. She is accustomed to the educating -of young children. She will present herself for your approval. -Benby has done all the rest." - -Feather flushed to her fine-spun ash-gold hair. - -"What on earth can it matter!" she cried. - -"It does not matter to you," he answered; "it chances--for the -time being--to matter to ME." - -"Chances!" she flamed forth--it was really a queer little flame of -feeling. "That's it. You don't really care! It's a caprice--just -because you see she is going to be pretty." - -"I'll own," he admitted, "that has a great deal to do with it." - -"It has everything to do with it," she threw out. "If she had a -snub nose and thick legs you wouldn't care for her at all." - -"I don't say that I do care for her," without emotion. "The situation -interests me. Here is an extraordinary little being thrown into -the world. She belongs to nobody. She will have to fight for her -own hand. And she will have to FIGHT, by God! With that dewy lure -in her eyes and her curved pomegranate mouth! She will not know, -but she will draw disaster!" - -"Then she had better not be taught anything at all," said Feather. -"It would be an amusing thing to let her grow up without learning -to read or write at all. I know numbers of men who would like the -novelty of it. Girls who know so much are a bore." - -"There are a few minor chances she ought to have," said Coombe. -"A governess is one. Mademoiselle Valle will be here at eleven." - -"I can't see that she promises to be such a beauty," fretted -Feather. "She's the kind of good looking child who might grow up -into a fat girl with staring black eyes like a barmaid." - -"Occasionally pretty women do abhor their growing up daughters," -commented Coombe letting his eyes rest on her interestedly. - -"I don't abhor her," with pathos touched with venom. "But a big, -lumping girl hanging about ogling and wanting to be ogled when she -is passing through that silly age! And sometimes you speak to me -as a man speaks to his wife when he is tired of her." - -"I beg your pardon," Coombe said. "You make me feel like a person -who lives over a shop at Knightsbridge, or in bijou mansion off -Regent's Park." - -But he was deeply aware that, as an outcome of the anomalous -position he occupied, he not infrequently felt exactly this. - -That a governess chosen by Coombe--though he would seem not to -appear in the matter--would preside over the new rooms, Feather -knew without a shadow of doubt. - -A certain almost silent and always high-bred dominance over her -existence she accepted as the inevitable, even while she fretted -helplessly. Without him, she would be tossed, a broken butterfly, -into the gutter. She knew her London. No one would pick her up -unless to break her into smaller atoms and toss her away again. -The freedom he allowed her after all was wonderful. It was because -he disdained interference. - -But there was a line not to be crossed--there must not even be an -attempt at crossing it. Why he cared about that she did not know. - -"You must be like Caesar's wife," he said rather grimly, after an -interview in which he had given her a certain unsparing warning. - -"And I am nobody's wife. What did Caesar's wife do?" she asked. - -"Nothing." And he told her the story and, when she had heard him -tell it, she understood certain things clearly. - -Mademoiselle Valle was an intelligent, mature Frenchwoman. She -presented herself to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless for inspection and, in -ten minutes, realized that the power to inspect and sum up existed -only on her own side. This pretty woman neither knew what inquiries -to make nor cared for such replies as were given. Being swift to -reason and practical in deduction, Mademoiselle Valle did not make -the blunder of deciding that this light presence argued that she -would be under no supervision more serious. The excellent Benby, -one was made aware, acted and the excellent Benby, one was made -aware, acted under clearly defined orders. Milord Coombe--among -other things the best dressed and perhaps the least comprehended -man in London--was concerned in this, though on what grounds -practical persons could not explain to themselves. His connection -with the narrow house on the right side of the right street -was entirely comprehensible. The lenient felt nothing blatant or -objectionable about it. Mademoiselle Valle herself was not disturbed -by mere rumour. The education, manner and morals of the little -girl she could account for. These alone were to be her affair, and -she was competent to undertake their superintendence. - -Therefore, she sat and listened with respectful intelligence to -the birdlike chatter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. (What a pretty woman! -The silhouette of a jeune fille!) - -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless felt that, on her part, she had done all that -was required of her. - -"I'm afraid she's rather a dull child, Mademoiselle," she said in -farewell. "You know children's ways and you'll understand what I -mean. She has a trick of staring and saying nothing. I confess I -wish she wasn't dull." - -"It is impossible, madame, that she should be dull," said -Mademoiselle, with an agreeably implicating smile. "Oh, but quite -impossible! We shall see." - -Not many days had passed before she had seen much. At the outset, -she recognized the effect of the little girl with the slender legs -and feet and the dozen or so of points which go to make a beauty. -The intense eyes first and the deeps of them. They gave one -furiously to think before making up one's mind. Then she noted the -perfection of the rooms added to the smartly inconvenient little -house. Where had the child lived before the addition had been -built? Thought and actual architectural genius only could have done -this. Light and even as much sunshine as London will vouchsafe, -had been arranged for. Comfort, convenience, luxury, had been -provided. Perfect colour and excellent texture had evoked actual -charm. Its utter unlikeness to the quarters London usually gives -to children, even of the fortunate class, struck Mademoiselle Valle -at once. Madame Gareth-Lawless had not done this. Who then, had? - -The good Dowson she at once affiliated with. She knew the excellence -of her type as it had revealed itself to her in the best peasant -class. Trustworthy, simple, but of kindly, shrewd good sense and -with the power to observe. Dowson was not a chatterer or given -to gossip, but, as a silent observer, she would know many things -and, in time, when they had become friendly enough to be fully -aware that each might trust the other, gentle and careful talk -would end in unconscious revelation being made by Dowson. - -That the little girl was almost singularly attached to her -nurse, she had marked early. There was something unusual in her -manifestations of her feeling. The intense eyes followed the woman -often, as if making sure of her presence and reality. The first -day of Mademoiselle's residence in the place she saw the little -thing suddenly stop playing with her doll and look at Dowson -earnestly for several moments. Then she left her seat and went to -the kind creature's side. - -"I want to KISS you, Dowie," she said. - -"To be sure, my lamb," answered Dowson, and, laying down her -mending, she gave her a motherly hug. After which Robin went back -contentedly to her play. - -The Frenchwoman thought it a pretty bit of childish affectionateness. -But it happened more than once during the day, and at night -Mademoiselle commented upon it. - -"She has an affectionate heart, the little one," she remarked. "Madame, -her mother, is so pretty and full of gaieties and pleasures that -I should not have imagined she had much time for caresses and the -nursery." - -Even by this time Dowson had realized that with Mademoiselle she -was upon safe ground and was in no danger of betraying herself -to a gossip. She quietly laid down her sewing and looked at her -companion with grave eyes. - -"Her mother has never kissed her in her life that I am aware of," -she said. - -"Has never--!" Mademoiselle ejaculated. "Never!" - -"Just as you see her, she is, Mademoiselle," Dowson said. "Any -sensible woman would know, when she heard her talk about her -child. I found it all out bit by bit when first I came here. I'm -going to talk plain and have done with it. Her first six years -she spent in a sort of dog kennel on the top floor of this house. -No sun, no real fresh air. Two little holes that were dingy and -gloomy to dull a child's senses. Not a toy or a bit of colour -or a picture, but clothes fine enough for Buckingham Palace -children--and enough for six. Fed and washed and taken out every -day to be shown off. And a bad nurse, Miss--a bad one that kept -her quiet by pinching her black and blue." - -"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! That little angel!" cried Mademoiselle, -covering her eyes. - -Dowson hastily wiped her own eyes. She had shed many a motherly -tear over the child. It was a relief to her to open her heart to -a sympathizer. - -"Black and blue!" she repeated. "And laughing and dancing and all -sorts of fast fun going on in the drawing-rooms." She put out her -hand and touched Mademoiselle's arm quite fiercely. "The little -thing didn't know she HAD a mother! She didn't know what the word -meant. I found that out by her innocent talk. She used to call -HER 'The Lady Downstairs'." - -"Mon Dieu!" cried the Frenchwoman again. "What a woman!" - -"She first heard of mothers from a little boy she met in the Square -Gardens. He was the first child she had been allowed to play with. -He was a nice child and he had a good mother. I only got it bit -by bit when she didn't know how much she was telling me. He told -her about mothers and he kissed her--for the first time in her -life. She didn't understand but it warmed her little heart. She's -never forgotten." - -Mademoiselle even started slightly in her chair. Being a clever -Frenchwoman she felt drama and all its subtle accompaniments. - -"Is that why----" she began. - -"It is," answered Dowson, stoutly. "A kiss isn't an ordinary thing -to her. It means something wonderful. She's got into the way of -loving me, bless her, and every now and then, it's my opinion, -she suddenly remembers her lonely days when she didn't know what -love was. And it just wells up in her little heart and she wants -to kiss me. She always says it that way, 'Dowie, I want to KISS -you,' as if it was something strange and, so to say, sacred. She -doesn't know it means almost nothing to most people. That's why -I always lay down my work and hug her close." - -"You have a good heart--a GOOD one!" said Mademoiselle with strong -feeling. - -Then she put a question: - -"Who was the little boy?" - -"He was a relation of--his lordship's." - -"His lordship's?" cautiously. - -"The Marquis. Lord Coombe." - -There was a few minutes' silence. Both women were thinking of a -number of things and each was asking herself how much it would be -wise to say. - -It was Dowson who made her decision first, and this time, as -before, she laid down her work. What she had to convey was the -thing which, above all others, the Frenchwoman must understand if -she was to be able to use her power to its best effect. - -"A woman in my place hears enough talk," was her beginning. "Servants -are given to it. The Servants' Hall is their theatre. It doesn't -matter whether tales are true or not, so that they're spicy. But -it's been my way to credit just as much as I see and know and to -say little about that. If a woman takes a place in a house, let her -go or stay as suits her best, but don't let her stay and either -complain or gossip. My business here is Miss Robin, and I've found -out for myself that there's just one person that, in a queer, -unfeeling way of his own, has a fancy for looking after her. I -say 'unfeeling' because he never shows any human signs of caring -for the child himself. But if there's a thing that ought to be -done for her and a body can contrive to let him know it's needed, -it'll be done. Downstairs' talk that I've seemed to pay no attention -to has let out that it was him that walked quietly upstairs to -the Nursery, where he'd never set foot before, and opened the door -on Andrews pinching the child. She packed her box and left that -night. He inspected the nurseries and, in a few days, an architect -was planning these rooms,--for Miss Robin and for no one else, -though there was others wanted them. It was him that told me to -order her books and playthings--and not let her know it because -she hates him. It was him I told she needed a governess. And he -found you." - -Mademoiselle Valle had listened with profound attention. Here she -spoke. - -"You say continually 'he' or 'him'. He is--?" - -"Lord Coombe. I'm not saying I've seen much of him. Considering--" -Dowson paused--"it's queer how seldom he comes here. He goes -abroad a good deal. He's mixed up with the highest and it's said -he's in favour because he's satirical and clever. He's one that's -gossiped about and he cares nothing for what's said. What business -of mine is it whether or not he has all sorts of dens on the -Continent where he goes to racket. He might be a bishop for all I -see. And he's the only creature in this world of the Almighty's -that remembers that child's a human being. Just him--Lord Coombe. -There, Mademoiselle,--I've said a good deal." - -More and more interestedly had the Frenchwoman listened and with -an increasing hint of curiosity in her intelligent eyes. She -pressed Dowson's needle-roughened fingers warmly. - -"You have not said too much. It is well that I should know this -of this gentleman. As you say, he is a man who is much discussed. -I myself have heard much of him--but of things connected with -another part of his character. It is true that he is in favour -with great personages. It is because they are aware that he has -observed much for many years. He is light and ironic, but he tells -truths which sometimes startle those who hear them." - -"Jennings tells below stairs that he says things it's queer for a -lord to say. Jennings is a sharp young snip and likes to pick up -things to repeat. He believes that his lordship's idea is that -there's a time coming when the high ones will lose their places -and thrones and kings will be done away with. I wouldn't like to -go that far myself," said Dowson, gravely, "but I must say that -there's not that serious respect paid to Royalty that there was -in my young days. My word! When Queen Victoria was in her prime, -with all her young family around her,--their little Royal Highnesses -that were princes in their Highland kilts and the princesses -in their crinolines and hats with drooping ostrich feathers and -broad satin streamers--the people just went wild when she went to -a place to unveil anything!" - -"When the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial appeared, it was -the same thing," said Mademoiselle, a trifle sadly. "One recalls -it now as a dream passed away--the Champs Elysees in the afternoon -sunlight--the imperial carriage and the glittering escort trotting -gaily--the beautiful woman with the always beautiful costumes--her -charming smile--the Emperor, with his waxed moustache and saturnine -face! It meant so much and it went so quickly. One moment," she made -a little gesture, "and it is gone--forever! An Empire and all the -splendour of it! Two centuries ago it could not have disappeared -so quickly. But now the world is older. It does not need toys -so much. A Republic is the people--and there are more people than -kings." - -"It's things like that his lordship says, according to Jennings," -said Dowson. "Jennings is never quite sure he's in earnest. He -has a satirical way--And the company always laugh." - -Mademoiselle had spoken thoughtfully and as if half to her inner -self instead of to Dowson. She added something even more thoughtfully -now. - -"The same kind of people laughed before the French Revolution," -she murmured. - -"I'm not scholar enough to know much about that--that was a long -time ago, wasn't it?" Dowson remarked. - -"A long time ago," said Mademoiselle. - -Dowson's reply was quite free from tragic reminiscence. - -"Well, I must say, I like a respectable Royal Family myself," she -observed. "There's something solid and comfortable about it--besides -the coronations and weddings and procession with all the pictures -in the Illustrated London News. Give me a nice, well-behaved Royal -Family." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - - - - -"A nice, well-behaved Royal Family." There had been several of them -in Europe for some time. An appreciable number of them had prided -themselves, even a shade ostentatiously, upon their domesticity. -The moral views of a few had been believed to border upon the -high principles inscribed in copy books. Some, however, had not. -A more important power or so had veered from the exact following -of these commendable axioms--had high-handedly behaved according -to their royal will and tastes. But what would you? With a nation -making proper obeisance before one from infancy; with trumpets -blaring forth joyous strains upon one's mere appearance on any -scene; with the proudest necks bowed and the most superb curtseys -swept on one's mere passing by, with all the splendour of the Opera -on gala night rising to its feet to salute one's mere entry into -the royal or imperial box, while the national anthem bursts forth -with adulatory and triumphant strains, only a keen and subtle -sense of humour, surely, could curb errors of judgment arising -from naturally mistaken views of one's own importance and value to -the entire Universe. Still there remained the fact that a number -of them WERE well-behaved and could not be complained of as bearing -any likeness to the bloodthirsty tyrants and oppressors of past -centuries. - -The Head of the House of Coombe had attended the Court Functions -and been received at the palaces and castles of most of them. -For in that aspect of his character of which Mademoiselle Valle -had heard more than Dowson, he was intimate with well-known and -much-observed personages and places. A man born among those whose -daily life builds, as it passes, at least a part of that which -makes history and so records itself, must needs find companions, -acquaintances, enemies, friends of varied character, and if he -be, by chance, a keen observer of passing panoramas, can lack no -material for private reflection and the accumulation of important -facts. - -That part of his existence which connected itself with the slice -of a house on the right side of the Mayfair street was but a -small one. A feature of the untranslatableness of his character -was that he was seen there but seldom. His early habit of crossing -the Channel frequently had gradually reestablished itself as years -passed. Among his acquaintances his "Saturday to Monday visits" to -continental cities remote or unremote were discussed with humour. -Possibly, upon these discussions, were finally founded the rumours -of which Dowson had heard but which she had impartially declined -to "credit". Lively conjecture inevitably figured largely in their -arguments and, when persons of unrestrained wit devote their -attention to airy persiflage, much may be included in their points -of view. - -Of these conjectural discussions no one was more clearly aware -than Coombe himself, and the finished facility--even felicity--of -his evasion of any attempt at delicately valued cross examination -was felt to be inhumanly exasperating. - -In one of the older Squares which still remained stately, through -the splendour of modern fashion had waned in its neighbourhood, -there was among the gloomy, though imposing, houses one in particular -upon whose broad doorsteps--years before the Gareth-Lawlesses had -appeared in London--Lord Coombe stood oftener than upon any other. -At times his brougham waited before it for hours, and, at others, -he appeared on foot and lifted the heavy knocker with a special -accustomed knock recognized at once by any footman in waiting in -the hall, who, hearing it, knew that his mistress--the old Dowager -Duchess of Darte--would receive this visitor, if no other. - -The interior of the house was of the type which, having from the -first been massive and richly sombre, had mellowed into a darker -sombreness and richness as it had stood unmoved amid London years -and fogs. The grandeur of decoration and furnishing had been too -solid to depreciate through decay, and its owner had been of no -fickle mind led to waver in taste by whims of fashion. The rooms -were huge and lofty, the halls and stairways spacious, the fireplaces -furnished with immense grates of glittering steel, which held in -winter beds of scarlet glowing coal, kept scarlet glowing by a -special footman whose being, so to speak, depended on his fidelity -to his task. - -There were many rooms whose doors were kept closed because they -were apparently never used; there were others as little used but -thrown open, warmed and brightened with flowers each day, because -the Duchess chose to catch glimpses of their cheerfulness as she -passed them on her way up or downstairs. The house was her own -property, and, after her widowhood, when it was emptied of her -children by their admirable marriages, and she herself became Dowager -and, later, a confirmed rheumatic invalid, it became doubly her -home and was governed by her slightest whim. She was not indeed -an old woman of caprices, but her tastes, not being those of the -later day in which she now lived, were regarded as a shade eccentric -being firmly defined. - -"I will not have my house glaring with electricity as if it were -a shop. In my own rooms I will be lighted by wax candles. Large -ones--as many as you please," she said. "I will not be 'rung up' -by telephone. My servants may if they like. It is not my affair -to deprive them of the modern inconveniences, if they find them -convenient. My senility does not take the form of insisting that -the world shall cease to revolve upon its axis. It formed that -habit without my assistance, and it is to be feared that it would -continue it in the face of my protests." - -It was, in fact, solely that portion of the world affecting herself -alone which she preferred to retain as it had been in the brilliant -early years of her life. She had been a great beauty and also -a wit in the Court over which Queen Victoria had reigned. She had -possessed the delicate high nose, the soft full eyes, the "polished -forehead," the sloping white shoulders from which scarves floated -or India shawls gracefully drooped in the Books of Beauty of the -day. Her carriage had been noble, her bloom perfect, and, when -she had driven through the streets "in attendance" on her Royal -Mistress, the populace had always chosen her as "the pick of -'em all". Young as she had then been, elderly statesmen had found -her worth talking to, not as a mere beauty in her teens, but as a -creature of singular brilliance and clarity of outlook upon a world -which might have dazzled her youth. The most renowned among them -had said of her, before she was twenty, that she would live to be -one of the cleverest women in Europe, and that she had already the -logical outlook of a just man of fifty. - -She married early and was widowed in middle life. In her later -years rheumatic fever so far disabled her as to confine her to her -chair almost entirely. Her sons and daughter had homes and families -of their own to engage them. She would not allow them to sacrifice -themselves to her because her life had altered its aspect. - -"I have money, friends, good servants and a house I particularly -like," she summed the matter up; "I may be condemned to sit by -the fire, but I am not condemned to be a bore to my inoffensive -family. I can still talk and read, and I shall train myself to -become a professional listener. This will attract. I shall not -only read myself, but I will be read to. A strong young man with -a nice voice shall bring magazines and books to me every day, and -shall read the best things aloud. Delightful people will drop in -to see me and will be amazed by my fund of information." - -It was during the first years of her enforced seclusion that -Coombe's intimacy with her began. He had known her during certain -black days of his youth, and she had comprehended things he did not -tell her. She had not spoken of them to him but she had silently -given him of something which vaguely drew him to her side when -darkness seemed to overwhelm him. The occupations of her life -left her in those earlier days little leisure for close intimacies, -but, when she began to sit by her fire letting the busy world pass -by, he gradually became one of those who "dropped in". - -In one of the huge rooms she had chosen for her own daily use, -by the well-tended fire in its shining grate, she had created -an agreeable corner where she sat in a chair marvellous for ease -and comfort, enclosed from draughts by a fire screen of antique -Chinese lacquer, a table by her side and all she required within -her reach. Upon the table stood a silver bell and, at its sound, -her companion, her reader, her maid or her personally trained -footman, came and went quietly and promptly as if summoned by -magic. Her life itself was simple, but a certain almost royal -dignity surrounded her loneliness. Her companion, Miss Brent, an -intelligent, mature woman who had known a hard and pinched life, -found at once comfort and savour in it. - -"It is not I who am expensive,"--this in one of her talks with -Coombe, "but to live in a house of this size, well kept by excellent -servants who are satisfied with their lot, is not a frugal thing. -A cap of tea for those of my friends who run in to warm themselves -by my fire in the afternoon; a dinner or so when I am well enough -to sit at the head of my table, represent almost all I now do for -the world. Naturally, I must see that my tea is good and that my -dinners cannot be objected to. Nevertheless, I sit here in my chair -and save money--for what?" - -Among those who "warmed themselves by her fire" this man had -singularly become her friend and intimate. When they had time -to explore each other's minds, they came upon curious discoveries -of hidden sympathies and mutual comprehensions which were rich -treasures. They talked of absorbing things with frankness. He came -to sit with her when others were not admitted because she was in -pain or fatigued. He added to neither her fatigue nor her pain, -but rather helped her to forget them. - -"For what?" he answered on this day. "Why not for your grandchildren?" - -"They will have too much money. There are only four of them. They -will make great marriages as their parents did," she said. She -paused a second before she added, "Unless our World Revolution has -broken into flame by that time--And there are no longer any great -marriages to make." - -For among the many things they dwelt on in their talks along, was -the Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, over which he had -watched for many years certain hands hover in tentative experimenting -as to the possibilities of the removal of the pieces from one -square to another. She, too, from her youth had watched the game -with an interest which had not waned in her maturity, and which, -in her days of sitting by the fire, had increased with every move -the hovering hands made. She had been familiar with political -parties and their leaders, she had met heroes and statesmen; she -had seen an unimportant prince become an emperor, who, from his -green and boastful youth, aspired to rule the world and whose -theatrical obsession had been the sly jest of unwary nations, too -carelessly sure of the advance of civilization and too indifferently -self-indulgent to realize that a monomaniac, even if treated as a -source of humour, is a perilous thing to leave unwatched. She had -known France in all the glitter of its showy Empire, and had seen -its imperial glories dispersed as mist. Russia she had watched with -curiosity and dread. On the day when the ruler, who had bestowed -freedom on millions of his people, met his reward in the shattering -bomb which tore him to fragments, she had been in St. Petersburg. A -king, who had been assassinated, she had known well and had well -liked; an empress, whom a frenzied madman had stabbed to the heart, -had been her friend. - -Her years had been richly full of varied events, giving a strong -and far-seeing mind reason for much unspoken thought of the kind -which leaps in advance of its day's experience and exact knowledge. -She had learned when to speak and when to be silent, and she oftener -chose silence. But she had never ceased gazing on the world with -keen eyes, and reflecting upon its virtues and vagaries, its depths -and its shallows, with the help of a clear and temperate brain. - -By her fire she sat, an attracting presence, though only fine, -strong lines remained of beauty ravaged by illness and years. The -"polished forehead" was furrowed by the chisel of suffering; the -delicate high nose springing from her waxen, sunken face seemed -somewhat eaglelike, but the face was still brilliant in its intensity -of meaning and the carriage of her head was still noble. Not able -to walk except with the assistance of a cane, her once exquisite -hands stiffened almost to uselessness, she held her court from -her throne of mere power and strong charm. On the afternoons when -people "ran in to warm themselves" by her fire, the talk was never -dull and was often wonderful. There were those who came quietly -into the room fresh from important scenes where subjects of weight -to nations were being argued closely--perhaps almost fiercely. -Sometimes the argument was continued over cups of perfect tea near -the chair of the Duchess, and, howsoever far it led, she was able -brilliantly to follow. With the aid of books and pamphlets and -magazines, and the strong young man with the nice voice, who was -her reader, she kept pace with each step of the march of the world. - -It was, however, the modern note in her recollections of her world's -march in days long past, in which Coombe found mental food and fine -flavour. The phrase, "in these days" expressed in her utterance neither -disparagement nor regret. She who sat in state in a drawing-room -lighted by wax candles did so as an affair of personal preference, -and denied no claim of higher brilliance to electric illumination. -Driving slowly through Hyde Park on sunny days when she was able -to go out, her high-swung barouche hinted at no lofty disdain of -petrol and motor power. At the close of her youth's century, she -looked forward with thrilled curiosity to the dawning wonders of -the next. - -"If the past had not held so much, one might not have learned -to expect more," was her summing up on a certain afternoon, when -he came to report himself after one of his absences from England. -"The most important discovery of the last fifty years has been the -revelation that no man may any longer assume to speak the last -word on any subject. The next man--almost any next man--may evolve -more. Before that period all elderly persons were final in their -dictum. They said to each other--and particularly to the young--'It -has not been done in my time--it was not done in my grandfather's -time. It has never been done. It never can be done'." - -"The note of today is 'Since it has never been done, it will surely -be done soon'," said Coombe. - -"Ah! we who began life in the most assured and respectable of -reigns and centuries," she answered him, "have seen much. But these -others will see more. Crinolines, mushroom hats and large families -seemed to promise a decorum peaceful to dullness; but there have -been battles, murders and sudden deaths; there have been almost -supernatural inventions and discoveries--there have been marvels -of new doubts and faiths. When one sits and counts upon one's -fingers the amazements the 19th century has provided, one gasps -and gazes with wide eyes into the future. I, for one, feel rather -as though I had seen a calm milch cow sauntering--at first -slowly--along a path, gradually evolve into a tiger--a genie with -a hundred heads containing all the marvels of the world--a flying -dragon with a thousand eyes! Oh, we have gone fast and far!" - -"And we shall go faster and farther," Coombe added. - -"That is it," she answered. "Are we going too fast?" - -"At least so fast that we forget things it would be well for us -to remember." He had come in that day with a certain preoccupied -grimness of expression which was not unknown to her. It was generally -after one of his absences that he looked a shade grim. - -"Such as--?" she inquired. - -"Such as catastrophes in the history of the world, which forethought -and wisdom might have prevented. The French Revolution is the obvious -type of figure which lies close at hand so one picks it up. The -French Revolution--its Reign of Terror--the orgies of carnage--the -cataclysms of agony--need not have been, but they WERE. To put it -in words of one syllable." - -"What!" was her involuntary exclamation. "You are seeking such -similes as the French Revolution!" - -"Who knows how far a madness may reach and what Reign of Terror may -take form?" He sat down and drew an atlas towards him. It always lay -upon the table on which all the Duchess desired was within reach. -It was fat, convenient of form, and agreeable to look at in its -cover of dull, green leather. Coombe's gesture of drawing it towards -him was a familiar one. It was frequently used as reference. - -"The atlas again?" she said. - -"Yes. Just now I can think of little else. I have realized too -much." - -The continental journey had lasted a month. He had visited more -countries than one in his pursuit of a study he was making of -the way in which the wind was blowing particular straws. For long -he had found much to give thought to in the trend of movement in -one special portion of the Chessboard. It was that portion of it -dominated by the ruler of whose obsession too careless nations made -sly jest. This man he had known from his arrogant and unendearing -youth. He had looked on with unbiassed curiosity at his development -into arrogance so much greater than its proportions touched the -grotesque. The rest of the world had looked on also, but apparently, -merely in the casual way which good-naturedly smiles and leaves to -every man--even an emperor--the privilege of his own eccentricities. -Coombe had looked on with a difference, so also had his friend by -her fireside. This man's square of the Chessboard had long been -the subject of their private talks and a cause for the drawing -towards them of the green atlas. The moves he made, the methods -of his ruling, the significance of these methods were the evidence -they collected in their frequent arguments. Coombe had early begun -to see the whole thing as a process--a life-long labour which was -a means to a monstrous end. - -There was a certain thing he believed of which they often spoke -as "It". He spoke of it now. - -"Through three weeks I have been marking how It grows," he said; "a -whole nation with the entire power of its commerce, its education, -its science, its religion, guided towards one aim is a curious -study. The very babes are born and bred and taught only that -one thought may become an integral part of their being. The most -innocent and blue eyed of them knows, without a shadow of doubt, -that the world has but one reason for existence--that it may be -conquered and ravaged by the country that gave them birth." - -"I have both heard and seen it," she said. "One has smiled in -spite of oneself, in listening to their simple, everyday talk." - -"In little schools--in large ones--in little churches, and in -imposing ones, their Faith is taught and preached," Coombe -answered. "Sometimes one cannot believe one's hearing. It is all -so ingenuously and frankly unashamed--the mouthing, boasting, and -threats of their piety. There exists for them no God who is not -the modest henchman of their emperor, and whose attention is not -rivetted on their prowess with admiration and awe. Apparently, -they are His business, and He is well paid by being allowed to -retain their confidence." - -"A lack of any sense of humour is a disastrous thing," commented -the Duchess. "The people of other nations may be fools--doubtless -we all are--but there is no other which proclaims the fact abroad -with such guileless outbursts of raucous exultation." - -"And even we--you and I who have thought more than others" he -said, restlessly, "even we forget and half smile. There been too -much smiling." - -She picked up an illustrated paper and opened it at a page filled -by an ornate picture. - -"See!" she said. "It is because he himself has made it so easy, -with his amazing portraits of his big boots, and swords, and -eruption of dangling orders. How can one help but smile when -one finds him glaring at one from a newspaper in his superwarlike -attitude, defying the Universe, with his comic moustachios and their -ferocious waxed and bristling ends. No! One can scarcely believe -that a man can be stupid enough not to realize that he looks -as if he had deliberately made himself up to represent a sort of -terrific military bogey intimating that, at he may pounce and say -'Boo?" - -"There lies the peril. His pretensions seem too grotesque to be -treated seriously. And, while he should be watched as a madman is -watched, he is given a lifetime to we attack on a world that has -ceased to believe in the sole thing which is real to himself." - -"You are fresh from observation." There was new alertness in her -eyes, though she had listened before. - -"I tell you it GROWS!" he gave back and lightly struck the table -in emphasis. "Do you remember Carlyle--?" - -"The French Revolution again?" - -"Yes. Do you recall this? 'Do not fires, fevers, seeds, chemical -mixtures, GO ON GROWING. Observe, too, that EACH GROWS with a -rapidity proportioned to the madness and unhealthiness there is in -it.' A ruler who, in an unaggressive age such as this, can concentrate -his life and his people's on the one ambition of plunging the -world in an ocean of blood, in which his own monomania can bathe -in triumph--Good God! there is madness and unhealthiness to flourish -in!" - -"The world!" she said. "Yes--it will be the world." - -"See," he said, with a curve of the finger which included most of -the Map of Europe. "Here are countries engaged--like the Bandarlog--in -their own affairs. Quarrelling, snatching things from each other, -blustering or amusing themselves with transitory pomps and displays -of power. Here is a huge empire whose immense, half-savage population -has seethed for centuries in its hidden, boiling cauldron of -rebellion. Oh! it has seethed! And only cruelties have repressed -it. Now and then it has boiled over in assassination in high places, -and one has wondered how long its autocratic splendour could hold -its own. Here are small, fierce, helpless nations overrun and -outraged into a chronic state of secret ever-ready hatred. Here -are innocent, small countries, defenceless through their position -and size. Here is France rich, careless, super-modern and cynic. -Here is England comfortable to stolidity, prosperous and secure to -dullness in her own half belief in a world civilization, which -no longer argues in terms of blood and steel. And here--in a -well-entrenched position in the midst of it all--within but a few -hundreds of miles of weakness, complicity, disastrous unreadiness -and panic-stricken uncertainty of purpose, sits this Man of One -Dream--who believes God Himself his vassal. Here he sits." - -"Yes his One Dream. He has had no other." The Duchess was poring -over the map also. They were as people pondering over a strange -and terrible game. - -"It is his monomania. It possessed him when he was a boy. What -Napoleon hoped to accomplish he has BELIEVED he could attain by -concentrating all the power of people upon preparation for it--and -by not flinching from pouring forth their blood as if it were the -refuse water of his gutters." - -"Yes--the blood--the blood!" the Duchess shuddered. "He would pour -it forth without a qualm." - -Coombe touched the map first at one point and then at another. - -"See!" he said again, and this time savagely. "This empire flattered -and entangled by cunning, this country irritated, this deceived, -this drawn into argument, this and this and this treated with -professed friendship, these tricked and juggled with--And then, when -his plans are ripe and he is made drunk with belief in himself--just -one sodden insult or monstrous breach of faith, which all humanity -must leap to resent--And there is our World Revolution." - -The Duchess sat upright in her chair. - -"Why did you let your youth pass?" she said. "If you had begun -early enough, you could hare made the country listen to you. Why -did you do it?" - -"For the same reason that all selfish grief and pleasure and -indifference let the world go by. And I am not sure they would have -listened. I speak freely enough now in some quarters. They listen, -but they do nothing. There is a warning in the fact that, as he -has seen his youth leave him without giving him his opportunity, -he has been a disappointed man inflamed and made desperate. At the -outset, he felt that he must provide the world with some fiction -of excuse. As his obsession and arrogance have swollen, he sees -himself and his ambition as reason enough. No excuse is needed. -Deutschland uber alles--is sufficient." - -He pushed the map away and his fire died down. He spoke almost in -his usual manner. - -"The conquest of the world," he said. "He is a great fool. What -would he DO with his continents if he got them?" - -"What, indeed," pondered her grace. "Continents--even kingdoms are -not like kittens in a basket, or puppies to be trained to come to -heel." - -"It is part of his monomania that he can persuade himself that -they are little more." Coombe's eye-glasses had been slowly swaying -from the ribbon in his fingers. He let them continue to sway a -moment and then closed them with a snap. - -"He is a great fool," he said. "But we,--oh, my friend--and by 'we' -I mean the rest of the Map of Europe--we are much greater fools. -A mad dog loose among us and we sit--and smile." - -And this was in the days before the house with the cream-coloured -front had put forth its first geraniums and lobelias in Feather's -window boxes. Robin was not born. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - - - - -In the added suite of rooms at the back of the house, Robin grew -through the years in which It was growing also. On the occasion -when her mother saw her, she realized that she was not at least -going to look like a barmaid. At no period of her least refulgent -moment did she verge upon this type. Dowie took care of her and -Mademoiselle Valle educated her with the assistance of certain -masters who came to give lessons in German and Italian. - -"Why only German and Italian and French," said Feather, "why not -Latin and Greek, as well, if she is to be so accomplished?" - -"It is modern languages one needs at this period. They ought -to be taught in the Board Schools," Coombe replied. "They are -not accomplishments but workman's tools. Nationalities are not -separated as they once were. To be familiar with the language of -one's friends--and one's enemies--is a protective measure." - -"What country need one protect oneself against? When all the -kings and queens are either married to each other's daughters or -cousins or take tea with each other every year or so. Just think -of the friendliness of Germany for instance----" - -"I do," said Coombe, "very often. That is one of the reasons I -choose German rather than Latin and Greek. Julius Caesar and Nero -are no longer reasons for alarm." - -"Is the Kaiser with his seventeen children and his respectable -Frau?" giggled Feather. "All that he cares about is that women -shall be made to remember that they are born for nothing but to -cook and go to church and have babies. One doesn't wonder at the -clothes they wear." - -It was not a month after this, however, when Lord Coombe, again -warming himself at his old friend's fire, gave her a piece of -information. - -"The German teacher, Herr Wiese, has hastily returned to his own -country," he said. - -She lifted her eyebrows inquiringly. - -"He found himself suspected of being a spy," was his answer. "With -most excellent reason. Some first-rate sketches of fortifications -were found in a box he left behind him in his haste. The country--all -countries--are sown with those like him. Mild spectacled students -and clerks in warehouses and manufactories are weighing and -measuring resources; round-faced, middle-aged governesses are -making notes of conversation and of any other thing which may be -useful. In time of war--if they were caught at what are now their -simple daily occupations--they would be placed against a wall and -shot. As it is, they are allowed to play about among us and slip -away when some fellow worker's hint suggests it is time." - -"German young men are much given to spending a year or so here -in business positions," the Duchess wore a thoughtful air. "That -has been going on for a decade or so. One recognizes their Teuton -type in shops and in the streets. They say they come to learn the -language and commercial methods." - -"Not long ago a pompous person, who is the owner of a big shop, -pointed out to me three of them among his salesmen," Coombe said. -"He plumed himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they -worked for low wages and cared for very little else but finding -out how things were done in England. It wasn't only business -knowledge they were after, he said; they went about everywhere--into -factories and dock yards, and public buildings, and made funny -little notes and sketches of things they didn't understand--so -that they could explain them in Germany. In his fatuous, insular -way, it pleased him to regard them rather as a species of aborigines -benefiting by English civilization. The English Ass and the -German Ass are touchingly alike. The shade of difference is that -the English Ass's sublime self-satisfaction is in the German Ass -self-glorification. The English Ass smirks and plumes himself; -the German Ass blusters and bullies and defies." - -"Do you think of engaging another German Master for the little -girl?" the Duchess asked the question casually. - -"I have heard of a quiet young woman who has shown herself thorough -and well-behaved in a certain family for three years. Perhaps -she also will disappear some day, but, for the present, she will -serve the purpose." - -As he had not put into words to others any explanation of the -story of the small, smart establishment in the Mayfair street, so -he had put into words no explanation to her. That she was aware -of its existence he knew, but what she thought of it, or imagined -he himself thought of it, he had not at any period inquired. -Whatsoever her point of view might be, he knew it would be unbiassed, -clear minded and wholly just. She had asked no question and made -no comment. The rapid, whirligig existence of the well-known -fashionable groups, including in their circles varieties of the -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless type, were to be seen at smart functions and -to be read of in newspapers and fashion reports, if one's taste -lay in the direction of a desire to follow their movements. The -time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by -severities of opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown -their dice daringly to gain. The worldly old axiom, "Be virtuous -and you will be happy," had been ironically paraphrased too often. -"Please yourself and you will be much happier than if you were -virtuous," was a practical reading. - -But for a certain secret which she alone knew and which no one -would in the least have believed, if she had proclaimed it from -the housetops, Feather would really have been entirely happy. -And, after all, the fly in her ointment was merely an odd sting -a fantastic Fate had inflicted on her vanity and did not in any -degree affect her pleasures. So many people lived in glass houses -that the habit of throwing stones had fallen out of fashion as an -exercise. There were those, too, whose houses of glass, adroitly -given the air of being respectable conservatories, engendered in -the dwellers therein a leniency towards other vitreous constructions. -As a result of this last circumstance, there were times when -quite stately equipages drew up before Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' door -and visiting cards bearing the names of acquaintances much to be -desired were left upon the salver presented by Jennings. Again, -as a result of this circumstance, Feather employed some laudable -effort in her desire to give her own glass house the conservatory -aspect. Her little parties became less noisy, if they still remained -lively. She gave an "afternoon" now and then to which literary -people and artists, and persons who "did things" were invited. -She was pretty enough to allure an occasional musician to "do -something", some new poet to read or recite. Fashionable people -were asked to come and hear and talk to them, and, in this way, -she threw out delicate fishing lines here and there, and again -and again drew up a desirable fish of substantial size. Sometimes -the vague rumour connected with the name of the Head of the House -of Coombe was quite forgotten and she was referred to amiably as -"That beautiful creature, Mrs. Gareth-Lawless." She was left a -widow when she was nothing but a girl. If she hadn't had a little -money of her own, and if her husband's relatives hadn't taken care -of her, she would have had a hard time of it. She is amazingly -clever at managing her, small income, they added. Her tiny house -is one of the jolliest little places in London--always full of -good looking people and amusing things. - -But, before Robin was fourteen, she had found out that the house -she lived in was built of glass and that any chance stone would -break its panes, even if cast without particular skill in aiming. -She found it out in various ways, but the seed from which all -things sprang to the fruition of actual knowledge was the child -tragedy through which she had learned that Donal had been taken -from her--because his mother would not let him love and play with -a little girl whose mother let Lord Coombe come to her house--because -Lord Coombe was so bad that even servants whispered secrets about -him. Her first interpretation of this had been that of a mere baby, -but it had filled her being with detestation of him, and curious -doubts of her mother. Donal's mother, who was good and beautiful, -would not let him come to see her and kept Donal away from him. -If the Lady Downstairs was good, too, then why did laugh and -talk to him and seem to like him? She had thought this over for -hours--sometimes wakening in the night to lie and puzzle over -it feverishly. Then, as time went by, she had begun to remember -that she had never played with any of the children in the Square -Gardens. It had seemed as though this had been because Andrews -would not let her. But, if she was not fit to play with Donal, -perhaps the nurses and governesses and mothers of the other children -knew about it and would not trust their little girls and boys to -her damaging society. She did not know what she could have done -to harm them--and Oh! how COULD she have harmed Donal!--but there -must be something dreadful about a child whose mother knew bad -people--something which other children could "catch" like scarlet -fever. From this seed other thoughts had grown. She did not remain -a baby long. A fervid little brain worked for her, picked up hints -and developed suggestions, set her to singularly alert reasoning -which quickly became too mature for her age. The quite horrid little -girl, who flouncingly announced that she could not be played with -any more "because of Lord Coombe" set a spark to a train. After -that time she used to ask occasional carefully considered questions -of Dowson and Mademoiselle Valle, which puzzled them by their -vagueness. The two women were mutually troubled by a moody habit -she developed of sitting absorbed in her own thoughts, and with -a concentrated little frown drawing her brows together. They did -not know that she was silently planning a subtle cross examination -of them both, whose form would be such that neither of them could -suspect it of being anything but innocent. She felt that she was -growing cunning and deceitful, but she did not care very much. -She possessed a clever and determined, though very young brain. -She loved both Dowson and Mademoiselle, but she must find out -about things for herself, and she was not going to harm or trouble -them. They would never know she had found out: Whatsoever she -discovered, she would keep to herself. - -But one does not remain a baby long, and one is a little girl -only a few years, and, even during the few years, one is growing -and hearing and seeing all the time. After that, one is beginning -to be a rather big girl and one has seen books and newspapers, and -overheard scraps of things from servants. If one is brought up -in a convent and allowed to read nothing but literature selected -by nuns, a degree of aloofness from knowledge may be counted -upon--though even convent schools, it is said, encounter their -difficulties in perfect discipline. - -Robin, in her small "Palace" was well taken care of but her library -was not selected by nuns. It was chosen with thought, but it was -the library of modern youth. Mademoiselle Valle's theories of a -girl's education were not founded on a belief that, until marriage, -she should be led about by a string blindfolded, and with ears -stopped with wax. - -"That results in a bleating lamb's being turned out of its fold to -make its way through a jungle full of wild creatures and pitfalls -it has never heard of," she said in discussing the point with Dowson. -She had learned that Lord Coombe agreed with her. He, as well as -she, chose the books and his taste was admirable. Its inclusion -of an unobtrusive care for girlhood did not preclude the exercise -of the intellect. An early developed passion for reading led the -child far and wide. Fiction, history, poetry, biography, opened -up vistas to a naturally quick and eager mind. Mademoiselle found -her a clever pupil and an affection-inspiring little being even -from the first. - -She always felt, however, that in the depths of her something held -itself hidden--something she did not speak of. It was some thought -which perhaps bewildered her, but which something prevented her -making clear to herself by the asking of questions. Mademoiselle -Valle finally became convinced that she never would ask the -questions. - -Arrived a day when Feather swept into the Palace with some -visitors. They were two fair and handsome little girls of thirteen -and fourteen, whose mother, having taken them shopping, found it -would suit her extremely well to drop then somewhere for an hour -while she went to her dressmaker. Feather was quite willing that -they should be left with Robin and Mademoiselle until their own -governess called for them. - -"Here are Eileen and Winifred Erwyn, Robin," she said, bringing -them in. "Talk to them and show them your books and things until -the governess comes. Dowson, give them some cakes and tea." - -Mrs. Erwyn was one of the most treasured of Feather's circle. Her -little girls' governess was a young Frenchwoman, entirely unlike -Mademoiselle Valle. Eileen and Winifred saw Life from their -schoolroom windows as an open book. Why not, since their governess -and their mother's French maid conversed freely, and had rather -penetrating voices even when they were under the impression that -they lowered them out of deference to blameless youth. Eileen and -Winifred liked to remain awake to listen as long as they could -after they went to bed. They themselves had large curious eyes -and were given to whispering and giggling. - -They talked a good deal to Robin and assumed fashionable little -grown up airs. They felt themselves mature creatures as compared -to her, since she was not yet thirteen. They were so familiar -with personages and functions that Robin felt that they must have -committed to memory every morning the column in the Daily Telegraph -known as "London Day by Day." She sometimes read it herself, -because it was amusing to her to read about parties and weddings -and engagements. But it did not seem easy to remember. Winifred -and Eileen were delighted to display themselves in the character -of instructresses. They entertained Robin for a short time, but, -after that, she began to dislike the shared giggles which so often -broke out after their introduction of a name or an incident. It -seemed to hint that they were full of amusing information which -they held back. Then they were curious and made remarks and asked -questions. She began to think them rather horrid. - -"We saw Lord Coombe yesterday," said Winifred at last, and the -unnecessary giggle followed. - -"We think he wears the most beautiful clothes we ever saw! You -remember his overcoat, Winnie?" said Eileen. "He MATCHES so--and -yet you don't know exactly how he matches," and she giggled also. - -"He is the best dressed man in London," Winifred stated quite -grandly. "I think he is handsome. So do Mademoiselle and Florine." - -Robin said nothing at all. What Dowson privately called "her -secret look" made her face very still. Winifred saw the look and, -not understanding it or her, became curious. - -"Don't you?" she said. - -"No," Robin answered. "He has a wicked face. And he's old, too." - -"You think he's old because you're only about twelve," inserted -Eileen. "Children think everybody who is grown-up must be old. -I used to. But now people don't talk and think about age as they -used to. Mademoiselle says that when a man has distinction he is -always young--and nicer than boys." - -Winifred, who was persistent, broke in. - -"As to his looking wicked, I daresay he IS wicked in a sort of -interesting way. Of course, people say all sorts of things about -him. When he was quite young, he was in love with a beautiful -little royal Princess--or she was in love with him--and her husband -either killed her or she died of a broken heart--I don't know -which." - -Mademoiselle Valle had left them for a short time feeling that -they were safe with their tea and cakes and would feel more at ease -relieved of her presence. She was not long absent, but Eileen and -Winifred, being avid of gossip and generally eliminated subjects, -"got in their work" with quite fevered haste. They liked the idea -of astonishing Robin. - -Eileen bent forward and lowered her voice. - -"They do say that once Captain Thorpe was fearfully jealous of -him and people wonder that he wasn't among the co-respondents." -The word "co-respondent" filled her with self-gratulation even -though she only whispered it. - -"Co-respondents?" said Robin. - -They both began to whisper at once--quite shrilly in their haste. -They knew Mademoiselle might return at any moment. - -"The great divorce case, you know! The Thorpe divorce case the -papers are so full of. We get the under housemaid to bring it to -us after Mademoiselle has done with it. It's so exciting! Haven't -you been reading it? Oh!" - -"No, I haven't," answered Robin. "And I don't know about co-respondents, -but, if they are anything horrid, I daresay he WAS one of them." - -And at that instant Mademoiselle returned and Dowson brought -in fresh cakes. The governess, who was to call for her charges, -presented herself not long afterwards and the two enterprising -little persons were taken away. - -"I believe she's JEALOUS of Lord Coombe," Eileen whispered to -Winifred, after they reached home. - -"So do I," said Winifred wisely. "She can't help but know how he -ADORES Mrs. Gareth-Lawless because she's so lovely. He pays for -all her pretty clothes. It's silly of her to be jealous--like a -baby." - -Robin sometimes read newspapers, though she liked books better. -Newspapers were not forbidden her. She been reading an enthralling -book and had not seen a paper for some days. She at once searched for -one and, finding it, sat down and found also the Thorpe Divorce -Case. It was not difficult of discovery, as it filled the principal -pages with dramatic evidence and amazing revelations. - -Dowson saw her bending over the spread sheets, hot-eyed and intense -in her concentration. - -"What are you reading, my love?" she asked. - -The little flaming face lifted itself. It was unhappy, obstinate, -resenting. It wore no accustomed child look and Dowson felt rather -startled. - -"I'm reading the Thorpe Divorce Case, Dowie," she answered -deliberately and distinctly. - -Dowie came close to her. - -"It's an ugly thing to read, my lamb," she faltered. "Don't you -read it. Such things oughtn't to be allowed in newspapers. And -you're a little girl, my own dear." Robin's elbow rested firmly -on the table and her chin firmly in her hand. Her eyes were not -like a bird's. - -"I'm nearly thirteen," she said. "I'm growing up. Nobody can stop -themselves when they begin to grow up. It makes them begin to find -out things. I want to ask you something, Dowie." - -"Now, lovey--!" Dowie began with tremor. Both she and Mademoiselle -had been watching the innocent "growing up" and fearing a time -would come when the widening gaze would see too much. Had it come -as soon as this? - -Robin suddenly caught the kind woman's wrists in her hands and -held them while she fixed her eyes on her. The childish passion -of dread and shyness in them broke Dowson's heart because it was -so ignorant and young. - -"I'm growing up. There's something--I MUST know something! I never -knew how to ask about it before." It was so plain to Dowson that -she did not know how to ask about it now. "Someone said that Lord -Coombe might have been a co-respondent in the Thorpe case----" - -"These wicked children!" gasped Dowie. "They're not children at -all!" - -"Everybody's horrid but you and Mademoiselle," cried Robin, brokenly. -She held the wrists harder and ended in a sort of outburst. "If -my father were alive--could he bring a divorce suit----And would -Lord Coombe----" - -Dowson burst into open tears. And then, so did Robin. She dropped -Dowson's wrists and threw her arms around her waist, clinging to -it in piteous repentance. - -"No, I won't!" she cried out. "I oughtn't to try to make you tell -me. You can't. I'm wicked to you. Poor Dowie--darling Dowie! I -want to KISS you, Dowie! Let me--let me!" - -She sobbed childishly on the comfortable breast and Dowie hugged -her close and murmured in a choked voice, - -"My lamb! My pet lamb!" - - - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - - - - -Mademoiselle Valle and Dowson together realized that after this -the growing up process was more rapid. It always seems incredibly -rapid to lookers on, after thirteen. But these two watchers felt -that, in Robin's case, it seemed unusually so. Robin had always -been interested in her studies and clever at them, but, suddenly, -she developed a new concentration and it was of an order which her -governess felt denoted the secret holding of some object in view. -She devoted herself to her lessons with a quality of determination -which was new. She had previously been absorbed, but not determined. -She made amazing strides and seemed to aspire to a thoroughness -and perfection girls did not commonly aim at--especially at the -frequently rather preoccupied hour of blossoming. Mademoiselle -encountered in her an eagerness that she--who knew girls--would -have felt it optimistic to expect in most cases. She wanted to -work over hours; she would have read too much if she had not been -watched and gently coerced. - -She was not distracted by the society of young people of her own age. -She, indeed, showed a definite desire to avoid such companionship. -What she said to Mademoiselle Valle one afternoon during a long walk -they took together, held its own revelation for the older woman. - -They had come upon the two Erwyns walking with their attendant -in Kensington Gardens, and, seeing them at some distance, Robin -asked her companion to turn into another walk. - -"I don't want to meet them," she said, hurriedly. "I don't think I -like girls. Perhaps it's horrid of me--but I don't. I don't like -those two." A few minutes later, after they had walked in an opposite -direction, she said thoughtfully. - -"Perhaps the kind of girls I should like to know would not like to -know me." - -From the earliest days of her knowledge of Lord Coombe, Mademoiselle -Valle had seen that she had no cause to fear lack of comprehension -on his part. With a perfection of method, they searched each other's -intelligence. It had become understood that on such occasions as -there was anything she wished to communicate or inquire concerning, -Mr. Benby, in his private room, was at Mademoiselle's service, and -there his lordship could also be met personally by appointment. - -"There have been no explanations," Mademoiselle Valle said to -Dowson. "He does not ask to know why I turn to him and I do not -ask to know why he cares about this particular child. It is taken -for granted that is his affair and not mine. I am paid well to -take care of Robin, and he knows that all I say and do is part of -my taking care of her." - -After the visit of the Erwyn children, she had a brief interview -with Coombe, in which she made for him a clear sketch. It was a -sketch of unpleasant little minds, avid and curious on somewhat -exotic subjects, little minds, awake to rather common claptrap -and gossipy pinchbeck interests. - -"Yes--unpleasant, luckless, little persons. I quite understand. -They never appeared before. They will not appear again. Thank you, -Mademoiselle," he said. - -The little girls did not appear again; neither did any others of -their type, and the fact that Feather knew little of other types -was a sufficient reason for Robin's growing up without companions -of her own age. - -"She's a lonely child, after all," Mademoiselle said. - -"She always was," answered Dowie. "But she's fond of us, bless -her heart, and it isn't loneliness like it was before we came." - -"She is not unhappy. She is too blooming and full of life," -Mademoiselle reflected. "We adore her and she has many interests. -It is only that she does not know the companionship most young -people enjoy. Perhaps, as she has never known it, she does not -miss it." - -The truth was that if the absence of intercourse with youth -produced its subtle effect on her, she was not aware of any lack, -and a certain uncompanioned habit of mind, which gave her much -time for dreams and thought, was accepted by her as a natural -condition as simply as her babyhood had accepted the limitations -of the Day and Night Nurseries. - -She was not a self-conscious creature, but the time came when she -became rather disturbed by the fact that people looked at her very -often, as she walked in the streets. Sometimes they turned their -heads to look after her; occasionally one person walking with -another would say something quietly to his or her companion, and -they even paused a moment to turn quite round and look. The first -few times she noticed this she flushed prettily and said nothing -to Mademoiselle Valle who was generally with her. But, after her -attention had been attracted by the same thing on several different -days, she said uneasily: - -"Am I quite tidy, Mademoiselle?" - -"Quite," Mademoiselle answered--just a shade uneasy herself. - -"I began to think that perhaps something had come undone or my -hat was crooked," she explained. "Those two women stared so. Then -two men in a hansom leaned forward and one said something to the -other, and they both laughed a little, Mademoiselle!" hurriedly, -"Now, there are three young men!" quite indignantly. "Don't let -them see you notice them--but I think it RUDE!" - -They were carelessly joyous and not strictly well-bred youths, -who were taking a holiday together, and their rudeness was quite -unintentional and without guile. They merely stared and obviously -muttered comments to each other as they passed, each giving -the hasty, unconscious touch to his young moustache, which is the -automatic sign of pleasurable observation in the human male. - -"If she had had companions of her own age she would have known -all about it long ago," Mademoiselle was thinking. - -Her intelligent view of such circumstances was that the simple -fact they arose from could--with perfect taste--only be treated -simply. It was a mere fact; therefore, why be prudish and affected -about it. - -"They did not intend any rudeness," she said, after they had gone -by. "They are not much more than boys and not perfectly behaved. -People often stare when they see a very pretty girl. I am afraid -I do it myself. You are very pretty," quite calmly, and as one -speaking without prejudice. - -Robin turned and looked at her, and the colour, which was like a -Jacqueminot rose, flooded her face. She was at the flushing age. -Her gaze was interested, speculative, and a shade startled--merely -a shade. - -"Oh," she said briefly--not in exclamation exactly, but in a sort -of acceptance. Then she looked straight before her and went on -walking, with the lovely, slightly swaying, buoyant step which in -itself drew attracted eyes after her. - -"If I were a model governess, such as one read of long before -you were born," Mademoiselle Valle continued, "I should feel it -my duty to tell you that beauty counts for nothing. But that is -nonsense. It counts a great deal--with some women it counts for -everything. Such women are not lucky. One should thank Heaven -for it and make the best of it, without exaggerated anxiety. Both -Dowie and I, who love you, are GRATEFUL to le bon Dieu that you -are pretty." - -"I have sometimes thought I was pretty, when I saw myself in the -glass," said Robin, with unexcited interest. "It seemed to me that -I LOOKED pretty. But, at the same time, I couldn't help knowing -that everything is a matter of taste and that it might be because -I was conceited." - -"You are not conceited," answered the Frenchwoman. - -"I don't want to be," said Robin. "I want to be--a serious person -with--with a strong character." - -Mademoiselle's smile was touched with affectionate doubt. It had -not occurred to her to view this lovely thing in the light of a -"strong" character. Though, after all, what exactly was strength? -She was a warm, intensely loving, love compelling, tender being. -Having seen much of the world, and of humanity and inhumanity, -Mademoiselle Valle had had moments of being afraid for -her--particularly when, by chance, she recalled the story Dowson -had told her of the bits of crushed and broken leaves. - -"A serious person," she said, "and strong?" - -"Because I must earn my own living," said Robin. "I must be strong -enough to take care of myself. I am going to be a governess--or -something." - -Here, it was revealed to Mademoiselle as in a flash, was the reason -why she had applied herself with determination to her studies. This -had been the object in view. For reasons of her own, she intended -to earn her living. With touched interest, Mademoiselle Valle -waited, wondering if she would be frank about the reason. She -merely said aloud: - -"A governess?" - -"Perhaps there may be something else I can do. I might be a -secretary or something like that. Girls and women are beginning -to do so many new things," her charge explained herself. "I do not -want to be--supported and given money. I mean I do not want--other -people--to buy my clothes and food--and things. The newspapers are -full of advertisements. I could teach children. I could translate -business letters. Very soon I shall be old enough to begin. Girls -in their teens do it." - -She had laid some of her cards on the table, but not all, poor -child. She was not going into the matter of her really impelling -reasons. But Mademoiselle Valle was not dull, and her affection -added keenness to her mental observations. Also she had naturally -heard the story of the Thorpe lawsuit from Dowson. Inevitably -several points suggested themselves to her. - -"Mrs. Gareth-Lawless----" she began, reasonably. - -But Robin stopped her by turning her face full upon her once more, -and this time her eyes were full of clear significance. - -"She will let me go," she said. "You KNOW she will let me -go, Mademoiselle, darling. You KNOW she will." There was a frank -comprehension and finality in the words which made a full revelation -of facts Mademoiselle herself had disliked even to allow to form -themselves into thoughts. The child knew all sorts of things and -felt all sorts of things. She would probably never go into details, -but she was extraordinarily, harrowingly, AWARE. She had been -learning to be aware for years. This had been the secret she had -always kept to herself. - -"If you are planning this," Mademoiselle said, as reasonably as -before, "we must work very seriously for the news few years." - -"How long do you think it will take?" asked Robin. She was nearing -sixteen--bursting into glowing blossom--a radiant, touching thing -whom one only could visualize in flowering gardens, in charming, -enclosing rooms, figuratively embraced by every mature and kind -arm within reach of her. This presented itself before Mademoiselle -Valle with such vividness that it was necessary for her to control -a sigh. - -"When I feel that you are ready, I will tell you," she answered. -"And I will do all I can to help you--before I leave you." - -"Oh!" Robin gasped, in an involuntarily childish way, "I--hadn't -thought of that! How could I LIVE without you--and Dowie?" - -"I know you had not thought of it," said Mademoiselle, affectionately. -"You are only a dear child yet. But that will be part of it, you -know. A governess or a secretary, or a young lady in an office -translating letters cannot take her governess and maid with her." - -"Oh!" said Robin again, and her eyes became suddenly so dewy that -the person who passed her at the moment thought he had never seen -such wonderful eyes in his life. So much of her was still child -that the shock of this sudden practical realization thrust the mature -and determined part of her being momentarily into the background, -and she could scarcely bear her alarmed pain. It was true that she -had been too young to face her plan as she must. - -But, after the long walk was over and she found herself in her -bedroom again, she was conscious of a sense of being relieved of -a burden. She had been wondering when she could tell Mademoiselle -and Dowie of her determination. She had not liked to keep it a secret -from them as if she did not love them, but it had been difficult -to think of a way in which to begin without seeming as if she -thought she was quite grown up--which would have been silly. She -had not thought of speaking today, but it had all come about quite -naturally, as a result of Mademoiselle's having told her that she -was really very pretty--so pretty that it made people turn to look -at her in the street. She had heard of girls and women who were -like that, but she had never thought it possible that she----! -She had, of course, been looked at when she was very little, but -she had heard Andrews say that people looked because she had so -much hair and it was like curled silk. - -She went to the dressing table and looked at herself in the glass, -leaning forward that she might see herself closely. The face -which drew nearer and nearer had the effect of some tropic flower, -because it was so alive with colour which seemed to palpitate -instead of standing still. Her soft mouth was warm and brilliant -with it, and the darkness of her eyes was--as it had always -been--like dew. Her brow were a slender black velvet line, and her -lashes made a thick, softening shadow. She saw they were becoming. -She cupped her round chin in her hands and studied herself with a -desire to be sure of the truth without prejudice or self conceit. -The whole effect of her was glowing, and she felt the glow as -others did. She put up a finger to touch the velvet petal texture -of her skin, and she saw how prettily pointed and slim her hand -was. Yes, that was pretty--and her hair--the way it grew about -her forehead and ears and the back of her neck. She gazed at her -young curve and colour and flame of life's first beauty with deep -curiosity, singularly impersonal for her years. - -She liked it; she began to be grateful as Mademoiselle had said -she and Dowie were. Yes, if other people liked it, there was no -use in pretending it would not count. - -"If I am going to earn my living," she thought, with entire -gravity, "it may be good for me. If I am a governess, it will be -useful because children like pretty people. And if I am a secretary -and work in an office, I daresay men like one to be pretty because -it is more cheerful." - -She mentioned this to Mademoiselle Valle, who was very kind about -it, though she looked thoughtful afterwards. When, a few days later, -Mademoiselle had an interview with Coombe in Benby's comfortable -room, he appeared thoughtful also as he listened to her recital -of the incidents of the long walk during which her charge had -revealed her future plans. - -"She is a nice child," he said. "I wish she did not dislike me -so much. I understand her, villain as she thinks me. I am not a -genuine villain," he added, with his cold smile. But he was saying -it to himself, not to Mademoiselle. - -This, she saw, but--singularly, perhaps--she spoke as if in reply. - -"Of that I am aware." - -He turned his head slightly, with a quick, unprepared movement. - -"Yes?" he said. - -"Would your lordship pardon me if I should say that otherwise I -should not ask your advice concerning a very young girl?" - -He slightly waved his hand. - -"I should have known that--if I had thought of it. I do know it." - -Mademoiselle Valle bowed. - -"The fact," she said, "that she seriously thinks that perhaps -beauty may be an advantage to a young person who applies for work -in the office of a man of business because it may seem bright and -cheerful to him when he is tired and out of spirits--that gives one -furiously to think. Yes, to me she said it, milord--with the eyes -of a little dove brooding over her young. I could see her--lifting -them like an angel to some elderly vaurien, who would merely think -her a born cocotte." - -Here Coombe's rigid face showed thought indeed. - -"Good God!" he muttered, quite to himself, "Good God!" in a low, -breathless voice. Villain or saint, he knew not one world but -many. - -"We must take care of her," he said next. "She is not an insubordinate -child. She will do nothing yet?" - -"I have told her she is not yet ready," Mademoiselle Valle answered. -"I have also promised to tell her when she is--And to help her." - -"God help her if we do not!" he said. "She is, on the whole, as -ignorant as a little sheep--and butchers are on the lookout for -such as she is. They suit them even better than the little things -whose tendencies are perverse from birth. An old man with an evil -character may be able to watch over her from a distance." - -Mademoiselle regarded him with grave eyes, which took in his tall, -thin erectness of figure, his bearing, the perfection of his attire -with its unfailing freshness, which was not newness. - -"Do you call yourself an old man, milord?" she asked. - -"I am not decrepit--years need not bring that," was his answer. "But -I believe I became an old man before I was thirty. I have grown no -older--in that which is really age--since then." - -In the moment's silence which followed, his glance met Mademoiselle -Valle's and fixed itself. - -"I am not old enough--or young enough--to be enamoured of Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless' little daughter," he said. "YOU need not be told -that. But you have heard that there are those who amuse themselves -by choosing to believe that I am." - -"A few light and not too clean-minded fools," she admitted without -flinching. - -"No man can do worse for himself than to explain and deny," he -responded with a smile at once hard and fine. "Let them continue -to believe it." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - - - - -Sixteen passed by with many other things much more disturbing -and important to the world than a girl's birthday; seventeen was -gone, with passing events more complicated still and increasingly -significant, but even the owners of the hands hovering over the -Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, did not keep a watch on -all of them as close as might have been kept with advantage. Girls -in their teens are seldom interested in political and diplomatic -conditions, and Robin was not fond of newspapers. She worked well -and steadily under Mademoiselle's guidance, and her governess -realized that she was not losing sight of her plans for self -support. She was made aware of this by an occasional word or so, -and also by a certain telepathic union between them. Little as she -cared for the papers, the child had a habit of closely examining -the advertisements every day. She read faithfully the columns -devoted to those who "Want" employment or are "Wanted" by employers. - -"I look at all the paragraphs which begin 'Wanted, a young lady' -or a 'young woman' or a 'young person,' and those which say that -'A young person' or 'a young woman' or 'a young lady' desires a -position. I want to find out what is oftenest needed." - -She had ceased to be disturbed by the eyes which followed her, -or opened a little as she passed. She knew that nothing had come -undone or was crooked and that untidiness had nothing to do with -the matter. She accepted being looked at as a part of everyday -life. A certain friendliness and pleasure in most of the glances she -liked and was glad of. Sometimes men of the flushed, middle-aged -or elderly type displeased her by a sort of boldness of manner -and gaze, bet she thought that they were only silly, giddy, old -things who ought to go home to their families and stay with than. -Mademoiselle or Dowie was nearly always with her, but, as she was -not a French jemme fille, this was not because it was supposed -that she could not be trusted out alone, but because she enjoyed -their affectionate companionship. - -There was one man, however, whom she greatly disliked, as young -girls will occasionally dislike a member of the opposite sex for -no special reason they can wholly explain to themselves. - -He was an occasional visitor of her mother's--a personable young -Prussian officer of high rank and title. He was blonde and military -and good-looking; he brought his bearing and manner from the Court -at Berlin, and the click of his heels as he brought them smartly -together, when he made his perfect automatic bow, was one of the -things Robin knew she was reasonless in feeling she detested in -him. - -"It makes me feel as if he was not merely bowing as a a man who -is a gentleman does," she confided to Mademoiselle Valle, "but -as if he had been taught to do it and to call attention to it as -if no one had ever known how to do it properly before. It is so -flourishing in its stiff way that it's rather vulgar." - -"That is only personal fancy on your part," commented Mademoiselle. - -"I know it is," admitted Robin. "But--" uneasily, "--but that -isn't what I dislike in him most. It's his eyes, I suppose they -are handsome eyes. They are blue and full--rather too full. They -have a queer, swift stare--as if they plunged into other people's -eyes and tried to hold them and say something secret, all in one -second. You find yourself getting red and trying to look away." - -"I don't," said Mademoiselle astutely--because she wanted to hear -the rest, without asking too many questions. - -Robin laughed just a little. - -"You have not seen him do it. I have not seen him do it myself very -often. He comes to call on--Mamma"--she never said "Mother"--"when -he is in London. He has been coming for two or three seasons. The -first time I saw him I was going out with Dowie and he was just -going upstairs. Because the hall is so small, we almost knocked -against each other, and he jumped back and made his bow, and he -stared so that I felt silly and half frightened. I was only fifteen -then." - -"And since then?" Mademoiselle Valle inquired. - -"When he is here it seems as if I always meet him somewhere. Twice, -when Fraulein Hirsch was with me in the Square Gardens, he came -and spoke to us. I think he must know her. He was very grand and -condescendingly polite to her, as if he did not forget she was -only a German teacher and I was only a little girl whose mamma -he knew. But he kept looking at me until I began to hate him." - -"You must not dislike people without reason. You dislike Lord -Coombe." - -"They both make me creep. Lord Coombe doesn't plunge his eyes -into mine, but he makes me creep with his fishy coldness. I feel -as if he were like Satan in his still way." - -"That is childish prejudice and nonsense." - -"Perhaps the other is, too," said Robin. "But they both make me -creep, nevertheless. I would rather DIE than be obliged to let -one of them touch me. That was why I would never shake hands with -Lord Coombe when I was a little child." - -"You think Fraulein Hirsch knows the Baron?" Mademoiselle inquired -further. - -"I am sure she does. Several times, when she has gone out to walk -with me, we have met him. Sometimes he only passes us and salutes, -but sometimes he stops and says a few words in a stiff, magnificent -way. But he always bores his eyes into mine, as if he were finding -out things about me which I don't know myself. He has passed -several times when you have been with me, but you may not remember." - -Mademoiselle Valle chanced, however, to recall having observed -the salute of a somewhat haughty, masculine person, whose military -bearing in itself was sufficient to attract attention, so markedly -did it suggest the clanking of spurs and accoutrements, and the -high lift of a breast bearing orders. - -"He is Count von Hillern, and I wish he would stay in Germany," -said Robin. - -Fraulein Hirsch had not been one of those who returned hastily to -her own country, giving no warning of her intention to her employers. -She had remained in London and given her lessons faithfully. She -was a plain young woman with a large nose and pimpled, colourless -face and shy eyes and manner. Robin had felt sure that she stood -in awe of the rank and military grandeur of her fellow countryman. -She looked shyer than ever when he condescended to halt and address -her and her charge--so shy, indeed, that her glances seemed furtive. -Robin guessed that she admired him but was too humble to be at -ease when he was near her. More than once she had started and turned -red and pale when she saw him approaching, which had caused Robin -to wonder if she herself would feel as timid and overpowered by -her superiors, if she became a governess. Clearly, a man like -Count von Hillern would then be counted among her superiors, and -she must conduct herself becomingly, even if it led to her looking -almost stealthy. She had, on several occasions, asked Fraulein -certain questions about governesses. She had inquired as to the age -at which one could apply for a place as instructress to children -or young girls. Fraulein Hirsch had begun her career in Germany -at the age of eighteen. She had lived a serious life, full of -responsibilities at home as one of a large family, and she had -perhaps been rather mature for her age. In England young women -who wished for situations answered advertisements and went to see -the people who had inserted them in the newspapers, she explained. -Sometimes, the results were very satisfactory. Fraulein Hirsch -was very amiable in her readiness to supply information. Robin did -not tell her of her intention to find work of some sort--probably -governessing--but the young German woman was possessed of a mind -"made in Germany" and was quite well aware of innumerable things -her charge did not suspect her of knowing. One of the things -she knew best was that the girl was a child. She was not a child -herself, and she was an abjectly bitter and wretched creature who -had no reason for hope. She lived in small lodgings in a street -off Abbey Road, and, in a drawer in her dressing table, she kept -hidden a photograph of a Prussian officer with cropped blond head, -and handsome prominent blue eyes, arrogantly gazing from beneath -heavy lids which drooped. He was of the type the German woman, young -and slim, or mature and stout, privately worships as a god whose -relation to any woman can only be that of a modern Jove stooping -to command service. In his teens he had become accustomed to the -female eye which lifts itself adoringly or casts the furtively -excited glance of admiration or appeal. It was the way of mere -nature that it should be so--the wise provision of a masculine -God, whose world was created for the supply and pleasure of males, -especially males of the Prussian Army, whose fixed intention it -was to dominate the world and teach it obedience. - -To such a man, so thoroughly well trained in the comprehension of -the power of his own rank and values, a young woman such as Fraulein -Hirsch--subservient and without beauty--was an unconsidered object -to be as little regarded as the pavement upon which one walks. The -pavement had its uses, and such women had theirs. They could, at -least, obey the orders of those Heaven had placed above them, and, -if they showed docility and intelligence, might be re warded by a -certain degree of approval. - -A presumption, which would have dared to acknowledge to the existence -of the hidden photograph, could not have been encompassed by the -being of Fraulein Hirsch. She was, in truth, secretly enslaved -by a burning, secret, heart-wringing passion which, sometimes, as -she lay on her hard bed at night, forced from her thin chest hopeless -sobs which she smothered under the bedclothes. - -Figuratively, she would have licked the boots of her conquering -god, if he would have looked at her--just looked-as if she were -human. But such a thing could not have occurred to him. He did -not even think of her as she thought of herself, torturingly--as -not young, not in any degree good-looking, not geboren, not even -female. He did not think of her at all, except as one of those born -to serve in such manner as their superiors commanded. She was in -England under orders, because she was unobtrusive looking enough -to be a safe person to carry on the work she had been given to -do. She was cleverer than she looked and could accomplish certain -things without attracting any attention whatsoever. - -Von Hillern had given her instructions now and then, which had -made it necessary for him to see and talk to her in various places. -The fact that she had before her the remote chance of seeing him -by some chance, gave her an object in life. It was enough to be -allowed to stand or sit for a short time near enough to have been -able to touch his sleeve, if she had had the mad audacity to do -it; to quail before his magnificent glance, to hear his voice, to -ALMOST touch his strong, white hand when she gave him papers, to -see that he deigned, sometimes, to approve of what she had done, -to assure him of her continued obedience, with servile politeness. - -She was not a nice woman, or a good one, and she had, from her -birth, accepted her place in her world with such finality that her -desires could not, at any time, have been of an elevated nature. -If he had raised a haughty hand and beckoned to her, she would have -followed him like a dog under any conditions he chose to impose. -But he did not raise his hand, and never would, because she had no -attractions whatsoever. And this she knew, so smothered her sobs -in her bed at night or lay awake, fevered with anticipation when -there was a vague chance that he might need her for some reason -and command her presence in some deserted park or country road -or cheap hotel, where she could take rooms for the night as if -she were a passing visitor to London. - -One night--she had taken cheap lodgings for a week in a side street, -in obedience to orders--he came in about nine o'clock dressed in -a manner whose object was to dull the effect of his grandeur and -cause him to look as much like an ordinary Englishman as possible. - -But, when the door was closed and he stood alone in the room -with her, she saw, with the blissful pangs of an abjectly adoring -woman, that he automatically resumed his magnificence of bearing. -His badly fitting overcoat removed, he stood erect and drawn to -his full height, so dominating the small place and her idolatrously -cringing being that her heart quaked within her. Oh! to dare to -cast her unloveliness at his feet, if it were only to be trampled -upon and die there! No small sense of humour existed in her brain -to save her from her pathetic idiocy. Romantic humility and touching -sacrifice to the worshipped one were the ideals she had read of -in verse and song all her life. Only through such servitude and -sacrifice could woman gain man's love--and even then only if she -had beauty and the gifts worthy of her idol's acceptance. - -It was really his unmitigated arrogance she worshipped and crawled -upon her poor, large-jointed knees to adore. Her education, her -very religion itself had taught that it was the sign of his nobility -and martial high breeding. Even the women of his own class believed -something of the same sort--the more romantic and sentimental -of them rather enjoying being mastered by it. To Fraulein Hirsch's -mental vision, he was a sublimated and more dazzling German -Rochester, and she herself a more worthy, because more submissive, -Jane Eyre. Ach Gott! His high-held, cropped head--his so beautiful -white hands--his proud eyes which deigned to look at her from -their drooping lids! His presence filled the shabby room with the -atmosphere of a Palace. - -He asked her a few questions; he required from her certain notes she -had made; without wasting a word or glance he gave her in detail -certain further orders. - -He stood by the table, and it was, therefore, necessary that she -should approach him--should even stand quite near that she might -see clearly a sketch he made hastily--immediately afterwards tearing -it into fragments and burning it with a match. She was obliged -to stand so near him that her skirt brushed his trouser leg. His -nearness, and a vague scent of cigar smoke, mingled with the -suggestion of some masculine soap or essence, were so poignant -in their effect that she trembled and water rose in her eyes. In -fact--and despite her terrified effort to control it, a miserable -tear fell on her cheek and stood there because she dared not wipe -it away. - -Because he realized, with annoyance, that she was trembling, he -cast a cold, inquiring glance at her and saw the tear. Then he -turned away and resumed his examination of her notes. He was not -here to make inquiries as to whether a sheep of a woman was crying -or had merely a cold in her head. "Ach!" grovelled poor Hirsch in -her secret soul,--his patrician control of outward expression and -his indifference to all small and paltry things! It was part, -not only of his aristocratic breeding, but of the splendour of -his military training. - -It was his usual custom to leave her at once, when the necessary -formula had been gone through. Tonight--she scarcely dared to -believe it--he seemed to have some reason for slight delay. He -did not sit down or ask Fraulein Hirsch to do so--but he did not -at once leave the room. He lighted a quite marvellous cigar--deigning -a slight wave of the admired hand which held it, designating that -he asked permission. Oh! if she dared have darted to him with a -match! He stood upon the hearth and asked a casual-sounding question -or so regarding her employer, her household, her acquaintances, -her habits. - -The sole link between them was the asking of questions and the -giving of private information, and, therefore, the matter of taste -in such matters did not count as a factor. He might ask anything -and she must answer. Perhaps it was necessary for her to seek some -special knowledge among the guests Mrs. Gareth-Lawless received. -But training, having developed in her alertness of mind, led her -presently to see that it was not Mrs. Gareth-Lawless he was chiefly -interested in--but a member of her family--the very small family -which consisted of herself and her daughter. - -It was Robin he was enclosing in his network of questions. And she -had seen him look at Robin when he had passed or spoken to them. -An illuminating flash brought back to her that he had cleverly -found out from her when they were to walk together, and where they -were to go. She had not been quick enough to detect this before, -but she saw it now. Girls who looked like that--yes! But it could -not be--serious. An English girl of such family--with such a -mother! A momentary caprice, such as all young men of his class -amused themselves with and forgot--but nothing permanent. It would -not, indeed, be approved in those High Places where obedience was -the first commandment of the Decalogue. - -But he did not go. He even descended a shade from his inaccessible -plane. It was not difficult for him to obtain details of the odd -loneliness of the girl's position. Fraulein Hirsch was quite ready -to explain that, in spite of the easy morals and leniency of rank -and fashion in England, she was a sort of little outcast from -sacred inner circles. There were points she burned to make clear -to him, and she made them so. She was in secret fiercely desirous -that he should realize to the utmost, that, whatsoever rashness -this young flame of loveliness inspired in him, it was NOT possible -that he could regard it with any shadow of serious intention. -She had always disliked the girl, and now her weak mildness and -humility suddenly transformed themselves into something else--a -sort of maternal wolfishness. It did not matter what happened to -the girl--and whatsoever befell or did not befall her, she--Mathilde -Hirsch--could neither gain nor lose hope through it. But, if -she did not displease him and yet saved him from final disaster, -he would, perhaps, be grateful to her--and perhaps, speak with -approval--or remember it--and his Noble Mother most certainly -would--if she ever knew. But behind and under and through all these -specious reasonings, was the hot choking burn of the mad jealousy -only her type of luckless woman can know--and of whose colour she -dare not show the palest hint. - -"I have found out that, for some reason, she thinks of taking a -place as governess," she said. - -"Suggest that she go to Berlin. There are good places there," was -his answer. - -"If she should go, her mother will not feel any anxiety about -her," returned Fraulein Hirsch. - -"If, then, some young man she meets in the street makes love to -her and they run away together, she will not be pursued by her -relatives." - -Fraulein Hirsch's flat mouth looked rather malicious. - -"Her mother is too busy to pursue her, and there is no one -else--unless it were Lord Coombe, who is said to want her himself." - -Von Hillern shrugged his fine shoulders. - -"At his age! After the mother! That is like an Englishman!" - -Upon this, Fraulein Hirsch drew a step nearer and fixed her eyes -upon his, as she had never had the joy of fixing them before in -her life. She dared it now because she had an interesting story to -tell him which he would like to hear. It WAS like an Englishman. -Lord Coombe had the character of being one of the worst among -them, but was too subtle and clever to openly offend people. It -was actually said that he was educating the girl and keeping her -in seclusion and that it was probably his colossal intention to -marry her when she was old enough. He had no heir of his own--and -he must have beauty and innocence. Innocence and beauty his -viciousness would have. - -"Pah!" exclaimed von Hillern. "It is youth which requires such -things--and takes them. That is all imbecile London gossip. No, he -would not run after her if she ran away. He is a proud man and he -knows he would be laughed at. And he could not get her back from -a young man--who was her lover." - -Her lover! How it thrilled the burning heart her poor, flat chest -panted above. With what triumphant knowledge of such things he -said it. - -"No, he could not," she answered, her eyes still on his. "No one -could." - -He laughed a little, confidently, but almost with light indifference. - -"If she were missing, no particular search would be made then," -he said. "She is pretty enough to suit Berlin." - -He seemed to think pleasantly of something as he stood still for -a moment, his eyes on the floor. When he lifted them, there was -in their blue a hint of ugly exulting, though Mathilde Hirsch did -not think it ugly. He spoke in a low voice. - -"It will be an exciting--a colossal day when we come to London--as -we shall. It will be as if an ocean had collected itself into one -huge mountain of a wave and swept in and overwhelmed everything. -There will be confusion then and the rushing up of untrained -soldiers--and shouts--and yells----" - -"And Zeppelins dropping bombs," she so far forgot herself as to -pant out, "and buildings crashing and pavements and people smashed! -Westminster and the Palaces rocking, and fat fools running before -bayonets." - -He interrupted her with a short laugh uglier than the gleam in -his eyes. He was a trifle excited. - -"And all the women running about screaming and trying to hide and -being pulled out. We can take any of their pretty, little, high -nosed women we choose--any of them." - -"Yes," she answered, biting her lip. No one would take her, she -knew. - -He put on his overcoat and prepared to leave her. As he stood at -the door before opening it, he spoke in his usual tone of mere -command. - -"Take her to Kensington Gardens tomorrow afternoon," he said. "Sit -in one of the seats near the Round Pond and watch the children -sailing their boats. I shall not be there but you will find -yourself near a quiet, elegant woman in mourning who will speak -to you. You are to appear to recognize her as an old acquaintance. -Follow her suggestions in everything." - -After this he was gone and she sat down to think it over. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - - - - -She saw him again during the following week and was obliged to -tell him that she had not been able to take her charge to Kensington -Gardens on the morning that he had appointed but that, as the girl -was fond of the place and took pleasure in watching the children -sailing their boats on the Round Pond, it would be easy to lead -her there. He showed her a photograph of the woman she would find -sitting on a particular bench, and he required she should look -at it long enough to commit the face to memory. It was that of a -quietly elegant woman with gentle eyes. - -"She will call herself Lady Etynge," he said. "You are to remember -that you once taught her little girl in Paris. There must be no haste -and no mistakes. It be well for them to meet--by accident--several -times." - -Later he aid to her: - -"When Lady Etynge invites her to go to her house, you will, of -course, go with her. You will not stay. Lady Etynge will tell you -what to do." - -In words, he did not involve himself by giving any hint of his -intentions. So far as expression went, he might have had none, -whatever. Her secret conclusion was that he knew, if he could see -the girl under propitious circumstances--at the house of a clever -and sympathetic acquaintance, he need have no shadow of a doubt -as to the result of his efforts to please her. He knew she was -a lonely, romantic creature, who had doubtless read sentimental -books and been allured by their heroes. She was, of course, just -ripe for young peerings into the land of love making. His had -been no peerings, thought the pale Hirsch sadly. What girl--or -woman--could resist the alluring demand of his drooping eyes, if -he chose to allow warmth to fill them? Thinking of it, she almost -gnashed her teeth. Did she not see how he would look, bending his -high head and murmuring to a woman who shook with joy under his -gaze? Had she not seen it in her own forlorn, hopeless dreams? - -What did it matter if what the world calls disaster befell the -girl? Fraulein Hirsch would not have called it disaster. Any woman -would have been paid a thousand times over. His fancy might last -a few months. Perhaps he would take her to Berlin--or to some -lovely secret spot in the mountains where he could visit her. -What heaven--what heaven! She wept, hiding her face on her hot, -dry hands. - -But it would not last long--and he would again think only of the -immense work--the august Machine, of which he was a mechanical -part--and he would be obliged to see and talk to her, Mathilde -Hirsch, having forgotten the rest. She could only hold herself -decently in check by telling herself again and again that it was -only natural that such things should come and go in his magnificent -life, and that the sooner it began the sooner it would end. - -It was a lovely morning when her pupil walked with her in Kensington -Gardens, and, quite naturally, strolled towards the Round Pond. -Robin was happy because there were flutings of birds in the air, -gardeners were stuffing crocuses and hyacinths into the flower -beds, there were little sweet scents floating about and so it was -Spring. She pulled a bare looking branch of a lilac bush towards -her and stooped and kissed the tiny brown buttons upon it, half -shyly. - -"I can't help it when I see the first ones swelling on the twigs. -They are working so hard to break out into green," she said. "One -loves everything at this time--everything! Look at the children -round the pond. That fat, little boy in a reefer and brown leather -leggings is bursting with joy. Let us go and praise his boat, -Fraulein." - -They went and Robin praised the boat until its owner was breathless -with rapture. Fraulein Hirsch, standing near her, looked furtively -at all the benches round the circle, giving no incautiously interested -glance to any one of them in particular. Presently, however, she -said: - -"I think that is Lady Etynge sitting on the third bench from -here. I said to you that I had heard she was in London. I wonder -if her daughter is still in the Convent at Tours?" - -When Robin returned, she saw a quiet woman in perfect mourning -recognize Fraulein Hirsch with a a bow and smile which seemed to -require nearer approach. - -"We must go and speak to her." Fraulein Hirsch said. "I know she -wil wish me to present you. She is fond of young girls--because -of Helene." - -Robin went forward prettily. The woman was gentle looking and -attracting. She had a sweet manner and was very kind to Fraulein -Hirsch. She seemed to know her well and to like her. Her daughter, -Helene, was still in the Convent at Tours but was expected home -very shortly. She would be glad to find that Fraulein Hirsch was -in London. - -"I have turned the entire top story of my big house into a pretty -suite for her. She has a fancy for living high above the street," -smiled Lady Etynge, indulgently. Perhaps she was a "Mother" person, -Robin thought. - -Both her looks and talk were kind, and she was very nice in her -sympathetic interest in the boats and the children's efforts to -sail them. - -"I often bring my book here and forget to read, because I find I -am watching them," she said. "They are so eager and so triumphant -when a boat gets across the Pond." - -She went away very soon and Robin watched her out of sight with -interest. - -They saw her again a few days later and talked a little more. She -was not always near the Pond when they came, and they naturally -did not go there each time they walked together, though Fraulein -Hirsch was fond of sitting and watching the children. - -She had been to take tea with her former employer, she told Robin -one day, and she was mildly excited by the preparations for Helene, -who had been educated entirely in a French convent and was not -like an English girl at all. She had always been very delicate -and the nuns seemed to know how to take care of her and calm her -nerves with their quiet ways. - -"Her mother is rather anxious about her coming to London. She has, -of course, no young friends here and she is so used to the quiet -of convent life," the Fraulein explained. "That is why the rooms -at the top of the house have been arranged for her. She will hear -so little sound. I confess I am anxious about her myself. Lady -Etynge is wondering if she can find a suitable young companion to -live in the house with her. She must be a young lady and perfectly -educated--and with brightness and charm. Not a person like myself, -but one who can be treated as an equal and a friend--almost a -playmate." - -"It would be an agreeable position," commented Robin, thoughtfully. - -"Extremely so," answered Fraulein Hirsch. "Helene is a most lovable -and affectionate girl. And Lady Etynge is rich enough to pay a -large salary. Helene is her idol. The suite of rooms is perfect. -In Germany, girls are not spoiled in that way. It is not considered -good for them." - -It was quite natural, since she felt an interest in Helene, that, -on their next meeting, Robin should find pleasure in sitting on -the green bench near the girl's mother and hear her speak of her -daughter. She was not diffuse or intimate in her manner. Helene -first appeared in the talk as a result of a polite inquiry made -by Fraulein Hirsch. Robin gathered, as she listened, that this -particular girl was a tenderly loved and cared for creature and -was herself gentle and intelligent and loving. She sounded like -the kind of a girl one would be glad to have for a friend. Robin -wondered and wondered--if she would "do." Perhaps, out of tactful -consideration for the feelings of Fraulein Hirsch who would not -"do"--because she was neither bright, nor pretty, nor a girl--Lady -Etynge touched but lightly on her idea that she might find a sort -of sublimated young companion for her daughter. - -"It would be difficult to advertise for what one wants," she said. - -"Yes. To state that a girl must be clever and pretty and graceful, -and attractive, would make it difficult for a modest young lady -to write a suitable reply," said Fraulein Hirsch grimly, and both -Lady Etynge and Robin smiled. - -"Among your own friends," Lady Etynge said to Robin, a little -pathetically in her yearning, "do you know of anyone--who might -know of anyone who would fit in? Sometimes there are poor little -cousins, you know?" - -"Or girls who have an independent spirit and would like to support -themselves," said the Fraulein. "There are such girls in these -advanced times." - -"I am afraid I don't know anyone," answered Robin. Modesty also -prevented her from saying that she thought she did. She herself -was well educated, she was good tempered and well bred, and she -had known for some time that she was pretty. - -"Perhaps Fraulein Hirsch may bring you in to have tea with me some -afternoon when you are out," Lady Etynge said kindly before she -left them. "I think you would like to see Helene's rooms. I should -be glad to hear what another girl thinks of them." - -Robin was delighted. Perhaps this was a way opening to her. She -talked to Mademoiselle Valle about it and so glowed with hope that -Mademoiselle's heart was moved. - -"Do you think I might go?" she said. "Do you think there is any -chance that I might be the right person? AM I nice enough--and -well enough educated, and ARE my manners good?" - -She did not know exactly where Lady Etynge lived, but believed -it was one of those big houses in a certain dignified "Place" -they both knew--a corner house, she was sure, because--by mere -chance--she had one day seen Lady Etynge go into such a house as -if it were her own. She did not know the number, but they could -ask Fraulein. - -Fraulein Hirsch was quite ready with detail concerning her former -patroness and her daughter. She obviously admired them very much. -Her manner held a touch of respectful reverence. She described -Helene's disposition and delicate nerves and the perfection of the -nuns' treatment of her. - -She described the beauty of the interior of the house, its luxury -and convenience, and the charms of the suite of apartments prepared -for Helene. She thought the number of the house was No. 97 A. Lady -Etynge was the kindest employer she had ever had. She believed that -Miss Gareth-Lawless and Helene would be delighted with each other, -if they met, and her impression was that Lady Etynge privately -hoped they would become friends. - -Her mild, flat face was so modestly amiable that Mademoiselle -Valle, who always felt her unattractive femininity pathetic, was -a little moved by her evident pleasure in having been the humble -means of providing Robin with acquaintances of an advantageous -kind. - -No special day had been fixed upon for the visit and the cup of tea. -Robin was eager in secret and hoped Lady Etynge would not forget -to remind them of her invitation. - -She did not forget. One afternoon--they had not seen her for several -days and had not really expected to meet her, because they took -their walk later than usual--they found her just rising from her -seat to go home as they appeared. - -"Our little encounters almost assume the air of appointments," she -said. "This is very nice, but I am just going away, I am sorry to -say. I wonder--" she paused a moment, and then looked at Fraulein -Hirsch pleasantly; "I wonder if, in about an hour, you would bring -Miss Gareth-Lawless to me to have tea and tell me if she thinks -Helene will like her new rooms. You said you would like to see -them," brightly to Robin. - -"You are very kind. I should like it so much," was Robin's answer. - -Fraulein Hirsch was correctly appreciative of the condescension -shown to her. Her manner was the perfection of the exact shade -of unobtrusive chaperonship. There was no improper suggestion of -a mistaken idea that she was herself a guest, or, indeed, anything, -in fact, but a proper appendage to her charge. Robin had never -been fond of Fraulein as she was fond of Mademoiselle and Dowie, -still she was not only an efficient teacher, but also a good walker -and very fond of long tramps, which Mademoiselle was really not -strong enough for, but which Robin's slender young legs rejoiced -in. - -The two never took cabs or buses, but always walked everywhere. -They walked on this occasion, and, about an hour later, arrived at -a large, corner house in Berford Place. A tall and magnificently -built footman opened the door for them, and they were handed into -a drawing room much grander than the one Robin sometimes glanced -into as she passed it, when she was at home. A quite beautiful -tea equipage awaited them on a small table, but Lady Etynge was -not in the room. - -"What a beautiful house to live in," said Robin, "but, do you know, -the number ISN'T 97 A. I looked as we came in, and it is No. 25." - -"Is it? I ought to have been more careful," answered Fraulein -Hirsch. "It is wrong to be careless even in small matters." - -Almost immediately Lady Etynge came in and greeted them, with a -sort of gentle delight. She drew Robin down on to a sofa beside -her and took her hand and gave it a light pat which was a caress. - -"Now you really ARE here," she said, "I have been so busy that -I have been afraid I should not have time to show you the rooms -before it was too late to make a change, if you thought anything -might be improved." - -"I am sure nothing can improve them," said Robin, more dewy-eyed -than usual and even a thought breathless, because this was really -a sort of adventure, and she longed to ask if, by any chance, -she would "do." And she was so afraid that she might lose this -amazingly good opportunity, merely because she was too young and -inexperienced to know how she ought to broach the subject. She -had not thought yet of asking Mademoiselle Valle how it should be -done. - -She was not aware that she looked at Lady Etynge with a heavenly, -little unconscious appeal, which made her enchanting. Lady Etynge -looked at her quite fixedly for an instant. - -"What a child you are! And what a colour your cheeks and lips -are!" she said. "You are much--much prettier than Helene, my dear." - -She got up and brought a picture from a side table to show it to -her. - -"I think she is lovely," she said. "Is it became I am her mother?" - -"Oh, no! Not because you are her mother!" exclaimed Robin. "She is -angelic!" - -She was rather angelic, with her delicate uplifted face and her -communion veil framing it mistily. - -The picture was placed near them and Robin looked at is many times -as they took their tea. To be a companion to a girl with a face -like that would be almost too much to ask of one's luck. There -was actual yearning in Robin's heart. Suddenly she realized that -she had missed something all her life, without knowing that she -missed it. It was the friendly nearness of youth like her own. -How she hoped that she might make Lady Etynge like her. After tea -was over, Lady Etynge spoke pleasantly to Fraulein Hirsch. - -"I know that you wanted to register a letter. There is a post-office -just around the corner. Would you like to go and register it while -I take Miss Gareth-Lawless upstairs? You have seen the rooms. You -will only be away a few minutes." - -Fraulein Hirsch was respectfully appreciative again. The letter -really was important. It contained money which she sent monthly -to her parents. This month she was rather late, and she would be -very glad to be allowed to attend to the matter without losing a -post. - -So she went out of the drawing-room and down the stairs, and Robin -heard the front door close behind her with a slight thud. She had -evidently opened and closed it herself without waiting for the -footman. - -The upper rooms in London houses--even in the large ones--are -usually given up to servants' bedrooms, nurseries, and school -rooms. Stately staircases become narrower as they mount, and the -climber gets glimpses of apartments which are frequently bare, -whatsoever their use, and, if not grubby in aspect, are dull and -uninteresting. - -But, in Lady Etynge's house, it was plain that a good deal had -been done. Stairs had been altered and widened, walls had been -given fresh and delicate tints, and one laid one's hand on cream -white balustrades and trod on soft carpets. A good architect had -taken interest in the problems presented to him, and the result was -admirable. Partitions must have been removed to make rooms larger -and of better shape. - -"Nothing could be altered without spoiling it!" exclaimed Robin, -standing in the middle of a sitting room, all freshness and exquisite -colour--the very pictures on the wall being part of the harmony. - -All that a girl would want or love was there. There was nothing -left undone--unremembered. The soft Chesterfield lounge, which -was not too big and was placed near the fire, the writing table, -the books, the piano of satinwood inlaid with garlands; the lamp -to sit and read by. - -"How glad she must be to come back to anyone who loves her so," -said Robin. - -Here was a quilted basket with three Persian kittens purring in -it, and she knelt and stroked their fluffiness, bending her slim -neck and showing how prettily the dark hair grew up from it. It was, -perhaps, that at which Lady Etynge was looking as she stood behind -her and watched her. The girl-nymph slenderness and flexibility -of her leaning body was almost touchingly lovely. - -There were several other rooms and each one was, in its way, more -charming than the other. A library in Dresden blue and white, and -with peculiarly pretty windows struck the last note of cosiness. -All the rooms had pretty windows with rather small square panes -enclosed in white frames. - -It was when she was in this room that Robin took her courage in -her hands. She must not let her chance go by. Lady Etynge was so -kind. She wondered if it would seem gauche and too informal to -speak now. - -She stood quite upright and still, though her voice was not quite -steady when she began. - -"Lady Etynge," she said, "you remember what Fraulein Hirsch said -about girls who wish to support themselves? I--I am one of them. -I want very much to earn my own living. I think I am well educated. -I have been allowed to read a good deal and my teachers, Mademoiselle -Valle and Fraulein Hirsch, say I speak and write French and German -well for an English girl. If you thought I could be a suitable -companion for Miss Etynge, I--should be very happy." - -How curiously Lady Etynge watched her as she spoke. She did not -look displeased, but there was something in her face which made -Robin afraid that she was, perhaps, after all, not the girl who -was fortunate enough to quite "do." - -She felt her hopes raised a degree, however, when Lady Etynge -smiled at her. - -"Do you know, I feel that is very pretty of you!" she said. "It -quite delights me--as I am an idolizing mother--that my mere talk -of Helene should have made you like her well enough to think you -might care to live with her. And I confess I am modern enough to -be pleased with your wishing to earn your own living." - -"I must," said Robin. "I MUST! I could not bear not to earn it!" -She spoke a little suddenly, and a flag of new colour fluttered -in her cheek. - -"When Helene comes, you must meet. If you like each other, as I -feel sure you will, and if Mrs. Gareth-Lawless does not object--if -it remains only a matter of being suitable--you are suitable, my -dear--you are suitable." - -She touched Robin's hand with the light pat which was a caress, -and the child was radiant. - -"Oh, you are kind to me!" The words broke from her involuntarily. -"And it is such GOOD fortune! Thank you, thank you, Lady Etynge." - -The flush of her joy and relief had not died out before the -footman, who had opened the door, appeared on the threshold. He -was a handsome young fellow, whose eyes were not as professionally -impassive as his face. A footman had no right to dart a swift side -look at one as people did in the street. He did dart such a glance. -Robin saw, and she was momentarily struck by its being one of those -she sometimes objected to. - -Otherwise his manner was without flaw. He had only come to announce -to his mistress the arrival of a caller. - -When Lady Etynge took the card from the salver, her expression -changed. She even looked slightly disturbed. - -"Oh, I am sorry," she murmured, "I must see her," lifting her eyes -to Robin. "It is an old friend merely passing through London. How -wicked of me to forget that she wrote to say that she might dash -in at any hour." - -"Please!" pled Robin, prettily. "I can run away at once. Fraulein -Hirsch must have come back. Please--" - -"The lady asked me particularly to say that she has only a few -minutes to stay, as she is catching a train," the footman decorously -ventured. - -"If that is the case," Lady Etynge said, even relievedly, "I will -leave you here to look at things until I come back. I really want -to talk to you a little more about yourself and Helene. I can't let -you go." She looked back from the door before she passed through -it. "Amuse yourself, my dear," and then she added hastily to the -man. - -"Have you remembered that there was something wrong with the latch, -William? See if it needs a locksmith." - -"Very good, my lady." - -She was gone and Robin stood by the sofa thrilled with happiness -and relief. How wonderful it was that, through mere lucky chance, -she had gone to watch the children sailing their boats! And -that Fraulein Hirsch had seen Lady Etynge! What good luck and how -grateful she was! The thought which passed through her mind was -like a little prayer of thanks. How strange it would be to be really -intimate with a girl like herself--or rather like Helene. It made -her heart beat to think of it. How wonderful it would be if Helene -actually loved her, and she loved Helene. Something sprang out -of some depths of her being where past things were hidden. The -something was a deadly little memory. Donal! Donal! It would -be--if she loved Helene and Helene loved her--as new a revelation -as Donal. Oh! she remembered. - -She heard the footman doing something to the latch of the door, -which caused it to make a clicking sound. He was obeying orders -and examining it. As she involuntarily glanced at him, he--bending -over the door handle--raised his eyes sideways and glanced at -her. It was an inexcusable glance from a domestic, because it was -actually as if he were taking the liberty of privately summing her -up--taking her points in for his own entertainment. She so resented -the unprofessional bad manners of it, that she turned away and -sauntered into the Dresden blue and white library and sat down -with a book. - -She was quite relieved, when, only a few minutes later, he went -away having evidently done what he could. - -The book she had picked up was a new novel and opened with an -attention-arresting agreeableness, which led her on. In fact it -led her on further and, for a longer time than she was aware of. -It was her way to become wholly absorbed in books when they allured -her; she forgot her surroundings and forgot the passing of time. -This was a new book by a strong man with the gift which makes alive -people, places, things. The ones whose lives had taken possession -of his being in this story were throbbing with vital truth. - -She read on and on because, from the first page, she knew them -as actual pulsating human creatures. They looked into her face, -they laughed, she heard their voices, she CARED for every trivial -thing that happened to them--to any of them. If one of them picked -a flower, she saw how he or she held it and its scent was in the -air. - -Having been so drawn on into a sort of unconsciousness of all -else, it was inevitable that, when she suddenly became aware that -she did not see her page quite clearly, she should withdraw her -eyes from her page and look about her. As she did so, she started -from her comfortable chair in amazement and some alarm. The room -had become so much darker that it must be getting late. How careless -and silly she had been. Where was Fraulein Hirsch? - -"I am only a strange girl and Lady Etynge might so easily have -forgotten me," passed through her mind. "Her friend may have stayed -and they may have had so much to talk about, that, of coarse, I -was forgotten. But Fraulein Hirsch--how could she!" - -Then, remembering the subservient humility of the Fraulein's mind, -she wondered if it could have been possible that she had been too -timid to do more than sit waiting--in the hall, perhaps--afraid -to allow the footman to disturb Lady Etynge by asking her where -her pupil was. The poor, meek, silly thing. - -"I must get away without disturbing anyone," she thought, "I -will slip downstairs and snatch Fraulein Hirsch from her seat and -we will go quietly out. I can write a nice note to Lady Etynge -tomorrow, and explain. I HOPE she won't mind having forgotten me. -I must make her feel sure that it did not matter in the least. -I'll tell her about the book." - -She replaced the book on the shelf from which she had taken it and -passed through into the delightful sitting room. The kittens were -playing together on the hearth, having deserted their basket. One -of them gave a soft, airy pounce after her and caught at her dress -with tiny claws, rolling over and over after his ineffectual snatch. - -She had not heard the footman close the door when he left the room, -but she found he must have done so, as it was now shut. When she -turned the handle it did not seem to work well, because the door -did not open as it ought to have done. She turned it again and -gave it a little pull, but it still remained tightly shut. She -turned it again, still with no result, and then she tried the small -latch. Perhaps the man had done some blundering thing when he had -been examining it. She remembered hearing several clicks. She -turned the handle again and again. There was no key in the keyhole, -so he could not have bungled with the key. She was quite aghast -at the embarrassment of the situation. - -"How CAN I get out without disturbing anyone, if I cannot open -the door!" she said. "How stupid I shall seem to Lady Etynge! She -won't like it. A girl who could forget where she was--and then not -be able to open a door and be obliged to bang until people come!" - -Suddenly she remembered that there had been a door in the bedroom -which had seemed to lead out into the hall. She ran into the room -in such a hurry that all three kittens ran frisking after her. -She saw she had not been mistaken. There was a door. She went to -it and turned the handle, breathless with excitement and relief. -But the handle of that door also would not open it. Neither would -the latch. And there was no key. - -"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh!" - -Then she remembered the electric bell near the fireplace in the -sitting room. There was one by the fireplace here, also. No, she -would ring the one in the sitting room. She went to it and pressed -the button. She could not hear the ghost of a sound and one could -generally hear SOMETHING like one. She rang again and waited. -The room was getting darker. Oh, how COULD Fraulein Hirsch--how -could she? - -She waited--she waited. Fifteen minutes by her little watch--twenty -minutes--and, in their passing, she rang again. She rang the bell -in the library and the one in the bedroom--even the one in the -bathroom, lest some might be out of order. She slowly ceased to be -embarrassed and self-reproachful and began to feel afraid, though -she did not know quite what she was afraid of. She went to one -of the windows to look at her watch again in the vanishing light, -and saw that she had been ringing the bells for an hour. She -automatically put up a hand and leaned against the white frame -of one of the decorative small panes of glass. As she touched it, -she vaguely realized that it was of such a solidity that it felt, -not like wood but iron. She drew her hand away quickly, feeling a -sweep of unexplainable fear--yes, it was FEAR. And why should she -so suddenly feel it? She went back to the door and tried again to -open it--as ineffectively as before. Then she began to feel a -little cold and sick. She returned to the Chesterfield and sat -down on it helplessly. - -"It seems as if--I had been locked in!" she broke out, in a faint, -bewildered wail of a whisper. "Oh, WHY--did they lock the doors!" - - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - - - - -She had known none of the absolute horrors of life which were -possible in that underworld which was not likely to touch her own -existence in any form. - -"Why," had argued Mademoiselle Valle, "should one fill a white -young mind with ugly images which would deface with dark marks and -smears, and could only produce unhappiness and, perhaps, morbid -broodings? One does not feel it is wise to give a girl an education -in crime. One would not permit her to read the Newgate Calendar -for choice. She will be protected by those who love her and what -she must discover she will discover. That is Life." - -Which was why her first discovery that neither door could be -opened, did not at once fill her with horror. Her first arguments -were merely those of a girl who, though her brain was not inactive -pulp, had still a protected girl's outlook. She had been overwhelmed -by a sense of the awkwardness of her position and by the dread -that she would be obliged to disturb and, almost inevitably, -embarrass and annoy Lady Etynge. Of course, there had been some -bungling on the part of the impudent footman--perhaps actually at -the moment when he had given his sidelong leer at herself instead -of properly attending to what he was trying to do. That the bedroom -was locked might be the result of a dozen ordinary reasons. - -The first hint of an abnormality of conditions came after she had -rung the bells and had waited in vain for response to her summons. -There were servants whose business it was to answer bells at once. -If ALL the bells were out of order, why were they out of order when -Helene was to return in a few days and her apartment was supposed -to be complete? Even to the kittens--even to the kittens! - -"It seems as if I had been locked in," she had whispered to the -silence of the room. "Why did they lock the doors?" - -Then she said, and her heart began to thump and race in her side: - -"It has been done on purpose. They don't intend to let me out--for -some HORRIBLE reason!" - -Perhaps even her own growing panic was not so appalling as a sudden -rushing memory of Lady Etynge, which, at this moment, overthrew -her. Lady Etynge! Lady Etynge! She saw her gentle face and almost -affectionately watching eyes. She heard her voice as she spoke of -Helene; she felt the light pat which was a caress. - -"No! No!" she gasped it, because her breath had almost left her. -"No! No! She couldn't! No one could! There is NOTHING as wicked--as -that!" - -Bat, even as she cried out, the overthrow was utter, and she threw -herself forward on the arm of the couch and sobbed--sobbed with -the passion she had only known on the day long ago when she had -crawled into the shrubs and groveled in the earth. It was the same -kind of passion--the shaken and heart-riven woe of a creature who -has trusted and hoped joyously and has been forever betrayed. The -face and eyes had been so kind. The voice so friendly! Oh, how -could even the wickedest girl in the world have doubted their -sincerity. Unfortunately--or fortunately--she knew nothing whatever -of the mental processes of the wicked girls of the world, which -was why she lay broken to pieces, sobbing--sobbing, not at the -moment because she was a trapped thing, but because Lady Etynge -had a face in whose gentleness her heart had trusted and rejoiced. - -When she sat upright again, her own face, as she lifted it, would -have struck a perceptive onlooker as being, as it were, the face -of another girl. It was tear-stained and wild, but this was not the -cause of its change. The soft, bird eyes were different--suddenly, -amazingly older than they had been when she had believed in Helene. - -She had no experience which could reveal to her in a moment the -monstrousness of her danger, but all she had ever read, or vaguely -gathered, of law breakers and marauders of society, collected -itself into an advancing tidal wave of horror. - -She rose and went to the window and tried to open it, but it was -not intended to open. The decorative panes were of small size -and of thick glass. Her first startled impression that the white -framework seemed to be a painted metal was apparently founded on -fact. A strong person might have bent it with a hammer, but he -could not have broken it. She examined the windows in the other -rooms and they were of the same structure. - -"They are made like that," she said to herself stonily, "to prevent -people from getting OUT." - -She stood at the front one and looked down into the broad, stately -"Place." It was a long way to look down, and, even if the window -could be opened, one's voice would not be heard. The street -lamps were lighted and a few people were to be seen walking past -unhurriedly. - -"In the big house almost opposite they are going to give a party. -There is a red carpet rolled out. Carriages are beginning to drive -up. And here on the top floor, there is a girl locked up--And they -don't know!" - -She said it aloud, and her voice sounded as though it were not her -own. It was a dreadful voice, and, as she heard it, panic seized -her. - -Nobody knew--nobody! Her mother never either knew or cared where -she was, but Dowie and Mademoiselle always knew. They would be -terrified. Fraulein Hirsch had, perhaps, been told that her pupil -had taken a cab and gone home and she would return to her lodgings -thinking she was safe. - -Then--only at this moment, and with a suddenness which produced a -sense of shock--she recalled that it was Fraulein Hirsch who had -presented her to Lady Etynge. Fraulein Hirsch herself! It was she -who had said she had been in her employ and had taught Helene--Helene! -It was she who had related anecdotes about the Convent at Tours -and the nuns who were so wise and kind! Robin's hand went up to -her forehead with a panic-stricken gesture. Fraulein Hirsch had -made an excuse for leaving her with Lady Etynge--to be brought -up to the top of the house quite alone--and locked in. Fraulein -Hirsch had KNOWN! And there came back to her the memory of the -furtive eyes whose sly, adoring sidelooks at Count Von Hillern -had always--though she had tried not to feel it--been, somehow, -glances she had disliked--yes, DISLIKED! - -It was here--by the thread of Fraulein Hirsch--that Count Von -Hillern was drawn into her mind. Once there, it was as if he stood -near her--quite close--looking down under his heavy, drooping lids -with stealthy, plunging eyes. It had always been when Fraulein -Hirsch had walked with her that they had met him--almost as if by -arrangement. - -There were only two people in the world who might--because she -herself had so hated them--dislike and choose in some way to punish -her. One was Count Von Hillern. The other was Lord Coombe. Lord -Coombe, she knew, was bad, vicious, did the things people only -hinted at without speaking of them plainly. A sense of instinctive -revolt in the strength of her antipathy to Von Hillern made her -feel that he must be of the same order. - -"If either of them came into this room now and locked the door -behind him, I could not get out." - -She heard herself say it aloud in the strange girl's dreadful -voice, as she had heard herself speak of the party in the big -house opposite. She put her soft, slim hand up to her soft, slim -throat. - -"I could not get out," she repeated. - -She ran to the door and began to beat on its panels. By this time, -she knew it would be no use and yet she beat with her hands until -they were bruised and then she snatched up a book and beat with -that. She thought she must have been beating half an hour when -she realized that someone was standing outside in the corridor, -and the someone said, in a voice she recognized as belonging to -the leering footman, - -"May as well keep still, Miss. You can't hammer it down and no -one's going to bother taking any notice," and then his footsteps -retired down the stairs. She involuntarily clenched her hurt hands -and the shuddering began again though she stood in the middle of -the room with a rigid body and her head thrown fiercely back. - -"If there are people in the world as hideous--and monstrous as -THIS--let them kill me if they want to. I would rather be killed -than live! They would HAVE to kill me!" and she said it in a frenzy -of defiance of all mad and base things on earth. - -Her peril seemed to force her thought to delve into unknown dark -places in her memory and dig up horrors she had forgotten--newspaper -stories of crime, old melodramas and mystery romances, in which -people disappeared and were long afterwards found buried under -floors or in cellars. It was said that the Berford Place houses, -winch were old ones, had enormous cellars under them. - -"Perhaps other girls have disappeared and now are buried in the -cellars," she thought. - -And the dreadful young voice added aloud. - -"Because they would HAVE to kill me." - -One of the Persian kittens curled up in the basket wakened because -he heard it and stretched a sleepy paw and mewed at her. - -Coombe House was one of the old ones, wearing somewhat the aspect -of a stately barrack with a fine entrance. Its court was enclosed -at the front by a stone wall, outside which passing London roared -in low tumult. The court was surrounded by a belt of shrubs strong -enough to defy the rain of soot which fell quietly upon them day -and night. - -The streets were already lighted for the evening when Mademoiselle -Valle presented herself at the massive front door and asked for -Lord Coombe. The expression of her face, and a certain intensity -of manner, caused the serious-looking head servant, who wore no -livery, to come forward instead of leaving her to the footmen. - -"His lordship engaged with--a business person--and must not be -disturbed," he said. "He is also going out." - -"He will see me," replied Mademoiselle Valle. "If you give him -this card he will see me." - -She was a plainly dressed woman, but she had a manner which removed -her entirely from the class of those who merely came to importune. -There was absolute certainty in the eyes she fixed with steadiness -on the man's face. He took her card, though he hesitated. - -"If he does not see me," she added, "he will be very much displeased." - -"Will you come in, ma'am, and take a seat for a moment?" he -ventured. "I will inquire." - -The great hall was one of London's most celebrated. A magnificent -staircase swept up from it to landings whose walls were hung -with tapestries the world knew. In a gilded chair, like a throne, -Mademoiselle Valle sat and waited. - -But she did not wait long. The serious-looking man without livery -returned almost immediately. He led Mademoiselle into a room -like a sort of study or apartment given up to business matters. -Mademoiselle Valle had never seen Lord Coombe's ceremonial evening -effect more flawless. Tall, thin and finely straight, he waited -in the centre of the room. He was evidently on the point of going -out, and the light-textured satin-lined overcoat he had already -thrown on revealed, through a suggestion of being winged, that he -wore in his lapel a delicately fresh, cream-coloured carnation. - -A respectable, middle-class looking man with a steady, -blunt-featured face, had been talking to him and stepped quietly -aside as Mademoiselle entered. There seemed to be no question of -his leaving the room. - -Coombe met his visitor half way: - -"Something has alarmed you very much?" he said. - -"Robin went out with Fraulein Hirsch this afternoon," she said -quickly. "They went to Kensington Gardens. They have not come -back--and it is nine o'clock. They are always at home by six." - -"Will you sit down," he said. The man with the steady face was -listening intently, and she realized he was doing so and that, -somehow, it was well that he should. - -"I do not think there is time for any one to sit down," she said, -speaking more quickly than before. "It is not only that she has -not come back. Fraulein Hirsch has presented her to one of her old -employers-a Lady Etynge. Robin was delighted with her. She has a -daughter who is in France--," - -"Marguerite staying with her aunt in Paris," suddenly put in the -voice of the blunt-featured man from his side of the room. - -"Helene at a Covent in Tours," corrected Mademoiselle, turning a -paling countenance towards him and then upon Coombe. "Lady Etynge -spoke of wanting to engage some nice girl as a companion to her -daughter, who is coming home. Robin thought she might have the -good fortune to please her. She was to go to Lady Etynge's house -to tea sine afternoon and be shown the rooms prepared for Helene. -She thought the mother charming." - -"Did she mention the address?" Coombe asked at once. - -"The house was in Berford Place-a large house at a corner. She -chanced to see Lady Etynge go into it one day or we should not -have known. She did not notice the number. Fraulein Hirsch thought -it was 97A. I have the Blue Book, Lord Coombe--through the -Peerage--through the Directory! There is no Lady Etynge and there -is no 97A in Berford Place! That is why I came here." - -The man who had stood aside, stepped forward again. It was as if -he answered some sign, though Lord Coombe at the moment crossed -the hearth and rang the bell. - -"Scotland Yard knows that, ma'am," said the man. "We've had our -eyes on that house for two weeks, and this kind of thing is what -we want." - -"The double brougham," was Coombe's order to the servant who -answered his ring. Then he came back to Mademoiselle. - -"Mr. Barkstow is a detective," he said. "Among the other things -he has done for me, he has, for some time, kept a casual eye on -Robin. She is too lovely a child and too friendless to be quite -safe. There are blackguards who know when a girl has not the -usual family protection. He came here to tell me that she had been -seen sitting in Kensington Gardens with a woman Scotland Yard has -reason to suspect." - -"A black 'un!" said Barkstow savagely. "If she's the one we think -she is-a black, poisonous, sly one with a face that no girl could -suspect." - -Coombe's still countenance was so deadly in the slow lividness, -which Mademoiselle saw began to manifest itself, that she caught -his sleeve with a shaking hand. - -"She's nothing but a baby!" she said. "She doesn't know what a baby -she is. I can see her eyes frantic with terror! She'd go mad." - -"Good God!" he said, in a voice so low it scarcely audible. - -He almost dragged her out of the room, though, as they passed -through the hall, the servants only saw that he had given the -lady his arm-and two of the younger footmen exchanged glances with -each other which referred solely to the inimitableness of the cut -of his evening overcoat. - -When they entered the carriage, Barkstow entered with them and -Mademoiselle Valle leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and -her face clutched in her hands. She was trying to shut out from -her mental vision a memory of Robin's eyes. - -"If--if Fraulein Hirsch is--not true," she broke out once. "Count -von Hillern is concerned. It has come upon me like a flash. Why -did I not see before?" - -The party at the big house, where the red carpet was rolled across -the pavement, was at full height when they drove into the Place. -Their brougham did not stop at the corner but at the end of the -line of waiting carriages. - -Coombe got out and looked up and down the thoroughfare. - -"It must be done quietly. There must be no scandal," he said. "The -policeman on the beat is an enormous fellow. You will attend to -him, Barkstow," and Barkstow nodded and strolled away. - -Coombe walked up the Place and down on the opposite side until he -was within a few yards of the corner house. When he reached this -point, he suddenly quickened his footsteps because he saw that -someone else was approaching it with an air of intention. It was -a man, not quite as tall as himself but of heavier build and with -square held shoulders. As the man set his foot upon the step, -Coombe touched him on the arm and said something in German. - -The man started angrily and then suddenly stood quite still and -erect. - -"It will be better for us to walk up the Place together," Lord -Coombe said, with perfect politeness. - -If he could have been dashed down upon the pavement and his head -hammered in with the handle of a sword, or if he could have been -run through furiously again and again, either or both of these -things would have been done. But neither was possible. It also was -not possible to curse aloud in a fashionable London street. Such -curses as one uttered must be held in one's foaming mouth between -one's teeth. Count von Hillern knew this better than most men -would have known it. Here was one of those English swine with whom -Germany would deal in her own way later. - -They walked back together as if they were acquaintances taking a -casual stroll. - -"There is nothing which would so infuriate your--Master-as -a disgraceful scandal," Lord Coombe's highbred voice suggested -undisturbedly. "The high honour of a German officer-the knightly -bearing of a wearer of the uniform of the All Highest-that sort -of thing you know. All that sort of thing!" - -Von Hillern ground out some low spoken and quite awful German words. -If he had not been trapped-if he had been in some quiet by-street! - -"The man walking ahead of us is a detective from Scotland Yard. -The particularly heavy and rather martial tread behind us is that -of a policeman much more muscular than either of us. There is a -ball going on in the large house with the red carpet spread across -the pavement. I know the people who are giving it. There are a -good many coachmen and footmen about. Most of them would probably -recognize me." - -It became necessary for Count von Hillern actually to wipe away -certain flecks of foam from his lips, as he ground forth again -more varied and awful sentiments in his native tongue. - -"You are going back to Berlin," said Coombe, coldly. "If we English -were not such fools, you would not be here. You are, of course, -not going into that house." - -Von Hillern burst into a derisive laugh. - -"You are going yourself," he said. "You are a worn-out old ROUE, -but you are mad about her yourself in your senile way." - -"You should respect my age and decrepitude," answered Coombe. "A -certain pity for my gray hairs would become your youth. Shall we -turn here or will you return to your hotel by some other way?" -He felt as if the man might a burst a blood vessel if he were -obliged to further restrain himself. - -Von Hillern wheeled at the corner and confronted him. - -"There will come a day--" he almost choked. - -"Der Toy? Naturally," the chill of Coombe's voice was a sound to -drive this particular man at this particular, damnably-thwarted -moment, raving mad. And not to be able to go mad! Not to be able! - -"Swine of a doddering Englishman! Who would envy you--trembling -on your lean shanks--whatsoever you can buy for yourself. I spit -on you-spit!" - -"Don't," said Coombe. "You are sputtering to such an extent that -you really ARE, you know." - -Von Hillern whirled round the corner. - -Coombe, left alone, stood still a moment. - -"I was in time," he said to himself, feeling somewhat nauseated. -"By extraordinary luck, I was in time. In earlier days one would -have said something about 'Provadence'." And he at once walked -back. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - - - - -It was not utterly dark in the room, though Robin, after passing -her hands carefully over the walls, had found no electric buttons -within reach nor any signs of candles or matches elsewhere. The -night sky was clear and brilliant with many stars, and this gave -her an unshadowed and lighted space to look at. She went to the -window and sat down on the floor, huddled against the wall with -her hands clasped round her knees, looking up. She did this in the -effort to hold in check a rising tide of frenzy which threatened -her. Perhaps, if she could fix her eyes on the vault full of -stars, she could keep herself from going out of her mind. Though, -perhaps, it would be better if she DID go out of her mind, she -found herself thinking a few seconds later. - -After her first entire acceptance of the hideous thing which -had happened to her, she had passed through nerve breaking phases -of terror-stricken imaginings. The old story of the drowning man -across whose brain rush all the images of life, came back to her. -She did not know where or when or how she had ever heard or read -of the ghastly incidents which came trooping up to her and staring -at her with dead or mad eyes and awful faces. Perhaps they were -old nightmares-perhaps a kind of delirium had seized her. She tried -to stop their coming by saying over and over again the prayers -Dowie had taught her when she was a child. And then she thought, -with a sob which choked her, that perhaps they were only prayers -for a safe little creature kneeling by a white bed-and did not -apply to a girl locked up in a top room, which nobody knew about. -Only when she thought of Mademoiselle Valle and Dowie looking for -her--with all London spread out before their helplessness--did -she cry. After that, tears seemed impossible. The images trooped -by too close to her. The passion hidden within her being--which -had broken out when she tore the earth under the shrubbery, and -which, with torture staring her in the face, had leaped in the -child's soul and body and made her defy Andrews with shrieks--leaped -up within her now. She became a young Fury, to whom a mad fight -with monstrous death was nothing. She told herself that she was -strong for a girl--that she could tear with her nails, she could -clench her teeth in a flesh, she could shriek, she could battle -like a young madwoman so that they would be FORCED to kill her. This -was one of the images which rose op before her again yet again, -A hideous-hideous thing, which would not remain away. - -She had not had any food since the afternoon cap of tea and she -began to feel the need of it. If she became faint-! She lifted -her face desperately as she said it, and saw the immense blue -darkness, powdered with millions of stars and curving over her--as -it curved over the hideous house and all the rest of the world. -How high--how immense--how fathomlessly still it was--how it seemed -as if there could be nothing else--that nothing else could be -real! Her hands were clenched together hard and fiercely, as she -scrambled to her knees and uttered a of prayer--not a child's--rather -the cry of a young Fury making a demand. - -"Perhaps a girl is Nothing," she cried, "-a girl locked up in a -room! But, perhaps, she is Something--she may he real too! Save -me-save me! But if you won't save me, let me be killed!" - -She knelt silent after it for a few minutes and then she sank down -and lay on the floor with her face on her arm. - -How it was possible that even young and worn-out as she was, such -peace as sleep could overcome her at such a time, one cannot say. -But in the midst of her torment she was asleep. - -But it was not for long. She wakened with a start and sprang to -her feet shivering. The carriages were still coming and going with -guests for the big house opposite. It could not be late, though -she seemed to have been in the place for years--long enough to feel -that it was the hideous centre of the whole earth and all sane and -honest memories were a dream. She thought she would begin to walk -up and down the room. - -But a sound she heard at this very instant made her stand stock -still. She had known there would be a sound at last--she had -waited for it all the time--she had known, of course, that it would -come, but she had not even tried to guess whether she would hear -it early or late. It would be the sound of the turning of the -handle of the locked door. It had come. There it was! The click -of the lock first and then the creak of the turned handle! - -She went to the window again and stood with her back against it, -so that her body was outlined against the faint light. Would the -person come in the dark, or would he carry a light? Something -began to whirl in her brain. What was the low, pumping thump she -seemed to hear and feel at the same time? It was the awful thumping -of her heart. - -The door opened--not stealthily, but quite in the ordinary way. -The person who came in did not move stealthily either. He came -in as though he were making an evening call. How tall and straight -his body was, with a devilish elegance of line against the background -of light in the hall. She thought she saw a white flower on his -lapel as his overcoat fell back. The leering footman had opened -the for him. - -"Turn on the lights." A voice she knew gave the order, the leering -footman obeyed, touching a spot high on the wall. - -She had vaguely and sickeningly felt almost sure that it would -be either Count von Hillern or Lord Coombe--and it was not Count -von Hillern! The cold wicked face--the ironic eyes which made her -creep--the absurd, elderly perfection of dress--even the flawless -flower-made her flash quake with repulsion. If Satan came into -the room, he might look like that and make one's revolting being -quake so. - -"I thought--it might be you," the strange girl's voice said to -him aloud. - -"Robin," he said. - -He was moving towards her and, as she threw out her madly clenched -little hands, he stopped and drew back. - -"Why did you think I might come?" he asked. - -"Because you are the kind of a man who would do the things only -devils would do. I have hated-hated-hated you since I was a baby. -Come and kill me if you like. Call the footman back to help you, -if yon like. I can't get away. Kill me--kill me--kill me!" - -She was lost in her frenzy and looked as if she were mad. - -One moment he hesitated, and then he pointed politely to the sofa. - -"Go and sit down, please," he suggested. It was no more then a -courteous suggestion. "I shall remain here. I have no desire to -approach you--if you'll pardon my saying so." - -But she would not leave the window. - -"It is natural that you should be overwrought," he said. - -"This is a damnable thing. You are too young to know the worst of -it." - -"You are the worst of it!" she cried. "You." - -"No" as the chill of his even voice struck her, she wondered if -he were really human. "Von Hillern would have been the worst of -it. I stopped him at the front door and knew how to send him away. -Now, listen, my good child. Hate me as ferociously as you like. -That is a detail. You are in the house of a woman whose name -stands for shame and infamy and crime." - -"What are YOU doing in it--" she cried again, "--in a place where -girls are trapped-and locked up in top rooms--to be killed?" - -"I came to take you away. I wish to do it quietly. It would be -rather horrible if the public discovered that you have spent some -hours here. If I had not slipped in when they were expecting von -Hillern, and if the servants were not accustomed to the quiet -entrance of well dressed men, I could not have got in without an -open row and the calling of the policemen,--which I wished to avoid. -Also, the woman downstairs knows me and realized that I was not -lying when I said the house was surrounded and she was on the -point of being 'run in'. She is a woman of broad experience, and -at once knew that she might as well keep quiet." - -Despite his cold eyes and the bad smile she hated, despite his -almost dandified meticulous attire and the festal note of his -white flower, which she hated with the rest--he was, perhaps, not -lying to her. Perhaps for the sake of her mother he had chosen -to save her--and, being the man he was, he had been able to make -use of his past experiences. - -She began to creep away from the window, and she felt her legs, -all at once, shaking under her. By the time she reached the -Chesterfield sofa she fell down by it and began to cry. A sort of -hysteria seized her, and she shook from head to foot and clutched -at the upholstery with weak hands which clawed. She was, indeed, -an awful, piteous sight. He was perhaps not lying, but she was -afraid of him yet. - -"I told the men who are waiting outside that if I did not bring -you out in half an hour, they were to break into the house. I do -not wish them to break in. We have not any time to spare. What -you are doing is quite natural, but you must try and get up." He -stood by her and said this looking down at her slender, wrung body -and lovely groveling head. - -He took a flask out of his overcoat pocket--and it was a gem of -goldsmith's art. He poured some wine into its cup and bent forward -to hold it out to her. - -"Drink this and try to stand on your feet," he said. He knew better -than to try to help her to rise--to touch her in any way. Seeing -to what the past hours had reduced her, he knew better. There was -mad fear in her eyes when she lifted her head and threw out her -hand again. - -"No! No!" she cried out. "No, I will drink nothing!" He understood -at once and threw the wine into the grate. - -"I see," he said. "You might think it might be drugged. You are -right. It might be. I ought to have thought of that." He returned -the flask to his pocket. "Listen again. You must. The time will -soon be up and we must not let those fellows break in and make -a row that will collect a crowd We must go at once. Mademoiselle -Valle is waiting for you in my carriage outside. You will not be -afraid to drink wine she gives you." - -"Mademoiselle!" she stammered. - -"Yes. In my carriage, which is not fifty yards from the house. Can -you stand on your feet?" She got up and stood but she was still -shuddering all over. - -"Can you walk downstairs? If you cannot, will you let me carry -you? I am strong enough-in spite of my years." - -"I can walk," she whispered. - -"Will you take my arm?" - -She looked at him for a moment with awful, broken-spirited eyes. - -"Yes. I will take your arm." - -He offered it to her with rigid punctiliousness of manner. He -did not even look at her. He led her out of the room and down the -three flights of stairs. As they passed by the open drawing-room -door, the lovely woman who had called herself Lady Etynge stood -near it and watched them with eyes no longer gentle. - -"I have something to say to you, Madam," he said; "When I place -this young lady in the hands of her governess, I will come back -and say it." - -"Is her governess Fraulein Hirsch?" asked the woman lightly. - -"No. She is doubtless on her way back to Berlin--and von Hillern -will follow her." - -There was only the first floor flight of stairs now. Robin could -scarcely see her way. But Lord Coombe held her up firmly and, in -a few moments more, the leering footman, grown pale, opened the -large door, they crossed the pavement to the carriage, and she -was helped in and fell, almost insensible, across Mademoiselle -Valle's lap, and was caught in a strong arm which shook as she -did. - -"Ma cherie," she heard, "The Good God! Oh, the good--good God!--And -Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!" - -Coombe had gone back to the house. Four men returned with him, two -in plain clothes and two heavily-built policemen. They remained -below, but Coombe went up the staircase with the swift lightness -of a man of thirty. - -He merely stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room. This was -what he said, and his face was entirely white his eyes appalling. - -"My coming back to speak to you is--superfluous--and the result of -pure fury. I allow it to myself as mere shameless indulgence. More -is known against you than this--things which have gone farther and -fared worse. You are not young and you are facing years of life -in prison. Your head will be shaved--your hands worn and blackened -and your nails broken with the picking of oakum. You will writhe -in hopeless degradation until you are done for. You will have -time, in the night blackness if of your cell, to remember--to see -faces--to hear cries. Women such as you should learn what hell on -earth means. You will learn." - -When he ended, the woman hung with her back to the wall she had -staggered against, her mouth opening and shutting helplessly but -letting forth no sound. - -He took out an exquisitely fresh handkerchief and touched his -forehead because it was damp. His eyes were still appalling, but -his voice suddenly dropped and changed. - -"I have allowed myself to feel like a madman," he said. "It has -been a rich experience--good for such a soul as I own." - -He went downstairs and walked home because his carriage had taken -Robin and Mademoiselle back to the slice of a house. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - - - - -Von Hillern made no further calls on Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. His return -to Berlin was immediate and Fraulein Hirsch came no more to give -lessons in German. Later, Coombe learned from the mam with the -steady, blunt-featured face, that she had crossed the Channel on -a night boat not many hours after Von Hillern had walked away from -Berford Place. The exact truth was that she had been miserably -prowling about the adjacent streets, held in the neighbourhood -by some self-torturing morbidness, half thwarted helpless passion, -half triumphing hatred of the young thing she had betrayed. Up -and down the streets she had gone, round and round, wringing her -lean fingers together and tasting on her lips the salt of tears -which rolled down her cheeks--tears of torment and rage. - -There was the bitterness of death in what, by a mere trick of -chance, came about. As she turned a corner telling herself for -the hundredth time that she must go home, she found herself face -to face with a splendid figure swinging furiously along. She -staggered at the sight of the tigerish rage in the white face she -recognized with a gasp. It was enough merely to behold it. He had -met with some disastrous humiliation! - -As for him, the direct intervention of that Heaven whose special -care he was, had sent him a woman to punish--which, so far, was at -least one thing arranged as it should be. He knew so well how he -could punish her with his mere contempt and displeasure--as he -could lash a spaniel crawling at his feet. He need not deign to -tell her what had happened, and he did not. He merely drew back -and stood in stiff magnificence looking down at her. - -"It is through some folly of yours," he dropped in a voice of -vitriol. "Women are always foolish. They cannot hold their tongues -or think clearly. Return to Berlin at once. You are not of those -whose conduct I can commend to be trusted in the future." - -He was gone before she could have spoken even if she had dared. -Sobbing gasps caught her breath as she stood and watched him -striding pitilessly and superbly away with, what seemed to her -abject soul, the swing and tread of a martial god. Her streaming -tears tasted salt indeed. She might never see him again--even from -a distance. She would be disgraced and flung aside as a blundering -woman. She had obeyed his every word and done her straining best, -as she had licked the dust at his feet--but he would never cast a -glance at her in the future or utter to her the remotest word of -his high commands. She so reeled as she went her wretched way that -a good-natured policeman said to her as he passed, - -"Steady on, my girl. Best get home and go to bed." - -To Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was stated by Coombe that Fraulein -Hirsch had been called back to Germany by family complications. -That august orders should recall Count Von Hillern, was easily -understood. Such magnificent persons never shone upon society for -any length of time. - -That Feather had been making a country home visit when her daughter -had faced tragedy was considered by Lord Coombe as a fortunate -thing. - -"We will not alarm Mrs. Gareth-Lawless by telling her what has -occurred," he said to Mademoiselle Valle. "What we most desire -is that no one shall suspect that the hideous thing took place. A -person who was forgetful or careless might, unintentionally, let -some word escape which--" - -What he meant, and what Mademoiselle Valle knew he meant--also what -he knew she knew he meant--was that a woman, who was a heartless -fool, without sympathy or perception, would not have the delicacy -to feel that the girl must be shielded, and might actually see a -sort of ghastly joke in a story of Mademoiselle Valle's sacrosanct -charge simply walking out of her enshrining arms into such a "galere" -as the most rackety and adventurous of pupils could scarcely have -been led into. Such a point of view would have been quite possible -for Feather--even probable, in the slightly spiteful attitude of -her light mind. - -"She was away from home. Only you and I and Dowie know," answered -Mademoiselle. - -"Let us remain the only persons who know," said Coombe. "Robin -will say nothing." - -They both knew that. She had been feverish and ill for several -days and Dowie had kept her in bed saying that she had caught cold. -Neither of the two women had felt it possible to talk to her. She -had lain staring with a deadly quiet fixedness straight before -her, saying next to nothing. Now and then she shuddered, and once -she broke into a mad, heart-broken fit of crying which she seemed -unable to control. - -"Everything is changed," she said to Dowie and Mademoiselle who -sat on either side of her bed, sometimes pressing her head down -onto a kind shoulder, sometimes holding her hand and patting it. -"I shall be afraid of everybody forever. People who have sweet -faces and kind voices will make me shake all over. Oh! She seemed -so kind--so kind!" - -It was Dowie whose warm shoulder her face hidden on this time, -and Dowie was choked with sobs she dared not let loose. She could -only squeeze hard and kiss the "silk curls all in a heap"--poor, -tumbled curls, no longer a child's! - -"Aye, my lamb!" she managed to say. "Dowie's poor pet lamb!" - -"It's the knowing that kind eyes--kind ones--!" she broke off, -panting. "It's the KNOWING! I didn't know before! I knew nothing. -Now, it's all over. I'm afraid of all the world!" - -"Not all, cherie," breathed Mademoiselle. - -She sat upright against her pillows. The mirror on a dressing -table reflected her image--her blooming tear-wet youth, framed in -the wonderful hair falling a shadow about her. She stared at the -reflection hard and questioningly. - -"I suppose," her voice was pathos itself in its helplessness, "it -is because what you once told me about being pretty, is true. A -girl who looks like THAT," pointing her finger at the glass, "need -not think she can earn her own living. I loathe it," in fierce -resentment at some bitter injustice. "It is like being a person -under a curse!" - -At this Dowie broke down openly and let her tears run fast. "No, -no! You mustn't say it or think it, my dearie!" she wept. "It -might call down a blight on it. You a young thing like a garden -flower! And someone--somewhere--God bless him--that some day'll -glory in it--and you'll glory too. Somewhere he is--somewhere!" - -"Let none of them look at me!" cried Robin. "I loather them, too. -I hate everything--and everybody--but you two--just you two." - -Mademoiselle took her in her arms this time when she sobbed again. -Mademoiselle knew how at this hour it seemed to her that all her -world was laid bare forever more. When the worst of the weeping -was over and she lay quiet, but for the deep catching breaths -which lifted her breast in slow, childish shudders at intervals, -she held Mademoiselle Valle's hand and looked at her with a faint, -wry smile. - -"You were too kind to tell me what a stupid little fool I was when -I talked to you about taking a place in an office!" she said. "I -know now that you would not have allowed me to do the things I -was so sure I could do. It was only my ignorance and conceit. I -can't answer advertisements. Any bad person can say what they choose -in an advertisement. If that woman had advertised, she would have -described Helene. And there was no Helene." One of the shuddering -catches of her breath broke in here. After it, she said, with -a pitiful girlishness of regret: "I--I could SEE Helene. I have -known so few people well enough to love them. No girls at all. I -though--perhaps--we should begin to LOVE each other. I can't bear -to think of that--that she never was alive at all. It leaves a -sort of empty place." - -When she had sufficiently recovered herself to be up again, -Mademoiselle Valle said to her that she wished her to express her -gratitude to Lord Coombe. - -"I will if you wish it," she answered. - -"Don't you feel that it is proper that you should do it? Do you -not wish it yourself?" inquired Mademoiselle. Robin looked down -at the carpet for some seconds. - -"I know," she at last admitted, "that it is proper. But I don't -wish to do it." - -"No?" said Mademoiselle Valle. - -Robin raised her eyes from the carpet and fixed them on her. - -"It is because of--reasons," she said. "It is part of the horror -I want to forget. Even you mayn't know what it has done to me. -Perhaps I am turning into a girl with a bad mind. Bad thoughts keep -swooping down on me--like great black ravens. Lord Coombe saved -me, but I think hideous things about him. I heard Andrews say he -was bad when I was too little to know what it meant. Now, I KNOW, -I remember that HE knew because he chose to know--of his own free -will. He knew that woman and she knew him. HOW did he know her?" -She took a forward step which brought her nearer to Mademoiselle. -"I never told you but I will tell you now," she confessed, "When -the door opened and I saw him standing against the light I--I did -not think he had come to save me." - -"MON DIEU!" breathed Mademoiselle in soft horror. - -"He knows I am pretty. He is an old man but he knows. Fraulein -Hirsch once made me feel actually sick by telling me, in her meek, -sly, careful way, that he liked beautiful girls and the people -said he wanted a young wife and had his eye on me. I was rude to -her because it made me so furious. HOW did he know that woman so -well? You see how bad I have been made!" - -"He knows nearly all Europe. He has seen the dark corners as well -as the bright places. Perhaps he has saved other girls from her. -He brought her to punishment, and was able to do it because he -has been on her track for some time. You are not bad--but unjust. -You have had too great a shock to be able to reason sanely just -yet." - -"I think he will always make me creep a little," said Robin, "but -I will say anything you think I ought to say." - -On an occasion when Feather had gone again to make a visit in the -country, Mademoiselle came into the sitting room with the round -window in which plants grew, and Coombe followed her. Robin looked -up from her book with a little start and then stood up. - -"I have told Lord Coombe that you wish--that I wish you to thank -him," Mademoiselle Valle said. - -"I came on my own part to tell you that any expression of gratitude -is entirely unnecessary," said Coombe. - -"I MUST be grateful. I AM grateful." Robin's colour slowly faded -as she said it. This was the first time she had seen him since he -had supported her down the staircase which mounted to a place of -hell. - -"There is nothing to which I should object so much as being regarded -as a benefactor," he answered definitely, but with entire lack of -warmth. "The role does not suit me. Being an extremely bad man," he -said it as one who speaks wholly without prejudice, "my experience -is wide. I chance to know things. The woman who called herself -Lady Etynge is of a class which--which does not count me among its -clients. I had put certain authorities on her track--which was how -I discovered your whereabouts when Mademoiselle Valle told me that -you had gone to take tea with her. Mere chance you see. Don't be -grateful to me, I beg of you, but to Mademoiselle Valle." - -"Why," faltered Robin, vaguely repelled as much as ever, "did it -matter to you?" - -"Because," he answered--Oh, the cold inhumanness of his gray -eye!--"you happened to live in--this house." - -"I thought that was perhaps the reason," she said--and she felt -that he made her "creep" even a shade more. - -"I beg your pardon," she added, suddenly remembering, "Please sit -down." - -"Thank you," as he sat. "I will because I have something more to -say to you." - -Robin and Mademoiselle seated themselves also and listened. - -"There are many hideous aspects of existence which are not considered -necessary portions of a girl's education," he began. - -"They ought to be," put in Robin, and her voice was as hard as it -was young. - -It was a long and penetrating look he gave her. - -"I am not an instructor of Youth. I have not been called upon to -decide. I do not feel it my duty to go even now into detail." - -"You need not," broke in the hard young voice. "I know everything -in the world. I'm BLACK with knowing." - -"Mademoiselle will discuss that point with you. What you have, -unfortunately, been forced to learn is that it is not safe for a -girl--even a girl without beauty--to act independently of older -people, unless she has found out how to guard herself against--devils." -The words broke from him sharply, with a sudden incongruous hint -of ferocity which was almost startling. "You have been frightened," -he said next, "and you have discovered that there are devils, but -you have not sufficient experience to guard yourself against them." - -"I have been so frightened that I shall be a coward--a coward all -my life. I shall be afraid of every face I see--the more to be -trusted they look, the more I shall fear them. I hate every one -in the world!" - -Her quite wonderful eyes--so they struck Lord Coombe--flamed with -a child's outraged anguish. A thunder shower of tears broke and -rushed down her cheeks, and he rose and, walking quietly to the window -full of flowers, stood with his back to her for a few moments. She -neither cared nor knew whether it was because her hysteric emotion -bored or annoyed him, or because he had the taste to realize that -she would not wish to be looked at. Unhappy youth can feel no law -but its own. - -But all was over during the few moments, and he turned and walked -back to his chair. - -"You want very much to do some work which will insure your entire -independence--to take some situation which will support you without -aid from others? You are not yet prepared to go out and take the -first place which offers. You have been--as you say--too hideously -frightened, and you know there are dangers in wandering about -unguided. Mademoiselle Valle," turning his head, "perhaps you -will tell her what you know of the Duchess of Darte?" - -Upon which, Mademoiselle Valle took hold of her hand and entered -into a careful explanation. - -"She is a great personage of whom there can be no doubt. She -was a lady of the Court. She is of advanced years and an invalid -and has a liking for those who are pretty and young. She desires -a companion who is well educated and young and fresh of mind. The -companion who had been with her for many years recently died. If -you took her place you would live with her in her town house and -go with her to the country after the season. Your salary would -be liberal and no position could be more protected and dignified. -I have seen and talked to her grace myself, and she will allow me -to take you to her, if you desire to go." - -"Do not permit the fact that she has known me for many years -to prejudice you against the proposal," said Coombe. "You might -perhaps regard it rather as a sort of guarantee of my conduct in -the matter. She knows the worst of me and still allows me to retain -her acquaintance. She was brilliant and full of charm when she -was a young woman, and she is even more so now because she is--of -a rarity! If I were a girl and might earn my living in her service, -I should feel that fortune had been good to me--good." - -Robin's eyes turned from one of them to the other--from Coombe to -Mademoiselle Valle, and from Mademoiselle to Coombe pathetically. - -"You--you see--what has been done to me," she said. "A few weeks -ago I should have KNOWN that God was providing for me--taking -care of me. And now--I am still afraid. I feel as if she would see -that--that I am not young and fresh any more but black with evil. -I am afraid of her--I am afraid of you," to Coombe, "and of myself." - -Coombe rose, evidently to go away. - -"But you are not afraid of Mademoiselle Valle," he put it to her. -"She will provide the necessary references for the Duchess. I will -leave her to help you to decide." - -Robin rose also. She wondered if she ought not to hold out her -hand. Perhaps he saw her slight movement. He himself made none. - -"I remember you objected to shaking hands as a child," he said, -with an impersonal civil smile, and the easy punctiliousness of -his bow made it impossible for her to go further. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - - - - -Some days before this the Duchess of Darte had driven out in the -morning to make some purchases and as she had sat in her large -landau she had greatly missed Miss Brent who had always gone with -her when she had made necessary visits to the shops. She was not -fond of shopping and Miss Brent had privately found pleasure in -it which had made her a cheerful companion. To the quiet elderly -woman whose life previous to her service with this great lady had -been spent in struggles with poverty, the mere incident of entering -shops and finding eager salesmen springing forward to meet her -with bows and amiable offers of ministration, was to the end of -her days an almost thrilling thing. The Duchess bought splendidly -though quietly. Knowing always what she wanted, she merely required -that it be produced, and after silently examining it gave orders -that it should be sent to her. There was a dignity in her decision -which was impressive. She never gave trouble or hesitated. The -staffs of employees in the large shops knew and reveled in her -while they figuratively bent the knee. Miss Brent had been a happy -satisfied woman while she had lived. She had died peacefully after -a brief and, as it seemed at first, unalarming illness at one of -her employer's country houses to which she had been amiably sent -down for a holiday. Every kindness and attention had been bestowed -upon her and only a few moments before she fell into her last -sleep she had been talking pleasantly of her mistress. - -"She is a very great lady, Miss Hallam," she had said to her nurse. -"She's the last of her kind I often think. Very great ladies seem -to have gone out--if you know what I mean. They've gone out." - -The Duchess had in fact said of Brent as she stood a few days -later beside her coffin and looked down at her contentedly serene -face, something not unlike what Brent had said of herself. - -"You were a good friend, Brent, my dear," she murmured. "I shall -always miss you. I am afraid there are no more like you left." - -She was thinking of her all the morning as she drove slowly down -to Bond Street and Piccadilly. As she got out of her carriage to -go into a shop she was attracted by some photographs of beauties in -a window and paused to glance at them. Many of them were beauties -whom she knew, but among them were some of society's latest -discoveries. The particular photographs which caught her eye were -two which had evidently been purposely placed side by side for -an interesting reason. The reason was that the two women, while -obviously belonging to periods of some twenty years apart as the -fashion of their dress proved, were in face and form so singularly -alike that they bewilderingly suggested that they were the same -person. Both were exquisitely nymphlike, fair and large eyed and -both had the fine light hair which is capable of forming itself -into a halo. The Duchess stood and looked at them for the moment -spell-bound. She slightly caught her breath. She was borne back so -swiftly and so far. Her errand in the next door shop was forgotten. -She went into the one which displayed the photographs. - -"I wish to look at the two photographs which are so much alike," -she said to the man behind the counter. - -He knew her as most people did and brought forth the photographs -at once. - -"Many people are interested in them, your grace," he said. "It was -the amazing likeness which made me put them beside each other." - -"Yes," she answered. "It is almost incredible." She looked up -from the beautiful young being dressed in the mode of twenty years -past. - -"This is--WAS--?" she corrected herself and paused. The man -replied in a somewhat dropped voice. He evidently had his reasons -for feeling it discreet to do so. - -"Yes--WAS. She died twenty years ago. The young Princess Alixe of -X--" he said. "There was a sad story, your grace no doubt remembers. -It was a good deal talked about." - -"Yes," she replied and said no more, but took up the modern -picture. It displayed the same almost floating airiness of type, -but in this case the original wore diaphanous wisps of spangled -tulle threatening to take wings and fly away leaving the girl -slimness of arms and shoulders bereft of any covering whatsoever. - -"This one is--?" she questioned. - -"A Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. A widow with a daughter though she looks -in her teens. She's older than the Princess was, but she's kept -her beauty as ladies know how to in these days. It's wonderful to -see them side by side. But it's only a few that saw her Highness -as she was the season she came with the Prince to visit at Windsor -in Queen Victoria's day. Did your grace--" he checked himself -feeling that he was perhaps somewhat exceeding Bond Street limits. - -"Yes. I saw her," said the Duchess. "If these are for sale I will -take them both." - -"I'm selling a good many of them. People buy them because the -likeness makes them a sort of curiosity. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is -a very modern lady and she is quite amused." - -The Duchess took the two photographs home with her and looked at -them a great deal afterwards as she sat in her winged chair. - -They were on her table when Coombe came to drink tea with her in -the afternoon. - -When he saw them he stood still and studied the two faces silently -for several seconds. - -"Did you ever see a likeness so wonderful?" he said at last. - -"Never," she answered. "Or an unlikeness. That is the most wonderful -of all--the unlikeness. It is the same body inhabited by two souls -from different spheres." - -His next words were spoken very slowly. - -"I should have been sure you would see that," he commented. - -"I lost my breath for a second when I saw them side by side in the -shop window--and the next moment I lost it again because I saw--what -I speak of--the utter world wide apartness. It is in their eyes. -She--," she touched the silver frame enclosing the young Princess, -"was a little saint--a little spirit. There never was a young -human thing so transparently pure." - -The rigid modeling of his face expressed a thing which, himself -recognizing its presence, he chose to turn aside as he moved towards -the mantel and leaned on it. The same thing caused his voice to -sound hoarse and low as he spoke in answer, saying something she -had not expected him to say. Its unexpectedness in fact produced -in her an effect of shock. - -"And she was the possession of a brute incarnate, mad with unbridled -lust and drink and abnormal furies. She was a child saint, and -shook with terror before him. He killed her." - -"I believe he did," she said unsteadily after a breath space of -pause. "Many people believed so though great effort was made to -silence the stories. But there were too many stories and they were -so unspeakable that even those in high places were made furiously -indignant. He was not received here at Court afterwards. His own -emperor could not condone what he did. Public opinion was too -strong." - -"The stories were true," answered the hoarse low voice. "I myself, -by royal command, was a guest at the Schloss in the Bavarian Alps -when it was known that he struck her repeatedly with a dog whip. -She was going to have a child. One night I was wandering in the -park in misery and I heard shrieks which sent me in mad search. -I do not know what I should have done if I had succeeded, but I -tried to force an entrance into the wing from which the shrieks -came. I was met and stopped almost by open violence. The sounds -ceased. She died a week later. But the most experienced lying could -not hide some things. Even royal menials may have human blood in -their veins. It was known that there were hideous marks on her -little dead body." - -"We heard. We heard," whispered the Duchess. - -"He killed her. But she would have died of horror if he had not -struck her a blow. She began to die from the hour the marriage -was forced upon her. I saw that when she was with him at Windsor." - -"You were in attendance on him," the Duchess said after a little -silence. "That was when I first knew you." - -"Yes." She had added the last sentence gravely and his reply was -as grave though his voice was still hoarse. "You were sublime -goodness and wisdom. When a woman through the sheer quality of -her silence saves a man from slipping over the verge of madness -he does not forget. While I was sane I dared scarcely utter her -name. If I had gone mad I should have raved as madmen do. For that -reason I was afraid." - -"I knew. Speech was the greatest danger," she answered him. "She -was a princess of a royal house--poor little angel--and she had -a husband whose vileness and violence all Europe knew. How DARED -they give her to him?" - -"For reasons of their own and because she was too humbly innocent -and obedient to rebel." - -The Duchess did not ask questions. The sublime goodness of which -he had spoken had revealed its perfection through the fact that -in the long past days she had neither questioned nor commented. -She had given her strong soul's secret support to him and in his -unbearable hours he had known that when he came to her for refuge, -while she understood his need to the uttermost, she would speak -no word even to himself. - -But today though she asked no question her eyes waited upon him -as it were. This was because she saw that for some unknown reason -a heavy veil had rolled back from the past he had chosen to keep -hidden even from himself, as it were, more than from others. - -"Speech is always the most dangerous thing," he said. "Only the -silence of years piled one upon the other will bury unendurable -things. Even thought must be silenced. I have lived a lifetime -since--" his words began to come very slowly--as she listened she -felt as if he were opening a grave and drawing from its depths -long buried things, "--since the night when I met her alone in a -wood in the park of the Schloss and--lost hold of myself--lost it -utterly." - -The Duchess' withered hands caught each other in a clasp which -was almost like a passionate exclamation. - -"There was such a night. And I was young--young--not an iron bound -vieillard then. When one is young one's anguish is the Deluge -which ends the world forever. I had lain down and risen up and -spent every hour in growing torture for months. I had been forced -to bind myself down with bands of iron. When I found myself, without -warning, face to face with her, alone in the night stillness of -the wood, the bands broke. She had dared to creep out in secret -to hide herself and her heartbroken terror in the silence and -darkness alone. I knew it without being told. I knew and I went -quite mad for the time. I was only a boy. I threw myself face -downward on the earth and sobbed, embracing her young feet." - -Both of them were quite silent for a few moments before he went -on. - -"She was not afraid," he said, even with something which was like -a curious smile of tender pity at the memory. "Afterwards--when I -stood near her, trembling--she even took my hand and held it. Once -she kissed it humbly like a little child while her tears rained -down. Never before was there anything as innocently heartbreaking. -She was so piteously grateful for love of any kind and so heart -wrung by my misery." - -He paused again and looked down at the carpet, thinking. Then he -looked up at her directly. - -"I need not explain to you. You will know. I was twenty-five. My -heart was pounding in my side, my blood thudded through my veins. -Every atom of natural generous manhood in my being was wild with -fury at the brutal wrong done her exquisiteness. And she--" - -"She was a young novice fresh from a convent and very pious," the -Duchess' quiet voice put in. - -"You understand," he answered. "She knelt down and prayed for -her own soul as well as mine. She thanked God that I was kind and -would forgive her and go away--and only remember her in my prayers. -She believed it was possible. It was not, but I kissed the hem of -her white dress and left her standing alone--a little saint in a -woodland shrine. That was what I thought deliriously as I staggered -off. It was the next night that I heard her shrieks. Then she -died." - -The Duchess knew what else had died--the high adventure of youth -and joy of life in him, the brilliant spirit which had been himself -and whose utter withdrawal from his being had left him as she had -seen him on his return to London in those days which now seemed -a memory of a past life in a world which had passed also. He had -appeared before her late one afternoon and she had for a moment -been afraid to look at him because she was struck to the depths of -her being by a sense of seeing before her a body which had broken -the link holding it to life and walked the earth, the crowded -streets, the ordinary rooms where people gathered, a dead thing. -Even while it moved it gazed out of dead eyes. And the years had -passed and though they had been friends he had never spoken until -now. - -"Such a thing must be buried in a tomb covered with a heavy stone -and with a seal set upon it. I am unsealing a tomb," he said. Then -after a silence he added, "I have, of cause, a reason." She bent -her head because she had known this must be the case. - -"There is a thing I wish you to understand. Every woman could -not." - -"I shall understand." - -"Because I know you will I need not enter into exact detail. You -will not find what I say abnormal." - -There had been several pauses during his relation. Once or twice -he had stopped in the middle of a sentence as if for calmer breath -or to draw himself back from a past which had suddenly become again -a present of torment too great to face with modern steadiness. He -took breath so to speak in this manner again. - -"The years pass, the agony of being young passes. One slowly -becomes another man," he resumed. "I am another man. I could not -be called a creature of sentiment. I have given myself interests -in existence--many of them. But the sealed tomb is under one's feet. -Not to allow oneself to acknowledge its existence consciously is -one's affair. But--the devil of chance sometimes chooses to play -tricks. Such a trick was played on me." - -He glanced down at the two pictures at which she herself was looking -with grave eyes. It was the photograph of Feather he took up and -set a strange questioning gaze upon. - -"When I saw this," he said, "this--exquisitely smiling at me under -a green tree in a sunny garden--the tomb opened under my feet, -and I stood on the brink of it--twenty-five again." - -"You cannot possibly put it into words," the Duchess said. "You -need not. I know." For he had become for the moment almost livid. -Even to her who so well knew him it was a singular thing to see -him hastily set down the picture and touch his forehead with his -handkerchief. - -She knew he was about to tell her his reason for this unsealing -of the tomb. When he sat down at her table he did so. He did not -use many phrases, but in making clear his reasons he also made -clear to her certain facts which most persons would have ironically -disbelieved. But no shadow of a doubt passed through her mind -because she had through a long life dwelt interestedly on the many -variations in human type. She was extraordinarily interested when -he ended with the story of Robin. - -"I do not know exactly why 'it matters to me'--I am quoting her -mother," he explained, "but it happens that I am determined to -stand between the child and what would otherwise be the inevitable. -It is not that she has the slightest resemblance to--to anyone--which -might awaken memory. It is not that. She and her mother are of -totally different types. And her detestation of me is unconquerable. -She believes me to be the worst of men. When I entered the room -into which the woman had trapped her, she thought that I came as -one of the creature's damnable clients. You will acknowledge that -my position presents difficulties in the way of explanation to -a girl--to most adults in fact. Her childish frenzy of desire -to support herself arises from her loathing of the position of -accepting support from me. I sympathize with her entirely." - -"Mademoiselle Valle is an intelligent woman," the Duchess said as -though thinking the matter out. "Send her to me and we will talk -the matter over. Then she can bring the child." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - - - - -As a result of this, her grace saw Mademoiselle Valle alone -a few mornings later and talked to her long and quietly. Their -comprehension of each other was complete. Before their interview -was at an end the Duchess' interest in the adventure she was about -to enter into had become profound. - -"The sooner she is surrounded by a new atmosphere, the better," -was one of the things the Frenchwoman had said. "The prospect of -an arrangement so perfect and so secure fills me with the profoundest -gratitude. It is absolutely necessary that I return to my parents -in Belgium. They are old and failing in health and need me greatly. -I have been sad and anxious for months because I felt that it -would be wickedness to desert this poor child. I have been torn -in two. Now I can be at peace--thank the good God." - -"Bring her to me tomorrow if possible," the Duchess said when -they parted. "I foresee that I may have something to overcome in -the fact that I am Lord Coombe's old friend, but I hope to be able -to overcome it." - -"She is a baby--she is of great beauty--she has a passionate little -soul of which she knows nothing." Mademoiselle Valle said it with -an anxious reflectiveness. "I have been afraid. If I were her -mother----" her eyes sought those of the older woman. - -"But she has no mother," her grace answered. Her own eyes were -serious. She knew something of girls, of young things, of the rush -and tumult of young life in them and of the outlet it demanded. A -baby who was of great beauty and of a passionate soul was no trivial -undertaking for a rheumatic old duchess, but--"Bring her to me," -she said. - -So was Robin brought to the tall Early Victorian mansion in the -belatedly stately square. And the chief thought in her mind was -that though mere good manners demanded under the circumstances that -she should come to see the Dowager Duchess of Darte and be seen -by her, if she found that she was like Lord Coombe, she would not -be able to endure the prospect of a future spent in her service -howsoever desirable such service might outwardly appear. This -desirableness Mademoiselle Valle had made clear to her. She was -to be the companion of a personage of great and mature charm and -grace who desired not mere attendance, but something more, which -something included the warmth and fresh brightness of happy youth -and bloom. She would do for her employer the things a young -relative might do. She would have a suite of rooms of her own and -a freedom as to hours and actions which greater experience on her -part would have taught was not the customary portion meted out -to a paid companion. But she knew nothing of paid service and a -preliminary talk of Coombe's with Mademoiselle Valle had warned -her against allowing any suspicion that this "earning a living" -had been too obviously ameliorated. - -"Her life is unusual. She herself is unusual in a most dignified -and beautiful way. You will, it might almost be said, hold the -position of a young lady in waiting," was Mademoiselle's gracefully -put explanation. - -When, after they had been ushered into the room where her grace -sat in her beautiful and mellow corner by the fire, Robin advanced -towards the highbacked chair, what the old woman was chiefly -conscious of was the eyes which seemed all lustrous iris. There was -uncommon appeal and fear in them. The blackness of their setting -of up-curled lashes made them look babyishly wide. - -"Mademoiselle Valle has told me of your wish to take a position -as companion," the Duchess said after they were seated. - -"I want very much," said Robin, "to support myself and Mademoiselle -thinks that I might fill such a place if I am not considered too -young." - -"You are not too young--for me. I want something young to come and -befriend me. Am I too old for YOU?" Her smile had been celebrated -fifty years earlier and it had not changed. A smile does not. She -was not like Lord Coombe in any degree however remote. She did -not belong to his world, Robin thought. - -"If I can do well enough the things you require done," she answered -blushing her Jacqueminot rose blush, "I shall be grateful if you -will let me try to do them. Mademoiselle will tell you that I have -no experience, but that I am one who tries well." - -"Mademoiselle has answered all my questions concerning your -qualifications so satisfactorily that I need ask you very few." - -Such questions as she asked were not of the order Robin had -expected. She led her into talk and drew Mademoiselle Valle into the -conversation. It was talk which included personal views of books, -old gardens and old houses, people, pictures and even--lightly--politics. -Robin found herself quite incidentally, as it were, reading aloud -to her an Italian poem. She ceased to be afraid and was at ease. -She forgot Lord Coombe. The Duchess listening and watching her -warmed to her task of delicate investigation and saw reason for -anticipating agreeably stimulating things. She was not taking upon -herself a merely benevolent duty which might assume weight and -become a fatigue. In fact she might trust Coombe for that. After -all it was he who had virtually educated the child--little as she -was aware of the singular fact. It was he who had dragged her -forth from her dog kennel of a top floor nursery and quaintly -incongruous as it seemed, had found her a respectable woman for a -nurse and an intelligent person for a governess and companion as -if he had been a domesticated middle class widower with a little -girl to play mother to. She saw in the situation more than others -would have seen in it, but she saw also the ironic humour of it. -Coombe--with the renowned cut of his overcoat--the perfection of -his line and scarcely to be divined suggestions of hue--Coombe! - -She did not avoid all mention of his name during the interview, but -she spoke of him only casually, and though the salary she offered -was an excellent one, it was not inordinate. Robin could not feel -that she was not being accepted as of the class of young persons -who support themselves self-respectingly, though even the most -modest earned income would have represented wealth to her ignorance. - -Before they parted she had obtained the position so pleasantly -described by Mademoiselle Valle as being something like that of -a young lady in waiting. "But I am really a companion and I will -do everything--everything I can so that I shall be worth keeping," -she thought seriously. She felt that she should want to be kept. -If Lord Coombe was a friend of her employer's it was because the -Duchess did not know what others knew. And her house was not his -house--and the hideous thing she had secretly loathed would be at -an end. She would be supporting herself as decently and honestly -as Mademoiselle or Dowie had supported themselves all their lives. - -With an air of incidentally recalling a fact, the Duchess said -after they had risen to leave her: - -"Mademoiselle Valle tells me you have an elderly nurse you are -very fond of. She seems to belong to a class of servants almost -extinct." - -"I love her," Robin faltered--because the sudden reminder brought -back a pang to her. There was a look in her eyes which faltered -also. "She loves me. I don't know how----" but there she stopped. - -"Such women are very valuable to those who know the meaning of -their type. I myself am always in search of it. My dear Miss Brent -was of it, though of a different class." - -"But most people do not know," said Robin. "It seems old-fashioned -to them--and it's beautiful! Dowie is an angel." - -"I should like to secure your Dowie for my housekeeper and -myself,"--one of the greatest powers of the celebrated smile was -its power to convince. "A competent person is needed to take charge -of the linen. If we can secure an angel we shall be fortunate." - -A day or so later she said to Coombe in describing the visit. - -"The child's face is wonderful. If you could but have seen her -eyes when I said it. It is not the mere beauty of size and shape -and colour which affect one. It is something else. She is a little -flame of feeling." - -The "something else" was in the sound of her voice as she answered. - -"She will be in the same house with me! Sometimes perhaps I may -see her and talk to her! Oh! how GRATEFUL I am!" She might even -see and talk to her as often as she wished, it revealed itself -and when she and Mademoiselle got into their hansom cab to drive -away, she caught at the Frenchwoman's hand and clung to it, her -eyelashes wet, - -"It is as if there MUST be Goodness which takes care of one," she -said. "I used to believe in it so--until I was afraid of all the -world. Dowie means most of all. I did now know how I could bear -to let her go away. And since her husband and her daughter died, -she has no one but me. I should have had no one but her if you -had gone back to Belgium, Mademoiselle. And now she will be safe -in the same house with me. Perhaps the Duchess will keep her until -she dies. I hope she will keep me until I die. I will be as good -and faithful as Dowie and perhaps the Duchess will live until I -am quite old--and not pretty any more. And I will make economies -as you have made them, Mademoiselle, and save all my salary--and -I might be able to end my days in a little cottage in the country." - -Mademoiselle was conscious of an actual physical drag at her -heartstrings. The pulsating glow of her young loveliness had never -been more moving and oh! the sublime certainty of her unconsciousness -that Life lay between this hour and that day when she was "quite -old and not pretty any more" and having made economies could die -in a little cottage in the country! She believed in her vision as -she had believed that Donal would come to her in the garden. - -Upon Feather the revelation that her daughter had elected to -join the ranks of girls who were mysteriously determined to be -responsible for themselves produced a curious combination of effects. -It was presented to her by Lord Coombe in the form of a simple -impersonal statement which had its air of needing no explanation. -She heard it with eyes widening a little and a smile slowly growing. -Having heard, she broke into a laugh, a rather high-pitched treble -laugh. - -"Really?" she said. "She is really going to do it? To take a -situation! She wants to be independent and 'live her own life!' -What a joke--for a girl of mine!" She was either really amused or -chose to seem so. - -"What do YOU think of it?" she asked when she stopped laughing. -Her eyes had curiosity in them. - -"I like it," he answered. - -"Of course. I ought to have remembered that you helped her to an -Early Victorian duchess. She's one without a flaw--the Dowager -Duchess of Darte. The most conscientiously careful mother couldn't -object. It's almost like entering into the kingdom of heaven--in -a dull way." She began to laugh again as if amusing images rose -suddenly before her. "And what does the Duchess think of it?" she -said after her laughter had ceased again. "How does she reconcile -herself to the idea of a companion whose mother she wouldn't have -in her house?" - -"We need not enter into that view of the case. You decided some -years ago that it did not matter to you whether Early Victorian -duchesses included you in their visiting lists or did not. More -modern ones do I believe--quite beautiful and amusing ones." - -"But for that reason I want this one and those like her. They would -bore me, but I want them. I want them to come to my house and be -polite to me in their stuffy way. I want to be invited to their -hideous dinner parties and see them sitting round their tables in -their awful family jewels 'talking of the sad deaths of kings.' -That's Shakespeare, you know. I heard it last night at the theatre." - -"Why do you want it?" Coombe inquired. - -"When I ask you why you show your morbid interest in Robin, you -say you don't know. I don't know--but I do want it." - -She suddenly flushed, she even showed her small teeth. For an -extraordinary moment she looked like a little cat. - -"Robin will hare it," she cried, grinding a delicate fist into -the palm on her knee. "She's not eighteen and she's a beauty and -she's taken up by a perfectly decent old duchess. She'll have -EVERYTHING! The Dowager will marry her to someone important. You'll -help," she turned on him in a flame of temper. "You are capable -of marrying her yourself!" There was a a brief but entire silence. -It was broken by his saying, - -"She is not capable of marrying ME." - -There was brief but entire silence again, and it was he who again -broke it, his manner at once cool and reasonable. - -"It is better not to exhibit this kind of feeling. Let us be quite -frank. There are few things you feel more strongly than that you do -not want your daughter in the house. When she was a child you told -me that you detested the prospect of having her on your hands. -She is being disposed of in the most easily explained and enviable -manner." - -"It's true--it's true," Feather murmured. She began to see advantages -and the look of a little cat died out, or at least modified itself -into that of a little cat upon whom dawned prospects of cream. No -mood ever held her very long. "She won't come back to stay," she -said. "The Duchess won't let her. I can use her rooms and I shall -be very glad to have them. There's at least some advantage in -figuring as a sort of Dame Aux Camelias." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - - - - - -The night before Robin went away as she sat alone in the dimness -of one light, thinking as girls nearly always sit and think on -the eve of a change, because to youth any change seems to mean -the final closing as well as the opening of ways, the door of -her room was opened and an exquisite and nymphlike figure in pale -green stood exactly where the rays of the reading lamp seemed -to concentrate themselves in an effort to reveal most purely its -delicately startling effect. It was her mother in a dress whose -spring-like tint made her a sort of slim dryad. She looked so pretty -and young that Robin caught her breath as she rose and went forward. - -"It is your aged parent come to give you her blessing," said -Feather. - -"I was wondering if I might come to your room in the morning," -Robin answered. - -Feather seated herself lightly. She was not intelligent enough to -have any real comprehension of the mood which had impelled her to -come. She had merely given way to a secret sense of resentment of -something which annoyed her. She knew, however, why she had put -on the spring-leaf green dress which made her look like a girl. -She was not going to let Robin feel as if she were receiving a -visit from her grandmother. She had got that far. - -"We don't know each other at all, do we?" she said. - -"No," answered Robin. She could not remove her eyes from her -loveliness. She brought up such memories of the Lady Downstairs -and the desolate child in the shabby nursery. - -"Mothers are not as intimate with their daughters as they used -to be when it was a sort of virtuous fashion to superintend their -rice pudding and lecture them about their lessons. We have not -seen each other often." - -"No," said Robin. - -Feather's laugh had again the rather high note Coombe had noticed. - -"You haven't very much to say, have you?" she commented. "And you -stare at me as if you were trying to explain me. I dare say you -know that you have big eyes and that they're a good colour, but -I may as well hint to you that men do not like to be stared at as -if their deeps were being searched. Drop your eyelids." - -Robin's lids dropped in spite of herself because she was startled, -but immediately she was startled again by a note in her mother's -voice--a note of added irritation. - -"Don't make a habit of dropping them too often," it broke out, "or -it will look as if you did it to show your eyelashes. Girls with -tricks of that sort are always laughed at. Alison Carr LIVES -sideways became she has a pretty profile." - -Coombe would have recognized the little cat look, if he had been -watching her as she leaned back in her chair and scrutinized her -daughter. The fact was that she took in her every point, being an -astute censor of other women's charms. - -"Stand up," she said. - -Robin stood up because she could not well refuse to do so, but -she coloured because she was suddenly ashamed. - -"You're not little, but you're not tall," her mother said. "That's -against you. It's the fashion for women to be immensely tall -now. Du Maurier's pictures in Punch and his idiotic Trilby did it. -Clothes are made for giantesses. I don't care about it myself, but -a girl's rather out of it if she's much less than six feet high. -You can sit down." - -A more singular interview between mother and daughter had assuredly -rarely taken place. As she looked at the girl her resentment of her -increased each moment. She actually felt as if she were beginning -to lose her temper. - -"You are what pious people call 'going out into the world'," she -went on. "In moral books mothers always give advice and warnings -to their girls when they're leaving them. I can give you some -warnings. You think that because you have been taken up by a -dowager duchess everything will be plain sailing. You're mistaken. -You think because you are eighteen and pretty, men will fall at -your feet." - -"I would rather be hideous," cried suddenly passionate Robin. "I -HATE men!" - -The silly pretty thing who was responsible for her being, grew -sillier as her irritation increased. - -"That's what girls always pretend, but the youngest little idiot -knows it isn't true. It's men who count. It makes me laugh when -I think of them--and of you. You know nothing about them and they -know everything about you. A clever man can do anything he pleases -with a silly girl." - -"Are they ALL bad?" Robin exclaimed furiously. - -"They're none of them bad. They're only men. And that's my warning. -Don't imagine that when they make love to you they do it as if -you were the old Duchess' granddaughter. You will only be her paid -companion and that's a different matter." - -"I will not speak to one of them----" Robin actually began. - -"You'll be obliged to do what the Duchess tells you to do," laughed -Feather, as she realized her obvious power to dull the glitter -and glow of things which she had felt the girl must be dazzled -and uplifted unduly by. She was rather like a spiteful schoolgirl -entertaining herself by spoiling an envied holiday for a companion. -"Old men will run after you and you will have to be nice to them -whether you like it or not." A queer light came into her eyes. -"Lord Coombe is fond of girls just out of the schoolroom. But if -he begins to make love to you don't allow yourself to feel too -much flattered." - -Robin sprang toward her. - -"Do you think I don't ABHOR Lord Coombe!" she cried out forgetting -herself in the desperate cruelty of the moment. "Haven't I reason----" -but there she remembered and stopped. - -But Feather was not shocked or alarmed. Years of looking things -in the face had provided her with a mental surface from which -tilings rebounded. On the whole it even amused her and "suited -her book" that Robin should take this tone. - -"Oh! I suppose you mean you know he admires me and pays bills for -me. Where would you have been if he hadn't done it? He's been a -sort of benefactor." - -"I know nothing but that even when I was a little child I could -not bear to touch his hand!" cried Robin. Then Feather remembered -several things she had almost forgotten and she was still more -entertained. - -"I believe you've not forgotten through all these years that the -boy you fell so indecently in love with was taken away by his -mother because Lord Coombe was YOUR mother's admirer and he was -such a sinner that even a baby was contaminated by him! Donal -Muir is a young man by this time. I wonder what his mother would -do now if he turned up at your mistress' house--that's what she -is, you know, your mistress--and began to make love to you." She -laughed outright. "You'll get into all sorts of messes, but that -would be the nicest one!" - -Robin could only stand and gaze at her. Her moment's fire had died -down. Without warning, out of the past a wave rose and overwhelmed -her then and there. It bore with it the wild woe of the morning -when a child had waited in the spring sun and her world had fallen -into nothingness. It came back--the broken-hearted anguish, the -utter helpless desolation, as if she stood in the midst of it -again, as if it had never passed. It was a re-incarnation. She -could not bear it. - -"Do you hate me--as I hate Lord Coombe?" she cried out. "Do you WANT -unhappy things to happen to me? Oh! Mother, why!" She had never -said "Mother" before. Nature said it for her here. The piteous -appeal of her youth and lonely young rush of tears was almost -intolerably sweet. Through some subtle cause it added to the thing -in her which Feather resented and longed to trouble and to hurt. - -"You are a spiteful little cat!" she sprang up to exclaim, standing -close and face to face with her. "You think I am an old thing -and that I'm jealous of you! Because you're pretty and a girl you -think women past thirty don't count. You'll find out. Mrs. Muir -will count and she's forty if she's a day. Her son's such a beauty -that people go mad over him. And he worships her--and he's her -slave. I wish you WOULD get into some mess you couldn't get out -of! Don't come to me if you do." - -The wide beauty of Robin's gaze and her tear wet bloom were too -much. Feather was quite close to her. The spiteful schoolgirl -impulse got the better of her. - -"Don't make eyes at me like that," she cried, and she actually -gave the rose cheek nearest her a sounding little slap, "There!" -she exclaimed hysterically and she turned about and ran out of -the room crying herself. - -Robin had parted from Mademoiselle Valle at Charing Cross Station -on the afternoon of the same day, but the night before they had -sat up late together and talked a long time. In effect Mademoiselle -had said also, "You are going out into the world," but she had not -approached the matter in Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' mood. One may have -charge of a girl and be her daily companion for years, but there -are certain things the very years themselves make it increasingly -difficult to say to her. And after all why should one state -difficult things in exact phrases unless one lacks breeding and -is curious. Anxious she had been at times, but not curious. So it -was that even on this night of their parting it was not she who -spoke. - -It was after a few minutes of sitting in silence and looking at -the fire that Robin broke in upon the quiet which had seemed to -hold them both. - -"I must learn to remember always that I am a sort of servant. -I must be very careful. It will be easier for me to realize that -I am not in my own house than it would be for other girls. I have -not allowed Dowie to dress me for a good many weeks. I have learned -how to do everything for myself quite well." - -"But Dowie will be in the house with you and the Duchess is very -kind." - -"Every night I have begun my prayers by thanking God for leaving -me Dowie," the girl said. "I have begun them and ended them with -the same words." She looked about her and then broke out as if -involuntarily. "I shall be away from here. I shall not wear anything -or eat anything or sleep on any bed I have not paid for myself." - -"These rooms are very pretty. We have been very comfortable -here," Mademoiselle said. Suddenly she felt that if she waited a -few moments she would know definitely things she had previously -only guessed at. "Have you no little regrets?" - -"No," answered Robin, "No." - -She stood upon the hearth with her hands behind her. Mademoiselle -felt as if her fingers were twisting themselves together and the -Frenchwoman was peculiarly moved by the fact that she looked like -a slim jeune fille of a creature saying a lesson. The lesson opened -in this wise. - -"I don't know when I first began to know that I was different from -all other children," she said in a soft, hot voice--if a voice -can express heat. "Perhaps a child who has nothing--nothing--is -obliged to begin to THINK before it knows what thoughts are. If -they play and are loved and amused they have no time for anything -but growing and being happy. You never saw the dreadful little -rooms upstairs----" - -"Dowie has told me of them," said Mademoiselle. - -"Another child might have forgotten them. I never shall. I--I was -so little and they were full of something awful. It was loneliness. -The first time Andrews pinched me was one day when the thing -frightened me and I suddenly began to cry quite loud. I used -to stare out of the window and--I don't know when I noticed it -first--I could see the children being taken out by their nurses. -And there were always two or three of them and they laughed and -talked and skipped. The nurses used to laugh and talk too. Andrews -never did. When she took me to the gardens the other nurses sat -together and chattered and their children played games with other -children. Once a little girl began to talk to me and her nurse -called her away. Andrews was very angry and jerked me by my arm -and told me that if ever I spoke to a child again she would pinch -me." - -"Devil!" exclaimed the Frenchwoman. - -"I used to think and think, but I could never understand. How -could I?" - -"A baby!" cried Mademoiselle Valle and she got up and took her in -her arms and kissed her. "Chere petite ange!" she murmured. When -she sat down again her cheeks were wet. Robin's were wet also, but -she touched them with her handkerchief quickly and dried them. It -was as if she had faltered for a moment in her lesson. - -"Did Dowie ever tell you anything about Donal?" she asked -hesitatingly. - -"Something. He was the little boy you played with?" - -"Yes. He was the first human creature," she said it very slowly -as if trying to find the right words to express what she meant, -"--the first HUMAN creature I had ever known. You see Mademoiselle, -he--he knew everything. He had always been happy, he BELONGED -to people and things. I belonged to nobody and nothing. If I had -been like him he would not have seemed so wonderful to me. I was -in a kind of delirium of joy. If a creature who had been deaf dumb -and blind had suddenly awakened, and seeing on a summer day in a -world full of flowers and sun--it might have seemed to them as it -seemed to me." - -"You have remembered it through all the years," said Mademoiselle, -"like that?" - -"It was the first time I became alive. One could not forget it. -We only played as children play but--it WAS a delirium of joy. I -could not bear to go to sleep at night and forget it for a moment. -Yes, I remember it--like that. There is a dream I have every now -and then and it is more real than--than this is--" with a wave of -her hand about her. "I am always in a real garden playing with -a real Donal. And his eyes--his eyes--" she paused and thought, -"There is a look in them that is like--it is just like--that first -morning." - -The change which passed over her face the next moment might have -been said to seem to obliterate all trace of the childish memory. - -"He was taken away by his mother. That was the beginning of my -finding out," she said. "I heard Andrews talking to her sister and -in a baby way I gathered that Lord Coombe had sent him. I hated -Lord Coombe for years before I found out that he hadn't--and -that there was another reason. After that it took time to puzzle -things out and piece them together. But at last I found out what -the reason had been. Then I began to make plans. These are not my -rooms," glancing about her again, "--these are not my clothes," -with a little pull at her dress. "I'm not 'a strong character', -Mademoiselle, as I wanted to be, but I haven't one little regret--not -one." She kneeled down and put her arms round her old friend's -waist, lifting her face. "I'm like a leaf blown about by the -wind. I don't know what it will do with me. Where do leaves go? -One never knows really." - -She put her face down on Mademoiselle's knee then and cried with -soft bitterness. - -When she bade her good-bye at Charing Cross Station and stood and -watched the train until it was quite out of sight, afterwards she -went back to the rooms for which she felt no regrets. And before -she went to bed that night Feather came and gave her farewell -maternal advice and warning. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - - - - - -That a previously scarcely suspected daughter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -had become a member of the household of the Dowager Duchess of -Darte stirred but a passing wave of interest in a circle which was -not that of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself and which upon the whole -but casually acknowledged its curious existence as a modern -abnormality. Also the attitude of the Duchess herself was composedly -free from any admission of necessity for comment. - -"I have no pretty young relative who can be spared to come and -live with me. I am fond of things pretty and young and I am greatly -pleased with what a kind chance put in my way," she said. In her -discussion of the situation with Coombe she measured it with her -customary fine acumen. - -"Forty years ago it could not have been done. The girl would have -been made uncomfortable and outside things could not have been -prevented from dragging themselves in. Filial piety in the mass -would have demanded that the mother should be accounted for. Now -a genial knowledge of a variety in mothers leaves Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -to play about with her own probably quite amusing set. Once poor -Robin would have been held responsible for her and so should I. My -position would have seemed to defy serious moral issues. But we -have reached a sane habit of detaching people from their relations. -A nice condition we should be in if we had not." - -"You, of course, know that Henry died suddenly in some sort of -fit at Ostend." Coombe said it as if in a form of reply. She had -naturally become aware of it when the rest of the world did, but -had not seen him since the event. - -"One did not suppose his constitution would have lasted so long," -she answered. "You are more fortunate in young Donal Muir. Have -you seen him and his mother?" - -"I made a special journey to Braemarnie and had a curious interview -with Mrs. Muir. When I say 'curious' I don't mean to imply that it -was not entirely dignified. It was curious only because I realize -that secretly she regards with horror and dread the fact that her -boy is the prospective Head of the House of Coombe. She does not -make a jest of it as I have had the temerity to do. It's a cheap -defense, this trick of making an eternal jest of things, but it -IS a defense and one has formed the habit." - -"She has never done it--Helen Muir," his friend said. "On the -whole I believe she at times knows that she has been too grave. -She was a beautiful creature passionately in love with her husband. -When such a husband is taken away from such a woman and his child -is left it often happens that the flood of her love is turned into -one current and that it is almost overwhelming. She is too sane -to have coddled the boy and made him effeminate--what has she done -instead?" - -"He is a splendid young Highlander. He would be too good-looking -if he were not as strong and active as a young stag. All she has -done is to so fill him with the power and sense of her charm that -he has not seen enough of the world or learned to care for it. She -is the one woman on earth for him and life with her at Braemarnie -is all he asks for." - -"Your difficulty will be that she will not be willing to trust -him to your instructions." - -"I have not as much personal vanity as I may seem to have," Coombe -said. "I put all egotism modestly aside when I talked to her and -tried to explain that I would endeavour to see that he came to no -harm in my society. My heir presumptive and I must see something -of each other and he must become intimate with the prospect of -his responsibilities. More will be demanded of the next Marquis -of Coombe than has been demanded of me. And it will be DEMANDED -not merely hoped for or expected. And it will be the overwhelming -forces of Fate which will demand it--not mere tenants or constituents -or the general public." - -"Have you any views as to WHAT will be demanded?" was her interested -question. - -"None. Neither has anyone else who shares my opinion. No one will -have any until the readjustment comes. But before the readjustment -there will be the pouring forth of blood--the blood of magnificent -lads like Donal Muir--perhaps his own blood,--my God!" - -"And there may be left no head of the house of Coombe," from the -Duchess. - -"There will be many a house left without its head--houses great -and small. And if the peril of it were more generally foreseen at -this date it would be less perilous than it is." - -"Lads like that!" said the old Duchess bitterly. "Lads in their -strength and joy and bloom! It is hideous." - -"In all their young virility and promise for a next generation--the -strong young fathers of forever unborn millions! It's damnable! -And it will be so not only in England, but all over a blood drenched -world." - -It was in this way they talked to each other of the black tragedy -for which they believed the world's stage already being set in -secret, and though there were here and there others who felt the -ominous inevitability of the raising of the curtain, the rest of -the world looked on in careless indifference to the significance of -the open training of its actors and even the resounding hammerings -of its stage carpenters and builders. In these days the two -discussed the matter more frequently and even in the tone of those -who waited for the approach of a thing drawing nearer every day. - -Each time the Head of the House of Coombe made one of his so-called -"week end" visits to the parts an Englishman can reach only by -crossing the Channel, he returned with new knowledge of the special -direction in which the wind veered in the blowing of those straws -he had so long observed with absorbed interest. - -"Above all the common sounds of daily human life one hears in that -one land the rattle and clash of arms and the unending thudding -tread of marching feet," he said after one such visit. "Two -generations of men creatures bred and born and trained to live as -parts of a huge death dealing machine have resulted in a monstrous -construction. Each man is a part of it and each part's greatest -ambition is to respond to the shouted word of command as a -mechanical puppet responds to the touch of a spring. To each unit -of the millions, love of his own country means only hatred of all -others and the belief that no other should be allowed existence. -The sacred creed of each is that the immensity of Germany is such -that there can be no room on the earth for another than itself. -Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior peoples. To -the masses that is their God's will. Their God is an understudy -of their Kaiser." - -"You are not saying that as part of the trick of making a jest of -things?" - -"I wish to God I were. The poor huge inhuman thing he has built -does not know that when he was a boy he did not play at war and -battles as other boys do, but as a creature obsessed. He has played -at soldiers with his people as his toys throughout all his morbid -life--and he has hungered and thirsted as he has done it." - -A Bible lay upon the table and the Duchess drew it towards her. - -"There is a verse here--" she said "--I will find it." She turned -the pages and found it. "Listen! 'Know this and lay it to thy -heart this day. Jehovah is God in heaven above and on the earth -beneath. There is none else.' That is a power which does not -confine itself to Germany or to England or France or to the Map of -Europe. It is the Law of the Universe--and even Wilhelm the Second -cannot bend it to his almighty will. 'There is none else.'" - -"'There is none else'," repeated Coombe slowly. "If there existed -a human being with the power to drive that home as a truth into -his delirious brain, I believe he would die raving mad. To him -there is no First Cause which was not 'made in Germany.' And it -is one of his most valuable theatrical assets. It is part of his -paraphernalia--like the jangling of his sword and the glitter of -his orders. He shakes it before his people to arrest the attention -of the simple and honest ones as one jingles a rattle before a -child. There are those among them who are not so readily attracted -by terms of blood and iron." - -"But they will be called upon to shed blood and to pour forth -their own. There will be young things like Donal Muir--lads with -ruddy cheeks and with white bodies to be torn to fragments." She -shuddered as she said it. "I am afraid!" she said. "I am afraid!" - -"So am I," Coombe answered. "Of what is coming. What a FOOL I have -been!" - -"How long will it be before other men awaken to say the same -thing?" - -"Each man's folly is his own shame." He drew himself stiffly -upright as a man might who stood before a firing squad. "I had a -life to live or to throw away. Because I was hideously wounded at -the outset I threw it aside as done for. I said 'there is neither -God nor devil, vice nor virtue, love nor hate. I will do and leave -undone what I choose.' I had power and brain and money. A man -who could see clearly and who had words to choose from might have -stood firmly in the place to which he was born and have spoken in -a voice which might have been listened to. He might have fought -against folly and blindness and lassitude. I deliberately chose -privately to sneer at the thought of lifting a hand to serve any -thing but the cold fool who was myself. Life passes quickly. It -does not turn back." He ended with a short harsh laugh. "This -is Fear," he said. "Fear clears a man's mind of rubbish and -non-essentials. It is because I am AFRAID that I accuse myself. And -it is not for myself or you but for the whole world which before -the end comes will seem to fall into fragments." - -"You have been seeing ominous signs?" the Duchess said leaning -forward and speaking low. - -"There have been affectionate visits to Vienna. There is a certain -thing in the air--in the arrogance of the bearing of men clanking -their sabres as they stride through the streets. There is -an exultant eagerness in their eyes. Things are said which hold -scarcely concealed braggart threats. They have always been given -to that sort of thing--but now it strikes one as a thing unleashed--or -barely leashed at all. The background of the sound of clashing -arms and the thudding of marching feet is more unendingly present. -One cannot get away from it. The great munition factories are -working night and day. In the streets, in private houses, in the -shops, one hears and recognizes signs. They are signs which might -not be clear to one who has not spent years in looking on with -interested eyes. But I have watched too long to see only the -surface of things. The nation is waiting for something--waiting." - -"What will be the pretext--what," the Duchess pondered. - -"Any pretext will do--or none--except that Germany must have what -she wants and that she is strong enough to take it--after forty -years of building her machine." - -"And we others have built none. We almost deserve whatever comes -to us." The old woman's face was darkly grave. - -"In three villages where I chance to be lord of the manor I have, -by means of my own, set lads drilling and training. It is supposed -to be a form of amusement and an eccentric whim of mine and it -is a change from eternal cricket. I have given prizes and made an -occasional speech on the ground that English brawn is so enviable -a possession that it ought to develop itself to the utmost. When -I once went to the length of adding that each Englishman should -be muscle fit and ready in case of England's sudden need, I saw -the lads grin cheerfully at the thought of England in any such -un-English plight. Their innocent swaggering belief that the -country is always ready for everything moved my heart of stone. -And it is men like myself who are to blame--not merely men of my -class, but men of my KIND. Those who have chosen to detach themselves -from everything but the living of life as it best pleased their -tastes or served their personal ambitions." - -"Are we going to be taught that man cannot argue without including -his fellow man? Are we going to be forced to learn it?" she said. - -"Yes--forced. Nothing but force could reach us. The race is -an undeveloped thing. A few centuries later it will have evolved -another sense. This century may see the first huge step--because -the power of a cataclysm sweeps it forward." - -He turned his glance towards the opening door. Robin came in with -some letters in her hand. He was vaguely aware that she wore an -aspect he was unfamiliar with. The girl of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had -in the past, as it went without saying, expressed the final note -of priceless simplicity and mode. The more finely simple she looked, -the more priceless. The unfamiliarity in her outward seeming lay -in the fact that her quiet dun tweed dress with its lines of white -at neck and wrists was not priceless though it was well made. It, -in fact, unobtrusively suggested that it was meant for service -rather than for adornment. Her hair was dressed closely and her -movements were very quiet. Coombe realized that her greeting of -him was delicately respectful. - -"I have finished the letters," she said to the Duchess. "I hope -they are what you want. Sometimes I am afraid----" - -"Don't be afraid," said the Duchess kindly. "You write very correct -and graceful little letters. They are always what I want. Have -you been out today?" - -"Not yet." Robin hesitated a little. "Have I your permission to -ask Mrs. James if it will be convenient to her to let Dowie go -with me for an hour?" - -"Yes," as kindly as before. "For two hours if you like. I shall -not drive this afternoon." - -"Thank you," said Robin and went out of the room as quietly as -she had entered it. - -When the door closed the Duchess was smiling at Lord Coombe. - -"I understand her," she said. "She is sustained and comforted by -her pretty air of servitude. She might use Dowie as her personal maid -and do next to nothing, but she waits upon herself and punctiliously -asks my permission to approach Mrs. James the housekeeper with -any request for a favour. Her one desire is to be sure that she -is earning her living as other young women do when they are paid -for their work. I should really like to pet and indulge her, -but it would only make her unhappy. I invent tasks for her which -are quite unnecessary. For years the little shut-up soul has -been yearning and praying for this opportunity to stand honestly -on her own feet and she can scarcely persuade herself that it has -been given to her. It must not be spoiled for her. I send her on -errands my maid could perform. I have given her a little room with -a serious business air. It is full of files and papers and she -sits in it and copies things for me and even looks over accounts. -She is clever at looking up references. I have let her sit up quite -late once or twice searching for detail and dates for my use. It -made her bloom with joy." - -"You are quite the most delightful woman in the world," said Coombe. -"Quite." - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - - - - - - -In the serious little room the Duchess had given to her Robin -built for herself a condition she called happiness. She drew the -spiritual substance from which it was made from her pleasure in -the books of reference closely fitted into their shelves, in the -files for letters and more imposing documents, in the varieties -of letter paper and envelopes of different sizes and materials -which had been provided for her use in case of necessity. - -"You may not use the more substantial ones often, but you must be -prepared for any unexpected contingency," the Duchess had explained, -thereby smoothing her pathway by the suggestion of responsibilities. - -The girl did not know the extent of her employer's consideration -for her, but she knew that she was kind with a special grace -and comprehension. A subtle truth she also did not recognize was -that the remote flame of her own being was fiercely alert in its -readiness to leap upward at any suspicion that her duties were -not worth the payment made for them and that for any reason which -might include Lord Coombe she was occupying a position which was -a sinecure. She kept her serious little room in order herself, -dusting and almost polishing the reference books, arranging and -re-arranging the files with such exactness of system that she -could--as is the vaunt of the model of orderly perfection--lay her -hand upon any document "in the dark." She was punctuality's self -and held herself in readiness at any moment to appear at the -Duchess' side as if a magician had instantaneously transported her -there before the softly melodious private bell connected with her -room had ceased to vibrate. The correctness of her to deference -to the convenience of Mrs. James the housekeeper in her simplest -communication with Dowie quite touched that respectable person's -heart. - -"She's a young lady," Mrs. James remarked to Dowie. "And a credit -to you and her governess, Mrs. Dowson. Young ladies have gone -almost out of fashion." - -"Mademoiselle Valle had spent her governessing days among the -highest. My own places were always with gentle-people. Nothing -ever came near her that could spoil her manners. A good heart she -was born with," was the civil reply of Dowie. - -"Nothing ever came NEAR her--?" Mrs. James politely checked what -she became conscious was a sort of unconscious exclamation. - -"Nothing," said Dowie going on with her sheet hemming steadily. - -Robin wrote letters and copied various documents for the Duchess, -she went shopping with her and executed commissions to order. -She was allowed to enter into correspondence with the village -schoolmistress and the wife of the Vicar at Darte Norham and to buy -prizes for notable decorum and scholarship in the school, and baby -linen and blankets for the Maternity Bag and other benevolences. She -liked buying prizes and the baby clothes very much because--though -she was unaware of the fact--her youth delighted in youngness and the -fulfilling of young desires. Even oftener and more significantly -than ever did eyes turn towards her--try to hold hers--look after -her eagerly when she walked in the streets or drove with the -Duchess in the high-swung barouche. More and more she became used -to it and gradually she ceased to be afraid of it and began to feel -it nearly always--there were sometimes exceptions--a friendly thing. - -She saw friendliness in it because when she caught sight as she so -often did of young things like herself passing in pairs, laughing -and talking and turning to look into each other's eyes, her being -told her that it was sweet and human and inevitable. They always -turned and looked at each other--these pairs--and then they smiled -or laughed or flushed a little. As she had not known when first -she recognized, as she looked down into the street from her nursery -window, that the children nearly always passed in twos or threes -and laughed and skipped and talked, so she did not know when -she first began to notice these joyous young pairs and a certain -touch of exultation in them and feel that it was sweet and quite -a simple common natural thing. Her noting and being sometimes -moved by it was as natural as her pleasure in the opening of spring -flowers or the new thrill of spring birds--but she did not know -that either. - -The brain which has worked through many years in unison with the -soul to which it was apportioned has evolved a knowledge which -has deep cognizance of the universal law. The brain of the old -Duchess had so worked, keeping pace always with its guide, never -visualizing the possibility of working alone, also never falling -into the abyss of that human folly whose conviction is that all -that one sees and gives a special name to is all that exists--or -that the names accepted by the world justly and clearly describe -qualities, yearnings, moods, as they are. This had developed -within her wide perception and a wisdom which was sane and kind -to tenderness. - -As she drove through the streets with Robin beside her she saw -the following eyes, she saw the girl's soft friendly look at the -young creatures who passed her glowing and uplifted by the joy of -life, and she was moved and even disturbed. - -After her return from one particular morning's outing she sent -for Dowie. - -"You have taken care of Miss Robin since she was a little child?" -she began. - -"She was not quite six when I first went to her, your grace." - -"You are not of the women who only feed and bathe a child and keep -her well dressed. You have been a sort of mother to her." - -"I've tried to, your grace. I've loved her and watched over her -and she's loved me, I do believe." - -"That is why I want to talk to you about her, Dowie. If you were -the woman who merely comes and goes in a child's life, I could -not. She is--a very beautiful young thing, Dowie." - -"From her little head to her slim bits of feet, your grace. No -one knows better than I do." - -The Duchess' renowned smile revealed itself. - -"A beautiful young thing ought to see and know other beautiful young -things and make friends with them. That is one of the reasons for -their being put in the world. Since she has been with me she has -spoken to no one under forty. Has she never had young friends?" - -"Never, your grace. Once two--young baggages--were left to have -tea with her and they talked to her about divorce scandals and -corespondents. She never wanted to see them again." Dowie's face -set itself in lines of perfectly correct inexpressiveness and she -added, "They set her asking me questions I couldn't answer. And -she broke down because she suddenly understood why. No, your grace, -she's not known those of her own age." - -"She is--of the ignorance of a child," the Duchess thought it out -slowly. - -"She thinks not, poor lamb, but she is," Dowie answered. The -Duchess' eyes met hers and they looked at each other for a moment. -Dowie tried to retain a non-committal steadiness and the Duchess -observing the intention knew that she was free to speak. - -"Lord Coombe confided to me that she had passed through a hideous -danger which had made a lasting impression on her," she said in -a low voice. "He told me because he felt it would explain certain -reserves and fears in her." - -"Sometimes she wakes up out of nightmares about it," said Dowie. -"And she creeps into my room shivering and I take her into my bed -and hold her in my arms until she's over the panic. She says the -worst of it is that she keeps thinking that there may have been -other girls trapped like her--and that they did not get away." - -The Duchess was very thoughtful. She saw the complications in -which such a horror would involve a girl's mind. - -"If she consorted with other young things and talked nonsense with -them and shared their pleasures she would forget it," she said. - -"Ah!" exclaimed Dowie. "That's it." - -The question in the Duchess' eyes when she lifted them required -an answer and she gave it respectfully. - -"The thing that happened was only the last touch put to what she'd -gradually been finding out as she grew from child to young girl. -The ones she would like to know--she said it in plain words once to -Mademoiselle--might not want to know her. I must take the liberty -of speaking plain, your grace, or it's no use me speaking at all. -She holds it deep in her mind that she's a sort of young outcast." - -"I must convince her that she is not--." It was the beginning of -what the Duchess had meant to say, but she actually found herself -pausing, held for the moment by Dowie's quiet, civil eye. - -"Was your grace in your kindness thinking--?" was what the excellent -woman said. - -"Yes. That I would invite young people to meet her--help them to -know each other and to make friends." And even as she said it she -was conscious of being slightly under the influence of Dowie's -wise gaze. - -"Your grace only knows those young people she would like to know." -It was a mere simple statement. - -"People are not as censorious as they once were." Her grace's tone -was intended to reply to the suggestion lying in the words which -had worn the air of statement without comment. - -"Some are not, but some are," Dowie answered. "There's two worlds -in London now, your grace. One is your grace's and one is Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless'. I HAVE heard say there are others between, but -I only know those two." - -The Duchess pondered again. - -"You are thinking that what Miss Robin said to Mademoiselle Valle -might be true--in mine. And perhaps you are not altogether wrong -even if you are not altogether right." - -"Until I went to take care of Miss Robin I had only had places -in families Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' set didn't touch anywhere. What -I'm remembering is that there was a--strictness--shown sometimes -even when it seemed a bit harsh. Among the servants the older ones -said that is was BECAUSE of the new sets and their fast wicked -ways. One of my young ladies once met another young lady about -her own age--she was just fifteen--at a charity bazaar and they -made friends and liked each other very much. The young lady's -mother was one there was a lot of talk about in connection with a -person of very high station--the highest, your grace--and everyone -knew. The girl was a lovely little creature and beautifully -behaved. It was said her mother wanted to push her into the world -she couldn't get into herself. The acquaintance was stopped, your -grace--it was put a stop to at once. And my poor little young lady -quite broke her heart over it, and I heard it was much worse for -the other." - -"I will think this over," the Duchess said. "It needs thinking -over. I wished to talk to you because I have seen that she has fixed -little ideas regarding what she thinks is suited to her position -as a paid companion and she might not be prepared. I wish you to -see that she has a pretty little frock or so which she could wear -if she required them." - -"She has two, your grace," Dowie smiled affectionately as she said -it. "One for evening and one for special afternoon wear in case -your grace needed her to attend you for some reason. They are as -plain as she dare make them, but when she puts one on she can't -help giving it A LOOK." - -"Yes--she would give it all it needed," her grace said. "Thank -you, Dowie. You may go." - -With her sketch of a respectful curtsey Dowie went towards the -door. As she approached it her step became slower; before she -reached it she had stopped and there was a remarkable look on her -face--a suddenly heroic look. She turned and made several steps -backward and paused again which unexpected action caused the Duchess -to turn to glance at her. When she glanced her grace recognized -the heroic look and waited, with a consciousness of some slight -new emotion within herself, for its explanation. - -"Your grace," Dowie began, asking God himself to give courage if -she was doing right and to check her if she was making a mistake, -"When your grace was thinking of the parents of other young ladies -and gentlemen--did it come to you to put it to yourself whether -you'd be willing--" she caught her breath, but ended quite -clearly, respectfully, reasonably. "Lady Kathryn--Lord Halwyn--" -Lady Kathryn was the Duchess' young granddaughter, Lord Halwyn -was her extremely good-looking grandson who was in the army. - -The Duchess understood what the heroic look had meant, and her -respect for it was great. Its intention had not been to suggest -inclusion of George and Kathryn in her pun, it had only with pure -justice put it to her to ask herself what her own personal decision -in such a matter would be. - -"You do feel as if you were her mother," she said. "And you are a -practical, clear-minded woman. It is only if I myself am willing -to take such a step that I have a right to ask it of other people. -Lady Lothwell is the mother I must speak to first. Her children -are mine though I am a mere grandmother." - -Lady Lothwell was her daughter and though she was not regarded -as Victorian either of the Early or the Middle periods, Dowie as -she returned to her own comfortable quarters wondered what would -happen. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - - - - - -What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been -possible for a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest -mother of her day and have emerged from her training either -obstinate or illogical. Lady Lothwell listened to as much of the -history of Robin as her mother chose to tell her and plainly felt -an amiable interest in it. She knew much more detail and gossip -concerning Mrs. Gareth-Lawless than the Duchess herself did. She -had heard of the child who was kept out of sight, and she had -been somewhat disgusted by a vague story of Lord Coombe's abnormal -interest in it and the ugly hint that he had an object in view. -It was too unpleasantly morbid to be true of a man her mother had -known for years. - -"Of course you were not thinking of anything large or formal?" -she said after a moment of smiling hesitation. - -"No. I am not launching a girl into society. I only want to help -her to know a few nice young people who are good-natured and -well-mannered. She is not the ordinary old lady's companion and -if she were not so strict with herself and with me, I confess I -should behave towards her very much as I should behave to Kathryn -if you could spare her to live with me. She is a heart-warming -young thing. Because I am known to have one of my eccentric fancies -for her and because after all her father WAS well connected, her -present position will not be the obstacle. She is not the first -modern girl who has chosen to support herself." - -"But isn't she much too pretty?" - -"Much. But she doesn't flaunt it." - -"But heart-warming--and too pretty! Dearest mamma!" Lady Lothwell -laughed again. "She can do no harm to Kathryn, but I own that -if George were not at present quite madly in love with a darling -being at least fifteen years older than himself I should pause -to reflect. Mrs. Stacy will keep him steady--Mrs. Alan Stacy, you -know--the one with the magnificent henna hair, and the eyes that -droop. No boy of twenty-two can resist her. They call her adorers -'The Infant School'." - -"A small dinner and a small dance--and George and Kathryn may be -the beginning of an interesting experiment. It would be pretty -and kind of you to drop in during the course of the evening." - -"Are you hoping to--perhaps--make a marriage for her?" Lady Lothwell -asked the question a shade disturbedly. "You are so amazing, -mamma darling, that I know you will do it, if you believe in it. -You seem to be able to cause the things you really want, to evolve -from the universe." - -"She is the kind of girl whose place in the universe is in the -home of some young man whose own place in the universe is in the -heart and soul and life of her kind of girl. They ought to carry -out the will of God by falling passionately in love with each -other. They ought to marry each other and have a large number of -children as beautiful and rapturously happy as themselves. They -would assist in the evolution of the race." - -"Oh! Mamma! how delightful you always are! For a really brilliant -woman you are the most adorable dreamer in the world." - -"Dreams are the only things which are true. The rest are nothing -but visions." - -"Angel!" her daughter laughed a little adoringly as she kissed -her. "I will do whatever you want me to do. I always did, didn't -I? It's your way of making one see what you see when you are -talking that does it." - -It was understood before they parted that Kathryn and George would -be present at the small dinner and the small dance, and that a -few other agreeable young persons might be trusted to join them, -and that Lady Lothwell and perhaps her husband would drop in. - -"It's your being almost Early Victorian, mamma, which makes it -easy for you to initiate things. You will initiate little Miss -Lawless. It was rather neat of her to prefer to drop the 'Gareth.' -There has been less talk in late years of the different classes -'keeping their places'--'upper' and 'lower' classes really strikes -one as vulgar." - -"We may 'keep our places'," the Duchess said. "We may hold on to -them as firmly as we please. It is the places themselves which -are moving, my dear. It is not unlike the beginning of a landslide." - -Robin went to Dowie's room the next evening and stood a moment in -silence watching her sewing before she spoke. She looked anxious -and even pale. - -"Her grace is going to give a party to some young people, Dowie," -she said. "She wishes me to be present. I--I don't know what to -do." - -"What you must do, my dear, is to put on your best evening frock -and go downstairs and enjoy yourself as the other young people -will. Her grace wants you to see someone your own age," was Dowie's -answer. - -"But I am not like the others. I am only a girl earning her living -as a companion. How do I know--" - -"Her grace knows," Dowie said. "And what she asks you to do it is -your duty to do--and do it prettily." - -Robin lost even a shade more colour. - -"Do you realize that I have never been to a party in my life--not -even to a children's party, Dowie? I shall not know how to behave -myself." - -"You know how to talk nicely to people, and you know how to sit -down and rise from your chair and move about a room like a quiet -young lady. You dance like a fairy. You won't be asked to do -anything more." - -"The Duchess," reflected Robin aloud slowly, "would not let me -come downstairs if she did not know that people would--be kind." - -"Lady Kathryn and Lord Halwyn are coming. They are her own -grandchildren," Dowie said. - -"How did you know that?" Robin inquired. - -Robin's colour began to come back. - -"It's not what usually happens to girls in situations," she said. - -"Her grace herself isn't what usually happens," said Dowie. "There -is no one like her for high wisdom and kindness." - -Having herself awakened to the truth of this confidence-inspiring -fact, Robin felt herself supported by it. One knew what -far-sighted perception and clarity of experienced vision this one -woman had gained during her many years of life. If she had elected -to do this thing she had seen her path clear before her and was not -offering a gift which awkward chance might spoil or snatch away -from the hand held out to receive it. A curious slow warmth began -to creep about Robin's heart and in its mounting gradually fill -her being. It was true she had been taught to dance, to move about -and speak prettily. She had been taught a great many things which -seemed to be very carefully instilled into her mind and body without -any special reason. She had not been aware that Lord Coombe and -Mademoiselle Valle had directed and discussed her training as if -it had been that of a young royal person whose equipment must be -a flawless thing. If the Dowager Duchess of Darte had wished to -present her at Court some fair morning she would have known the -length of the train she must wear, where she must make her curtseys -and to whom and to what depth, how to kiss the royal hand, and -how to manage her train when she retired from the presence. When -she had been taught this she had asked Mademoiselle Valle if the -training was part of every girl's education and Mademoiselle had -answered, - -"It is best to know everything--even ceremonials which may or may -not prove of use. It all forms part of a background and prevents -one from feeling unfamiliar with customs." - -When she had passed the young pairs in the streets she had found -an added interest in them because of this background. She could -imagine them dancing together in fairy ball rooms whose lights -and colours her imagination was obliged to construct for her out -of its own fabric; she knew what the girls would look like if they -went to a Drawing Room and she often wondered if they would feel -shy when the page spread out their lovely peacock tails for them -and left them to their own devices. It was mere Nature that she -should have pondered and pondered and sometimes unconsciously -longed to feel herself part of the flood of being sweeping past -her as she stood apart on the brink of the river. - -The warmth about her heart made it beat a little faster. She opened -the door of her wardrobe when she found herself in her bedroom. The -dress hung modestly in its corner shrouded from the penetration of -London fogs by clean sheeting. It was only white and as simple as -she knew how to order it, but Mademoiselle had taken her to a young -French person who knew exactly what she was doing in all cases, -and because the girl had the supple lines of a wood nymph and the -eyes of young antelope she had evolved that which expressed her -as a petal expresses its rose. Robin locked her door and took the -dress down and found the silk stockings and slippers which belonged -to it. She put them all on standing before her long mirror and -having left no ungiven last touch she fell a few steps backward and -looked at herself, turning and balancing herself as a bird might -have done. She turned lightly round and round. - -"Yes. I AM--" she said. "I am--very!" - -The next instant she laughed at herself outright. - -"How silly! How silly!" she said. "Almost EVERYBODY is--more -or less! I wonder if I remember the new steps." For she had been -taught the new steps--the new walking and swayings and pauses and -sudden swirls and swoops. And her new dress was as short as other -fashionable girls' dresses were, but in her case revealed a haunting -delicacy of contour and line. - -So before her mirror she danced alone and as she danced her lips -parted and her breast rose and fell charmingly, and her eyes -lighted and glowed as any girl's might have done or as a joyous -girl nymph's might have lighted as she danced by a pool in her -forest seeing her loveliness mirrored there. - -Something was awakening as something had awakened when Donal had -kissed a child under the soot sprinkled London trees. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - - - - - -The whole day before the party was secretly exciting to Robin. -She knew how much more important it seemed to her than it really -was. If she had been six years old she might have felt the same -kind of uncertain thrills and tremulous wonders. She hid herself -behind the window curtains in her room that she might see the -men putting up the crimson and white awning from the door to the -carriage step. The roll of red carpet they took from their van had -a magic air. The ringing of the door bell which meant that things -were being delivered, the extra moving about of servants, the -florists' men who went into the drawing-rooms and brought flowers -and big tropical plants to re-arrange the conservatory and fill -corners which were not always decorated--each and every one of -them quickened the beating of her pulses. If she had belonged in -her past to the ordinary cheerful world of children, she would -have felt by this time no such elation. But she had only known of -the existence of such festivities as children's parties because once -a juvenile ball had been given in a house opposite her mother's -and she had crouched in an almost delirious little heap by the -nursery window watching carriages drive up and deposit fluffy pink -and white and blue children upon the strip of red carpet, and had -seen them led or running into the house. She had caught sounds -of strains of music and had shivered with rapture--but Oh! what -worlds away from her the party had been. - -She found her way into the drawing-rooms which were not usually thrown -open. They were lofty and stately and seemed to her immense. There -were splendid crystal-dropping chandeliers and side lights which -she thought looked as if they would hold a thousand wax candles. -There was a delightfully embowered corner for the musicians. It -was all spacious and wonderful in its beautiful completeness--its -preparedness for pleasure. She realized that all of it had always -been waiting to be used for the happiness of people who knew -each other and were young and ready for delight. When the young -Lothwells had been children they had had dances and frolicking -games with other children in the huge rooms and had kicked up -their young heels on the polished floors at Christmas parties and -on birthdays. How wonderful it must have been. But they had not -known it was wonderful. - -As Dowie dressed her the reflection she saw in the mirror gave back -to her an intensified Robin whose curved lips almost quivered as -they smiled. The soft silk of her hair looked like the night and -the small rings on the back of her very slim white neck were things -to ensnare the eye and hold it helpless. - -"You look your best, my dear," Dowie said as she clasped her little -necklace. "And it is a good best." Dowie was feeling tremulous -herself though she could not have explained why. She thought that -perhaps it was because she wished that Mademoiselle could have -been with her. - -Robin kissed her when the last touch had been given. - -"I'm going to run down the staircase," she said. "If I let myself -walk slowly I shall have time to feel queer and shy and I might -seem to CREEP into the drawing-room. I mustn't creep in. I must -walk in as if I had been to parties all my life." - -She ran down and as she did so she looked like a white bird -flying, but she was obliged to stop upon the landing before the -drawing-room door to quiet a moment of excited breathing. Still -when she entered the room she moved as she should and held her head -poised with a delicately fearless air. The Duchess--who herself -looked her best in her fine old ivory profiled way--gave her a -pleased smile of welcome which was almost affectionate. - -"What a perfect little frock!" she said. "You are delightfully -pretty in it." - -"Is it quite right?" said Robin. "Mademoiselle chose it for me." - -"It is quite right. 'Frightfully right,' George would say. George -will sit near you at dinner. He is my grandson--Lord Halwyn you -know, and you will no doubt frequently hear him say things are -'frightfully' something or other during the evening. Kathryn will -say things are 'deevy' or 'exquig'. I mention it because you may -not know that she means 'exquisite' and 'divine.' Don't let it -frighten you if you don't quite understand their language. They -are dear handsome things sweeping along in the rush of their bit -of century. I don't let it frighten me that their world seems to -me an entirely new planet." - -Robin drew a little nearer her. She felt something as she had -felt years ago when she had said to Dowie. "I want to kiss you, -Dowie." Her eyes were pools of childish tenderness because she -so well understood the infinitude of the friendly tact which drew -her within its own circle with the light humour of its "I don't -let them frighten ME." - -"You are kind--kind to me," she said. "And I am grateful--GRATEFUL." - -The extremely good-looking young people who began very soon to -drift into the brilliant big room--singly or in pairs of brother -and sister--filled her with innocent delight. They were so well -built and gaily at ease with each other and their surroundings, so -perfectly dressed and finished. The filmy narrowness of delicate -frocks, the shortness of skirts accentuated the youth and girlhood and -added to it a sort of child fairy-likeness. Kathryn in exquisite -wisps of silver-embroidered gauze looked fourteen instead of -nearly twenty--aided by a dimple in her cheek and a small tilted -nose. A girl in scarlet tulle was like a child out of a nursery -ready to dance about a Christmas tree. Everyone seemed so young -and so suggested supple dancing, perhaps because dancing was going -on everywhere and all the world whether fashionable or unfashionable -was driven by a passion for whirling, swooping and inventing new -postures and fantastic steps. The young men had slim straight -bodies and light movements. Their clothes fitted their suppleness -to perfection. Robin thought they all looked as if they had had -a great deal of delightful exercise and plenty of pleasure all -their lives. - -They were of that stream which had always seemed to be rushing -past her in bright pursuit of alluring things which belonged to -them as part of their existence, but which had had nothing to do -with her own youth. Now the stream had paused as if she had for -the moment some connection with it. The swift light she was used -to seeing illuminate glancing eyes as she passed people in the -street, she saw again and again as new arrivals appeared. Kathryn -was quite excited by her eyes and eyelashes and George hovered -about. There was a great deal of hovering. At the dinner table -sleek young heads held themselves at an angle which allowed of -their owners seeing through or around, or under floral decorations -and alert young eyes showed an eager gleam. After dinner was -over and dancing began the Duchess smiled shrewdly as she saw the -gravitating masculine movement towards a certain point. It was -the point where Robin stood with a small growing circle about her. - -It was George who danced with her first. He was tall and slender -and flexible and his good shoulders had a military squareness of -build. He had also a nice square face, and a warmly blue eye and -knew all the latest steps and curves and unexpected swirls. Robin -was an ozier wand and there was no swoop or dart or sudden sway -and change she was not alert at. The swing and lure of the music, -the swift movement, the fluttering of airy draperies as slim sister -nymphs flew past her, set her pulses beating with sweet young joy. -A brief, uncontrollable ripple of laughter broke from her before -she had circled the room twice. - -"How heavenly it is!" she exclaimed and lifted her eyes to Halwyn's. -"How heavenly!" - -They were not safe eyes to lift in such a way to those of a very -young man. They gave George a sudden enjoyable shock. He had -heard of the girl who was a sort of sublimated companion to his -grandmother. The Duchess herself had talked to him a little about -her and he had come to the party intending to behave very amiably -and help the little thing enjoy herself. He had also encountered -before in houses where there were no daughters the smart well-born, -young companion who was allowed all sorts of privileges because -she knew how to assume tiresome little responsibilities and how -to be entertaining enough to add cheer and spice to the life of -the elderly and lonely. Sometimes she was a subtly appealing sort -of girl and given to being sympathetic and to liking sympathy and -quiet corners in conservatories or libraries, and sometimes she -was capable of scientific flirtation and required scientific -management. A man had to have his wits about him. This one as she -flew like a blown leaf across the floor and laughed up into his -face with wide eyes, produced a new effect and was a new kind. - -"It's you who are heavenly," he answered with a boy's laugh. "You -are like a feather--and a willow wand." - -"You are light too," she laughed back, "and you are like steel as -well." - -Mrs. Alan Stacy, the lady with the magnificent henna hair, had -recently given less time to him, being engaged in the preliminary -instruction of a new member of the Infant Class. Such things will, -of course, happen and though George had quite ingenuously raged -in secret, the circumstances left him free to "hover" and hovering -was a pastime he enjoyed. - -"Let us go on like this forever and ever," he said sweeping half -the length of the room with her and whirling her as if she were -indeed a leaf in the wind, "Forever and ever." - -"I wish we could. But the music will stop," she gave back. - -"Music ought never to stop--never," he answered. - -But the music did stop and when it began again almost immediately -another tall, flexible young man made a lightning claim on her -and carried her away only to hand her to another and he in his -turn to another. She was not allowed more than a moment's rest -and borne on the crest of the wave of young delight, she did not -need more. Young eyes were always laughing into hers and elating -her by a special look of pleasure in everything she did or said -or inspired in themselves. How was she informed without phrases -that for this exciting evening she was a creature without a flaw, -that the loveliness of her eyes startled those who looked into -them, that it was a thrilling experience to dance with her, that -somehow she was new and apart and wonderful? No sleek-haired, slim -and straight-backed youth said exactly any of these things to her, -but somehow they were conveyed and filled her with a wondering -realization of the fact that if they were true, they were no longer -dreadful and maddening, since they only made people like and want -to dance with one. To dance, to like people and be liked seemed -so heavenly natural and right--to be only like air and sky and -free, happy breathing. There was, it was true, a blissful little -uplifted look about her which she herself was not aware of, but -which was singularly stimulating to the masculine beholder. It only -meant indeed that as she whirled and swayed and swooped laughing -she was saying to herself at intervals, - -"This is what other girls feel like. They are happy like this. -I am laughing and talking to people just as other girls do. I am -Robin Gareth-Lawless, but I am enjoying a party like this--a YOUNG -party." - -Lady Lothwell sitting near her mother watched the trend of affairs -with an occasional queer interested smile. - -"Well, mamma darling," she said at last as youth and beauty whirled -by in a maelstrom of modern Terpsichorean liveliness, "she is a -great success. I don't know whether it is quite what you intended -or not." - -The Duchess did not explain what she had intended. She was watching -the trend also and thinking a good deal. On the whole Lady Lothwell -had scarcely expected that she would explain. She rarely did. She -seldom made mistakes, however. - -Kathryn in her scant gauzy strips of white and silver having -drifted towards them at the moment stood looking on with a funny -little disturbed expression on her small, tip-tilted face. - -"There's something ABOUT her, grandmamma," she said. - -"All the girls see it and no one knows what it is. She's sitting -out for a few minutes and just look at George--and Hal Brunton--and -Captain Willys. They are all laughing, of course, and pretending -to joke, but they would like to eat each other up. Perhaps it's -her eyelashes. She looks out from under them as if they were a -curtain." - -Lady Lothwell's queer little smile became a queer little laugh. - -"Yes. It gives her a look of being ecstatically happy and yet -almost shy and appealing at the same time. Men can't stand it of -course." - -"None of them are trying to stand it," answered little Lady Kathryn -somewhat in the tone of a retort. - -"I don't believe she knows she does it," Lady Lothwell said quite -reflectively. - -"She does not know at all. That is the worst of it," commented the -Duchess. - -"Then you see that there IS a worst," said her daughter. - -The Duchess glanced towards Kathryn, but fortunately the puzzled -fret of the girl's forehead was even at the moment melting into -a smile as a young man of much attraction descended upon her with -smiles of his own and carried her into the Tango or Fox Trot or -Antelope Galop, whichsoever it chanced to be. - -"If she were really aware of it that would be 'the worst' for -other people--for us probably. She could look out from under her -lashes to sufficient purpose to call what she wanted and take and -keep it. As she is not aware, it will make things less easy for -herself--under the circumstances." - -"The circumstance of being Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' daughter is not -an agreeable one," said Lady Lothwell. - -"It might give some adventurous boys ideas when they had time to -realize all it means. Do you know I am rather sorry for her myself. -I shouldn't be surprised if she were rather a dear little thing. -She looks tender and cuddle-some. Perhaps she is like the heroine -of a sentimental novel I read the other day. Her chief slave said -of her 'She walks into a man's heart through his eyes and sits -down there and makes a warm place which will never get cold again.' -Rather nice, I thought." - -The Duchess thought it rather nice also. - -"'Never get cold again,'" she repeated. "What a heavenly thing -to happen to a pair of creatures--if--" she paused and regarded -Robin, who at the other side of the room was trying to decide -some parlous question of dances to which there was more than one -claimant. She was sweetly puckering her brow over her card and -round her were youthful male faces looking eager and even a trifle -tense with repressed anxiety for the victory of the moment. - -"Oh!" Lady Lothwell laughed. "As Kitty says 'There's something -about her' and it's not mere eyelashes. You have let loose a germ -among us, mamma my sweet, and you can't do anything with a germ -when you have let it loose. To quote Kitty again, 'Look at George!'" - -The music which came from the bower behind which the musicians -were hidden seemed to gain thrill and wildness as the hours went -on. As the rooms grew warmer the flowers breathed out more reaching -scent. Now and again Robin paused for a moment to listen to strange -delightful chords and to inhale passing waves of something like -mignonette and lilies, and apple blossoms in the sun. She thought -there must be some flower which was like all three in one. The -rushing stream was carrying her with it as it went--one of the -happy petals on its surface. Could it ever cast her aside and -leave her on the shore again? While the violins went singing on -and the thousand wax candles shone on the faint or vivid colours -which mingled into a sort of lovely haze, it did not seem possible -that a thing so enchanting and so real could have an end at all. -All the other things in her life seemed less real tonight. - -In the conservatory there was a marble fountain which had long -years ago been brought from a palace garden in Rome. It was not -as large as it was beautiful and it had been placed among palms -and tropic ferns whose leaves and fronds it splashed merrily among -and kept deliciously cool and wet-looking. There was a quite -intoxicating hot-house perfume of warm damp moss and massed flowers -and it was the kind of corner any young man would feel it necessary -to gravitate towards with a partner. - -George led Robin to it and she naturally sat upon the edge of the -marble basin and as naturally drew off a glove and dipped her hand -into the water, splashing it a little because it felt deliciously -cool. George stood near at first and looked down at her bent head. -It was impossible not also to take in her small fine ear and the -warm velvet white of the lovely little nape of her slim neck. He -took them in with elated appreciation. He was not subtle minded -enough to be aware that her reply to a casual remark he had made -to her at dinner had had a remote effect upon him. - -"One of the loveliest creatures I ever saw was a Mrs. Gareth-Lawless," -he had said. "Are you related to her?" - -"I am her daughter," Robin had answered and with a slightly startled -sensation he had managed to slip into amiably deft generalities -while he had secretly wondered how much his grandmother knew or -did not know. - -An involuntary thought of Feather had crossed his mind once or -twice during the evening. This was the girl who, it was said, had -actually been saved up for old Coombe. Ugly morbid sort of idea -if it was true. How had the Duchess got hold of her and why and -what was Coombe really up to? Could he have some elderly idea -of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. -Serve him right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails. -He was not a desperate character, but he had been very intimate -with Mrs. Alan Stacy and her friends and it had made him careless. -Also Robin had drawn him--drawn him more than he knew. - -"Is it still heavenly?" he asked. (How pointed her fingers were -and how soft and crushable her hand looked as it splashed like a -child's.) - -"More heavenly every minute," she answered. He laughed outright. - -"The heavenly thing is the way you are enjoying it yourself. I -never saw a girl light up a whole room before. You throw out stars -as you dance." - -"That's like a skyrocket," Robin laughed back. "And it's because -in all my life I never went to a dance before." - -"Never! You mean except to children's parties?" - -"There were no children's parties. This is the first--first--first." - -"Well, I don't see how that happened, but I am glad it did because -it's been a great thing for me to see you at your first--first--first." - -He sat down on the fountain's edge near her. - -"I shall not forget it," he said. - -"I shall remember it as long as I live," said Robin and she lifted -her unsafe eyes again and smiled into his which made them still -more unsafe. - -Perhaps it was because he was extremely young, perhaps it was -because he was immoral, perhaps because he had never held a tight -rein on his fleeting emotions, even the next moment he felt that -it was because he was an idiot--but suddenly he found he had let -himself go and was kissing the warm velvet of the slim little -nape--had kissed it twice. - -He had not given himself time to think what would happen as a -result, but what did happen was humiliating and ridiculous. One -furious splash of the curled hand flung water into his face and -eyes and mouth while Robin tore herself free from him and stood -blazing with fury and woe--for it was not only fury he saw. - -"You--You--!" she cried and actually would have swooped to the -fountain again if he had not caught her arm. - -He was furious himself--at himself and at her. - -"You--little fool!" he gasped. "What did you do that for even if -I WAS a jackass? There was nothing in it. You're so pretty----" - -"You've spoiled everything!" she flamed, "everything--everything!" - -"I've spoiled nothing. I've only been a fool--and it's your own -fault for being so pretty." - -"You've spoiled everything in the world! Now--" with a desolate -horrible little sob, "now I can only go back--BACK!" - -He had a queer idea that she spoke as if she were Cinderella and -he had made the clock strike twelve. Her voice had such absolute -grief in it that he involuntarily drew near her. - -"I say," he was really breathless, "don't speak like that. I beg -pardon. I'll grovel! Don't--Oh! Kathryn--COME here." - -This last because at this difficult moment from between the banks -of hot-house bloom and round the big palms his sister Kathryn -suddenly appeared. She immediately stopped short and stared at -them both--looking from one to the other. - -"What is the matter?" she asked in a low voice. - -"Oh! COME and talk to her," George broke forth. "I feel as if she -might scream in a minute and call everybody in. I've been a lunatic -and she has apparently never been kissed before. Tell her--tell -her you've been kissed yourself." - -A queer little look revealed itself in Kathryn's face. A delicate -vein of her grandmother's wisdom made part of her outlook upon a -rapidly moving and exciting world. She had never been hide-bound -or dull and for a slight gauzy white and silver thing she was -astute. - -"Don't be impudent," she said to George as she walked up to Robin -and put a cool hand on her arm. "He's only been silly. You'd better -let him off," she said. She turned a glance on George who was -wiping his sleeve with a handkerchief and she broke into a small -laugh, "Did she push you into the fountain?" she asked cheerfully. - -"She threw the fountain at me," grumbled George. "I shall have to -dash off home and change." - -"I would," replied Kathryn still cheerful. "You can apologize -better when you're dry." - -He slid through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood -and gazed at each other. Robin's flame had died down and her face -had settled itself into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know -that she herself looked at her as the Duchess might have looked -at another girl in the quite different days of her youth. - -"I'll tell you something now he's gone," she said. "I HAVE been -kissed myself and so have other girls I know. Boys like George -don't really matter, though of course it's bad manners. But who -has got good manners? Things rush so that there's scarcely time -for manners at all. When an older man makes a snatch at you it's -sometimes detestable. But to push him into the fountain was a -good idea," and she laughed again. - -"I didn't push him in." - -"I wish you had," with a gleeful mischief. The next moment, however, -the hint of a worried frown showed itself on her forehead. "You -see," she said protestingly, "you are so FRIGHTFULLY pretty." - -"I'd rather be a leper," Robin shot forth. - -But Kathryn did not of course understand. - -"What nonsense!" she answered. "What utter rubbish! You know you -wouldn't. Come back to the ball room. I came here because my mother -was asking for George." - -She turned to lead the way through the banked flowers and as she -did so added something. - -"By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of -the Balkan countries. They are always assassinating people. They -like it. Lord Coombe has just come in and is talking it over with -grandmamma. I can see they are quite excited in their quiet way." - -As they neared the entrance to the ball room she paused a moment -with a new kind of impish smile. - -"Every girl in the room is absolutely shaky with thrills at this -particular moment," she said. "And every man feels himself bristling -a little. The very best looking boy in all England is dancing with -Sara Studleigh. He dropped in by chance to call and the Duchess -made him stay. He is a kind of miracle of good looks and takingness." - -Robin said nothing. She had plainly not been interested in the -Balkan tragedy and she as obviously did not care for the miracle. - -"You don't ask who he is?" said Kathryn. - -"I don't want to know." - -"Oh! Come! You mustn't feel as sulky as that. You'll want to ask -questions the moment you see him. I did. Everyone does. His name -is Donal Muir. He's Lord Coombe's heir. He'll be the Head of the -House of Coombe some day. Here he comes," quite excitedly, "Look!" - -It was one of the tricks of Chance--or Fate--or whatever you will. -The dance brought him within a few feet of them at that very moment -and the slow walking steps he was taking held him--they were some -of the queer stealthy almost stationary steps of the Argentine -Tango. He was finely and smoothly fitted as the other youngsters -were, his blond glossed head was set high on a heroic column of -neck, he was broad of shoulder, but not too broad, slim of waist, -but not too slim, long and strong of leg, but light and supple -and firm. He had a fair open brow and a curved mouth laughing to -show white teeth. Robin felt he ought to wear a kilt and plaid and -that an eagle's feather ought to be standing up from a chieftain's -bonnet on the fair hair which would have waved if it had been -allowed length enough. He was scarcely two yards from her now and -suddenly--almost as if he had been called--he turned his eyes away -from Sara Studleigh who was the little thing in Christmas tree -scarlet. They were blue like the clear water in a tarn when the -sun shines on it and they were still laughing as his mouth was. -Straight into hers they laughed--straight into hers. - - - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - - - - - -Through all aeons since all the worlds were made it is at least not -unthinkable that in all the worlds of which our own atom is one, -there has ruled a Force illimitable, unconquerable and inexplicable -and whichsoever its world and whatsoever the sign denoting or the -name given it, the Force--the Thing has been the same. Upon our -own atom of the universe it is given the generic name of Love and -its existence is that which the boldest need not defy, the most profound -need not attempt to explain with clarity, the most brilliantly -sophistical to argue away. Its forms of beauty, triviality, -magnificence, imbecility, loveliness, stupidity, holiness, purity -and bestiality neither detract from nor add to its unalterable -power. As the earth revolves upon its axis and reveals night and -day, Spring, Summer and Winter, so it reveals this ceaselessly -working Force. Men who were as gods have been uplifted or broken -by it, fools have trifled with it, brutes have sullied it, saints -have worshipped, poets sung and wits derided it. As electricity -is a force death dealing, or illuminating and power bestowing, so -is this Great Impeller, and it is fatuous--howsoever worldly wise -or moderately sardonic one would choose to be--to hint ironically -that its proportions are less than the ages have proved them. -Whether a world formed without a necessity for the presence and -assistance of this psychological factor would have been a better -or a worse one, it is--by good fortune--not here imperative that -one should attempt to decide. What is--exists. None of us created -it. Each one will deal with the Impeller as he himself either -sanely or madly elects. He will also bear the consequences--and so -also may others. - -Of this force the Head of the House of Coombe and his old friend -knew much and had often spoken to each other. They had both been -accustomed to recognizing its signs subtle or crude, and watching -their development. They had seen it in the eyes of creatures young -enough to be called boys and girls, they had heard it in musical -laughter and in silly giggles, they had seen it express itself in -tragedy and comedy and watched it end in union or in a nothingness -which melted away like a wisp of fog. But they knew it was a thing -omnipresent and that no one passed through life untouched by it -in some degree. - -Years before this evening two children playing in a garden had -not know that the Power--the Thing--drew them with its greatest -strength because among myriads of atoms they two were created for -oneness. Enraptured and unaware they played together, their souls -and bodies drawn nearer each other every hour. - -So it was that--without being portentous--one may say that when -an unusually beautiful and unusually well dressed and perfectly -fitted young man turned involuntarily in the particular London ball -room in which Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' daughter watched the dancers, -and looked unintentionally into the eyes of a girl standing -for a moment near the wide entrance doors, the inexplicable and -unconquerable Force reconnected its currents again. - -Donal Muir's eyes only widened a little for a second's time. He -had not known why he had suddenly looked around and he did not -know why he was conscious of something which startled him a little. -You could not actually stare at a girl because your eyes chanced -to get entangled in hers for a second as you danced past her. It -was true she was of a startling prettiness and there was something--. -Yes, there was SOMETHING which drew the eye and--. He did not know -what it was. It had actually given him a sort of electric shock. -He laughed at himself a little and then his open brow looked -puzzled for a moment. - -"You saw Miss Lawless," said Sara Studleigh who was at the moment -dancing prettily with him. She was guilty of something which might -have been called a slight giggle, but it was good-natured. "I -know, you saw Miss Lawless--the pretty one near the door." - -"There are so many pretty ones near everything. You can't lift your -eyes without seeing one," Donal answered. "What a lot of them!" -(The sense of having received a slight electric shock made you -feel that you must look again and find out what had caused it, he -was thinking.) - -"She is the one with the eyelashes." - -"I have eyelashes--so have you," looking down at hers with a very -taking expression. Hers were in fact nice ones. - -"But ours are not two inches long and they don't make a big soft -circle round our eyes when we look at anyone." - -"Please look up and let me see," said Donal. "When I asked you to -dance with me I thought--" - -What a "way" he had, Sara Studleigh was thinking. But "perhaps it -WAS the eyelashes" was passing through Donal's mind. Very noticeable -eyelashes were rather arresting. - -"I knew you saw her," said Sara Studleigh, "because I have happened -to be near two or three people this evening when they caught their -first sight of her." - -"What happens to them?" asked Donal Muir. - -"They forget where they are," she laughed, "and don't say anything -for a few seconds." - -"I should not want to forget where I am. It wouldn't be possible -either," answered Donal. ("But that was it," he thought. "For a -minute I forgot.") - -One should not dance with one girl and talk to her about another. -Wisely he led her to other subjects. The music was swinging through -the air performing its everlasting miracle of swinging young souls -and pulses with it, the warmed flowers breathed more perceptible -scent, sweet chatter and laughter, swaying colour and glowing eyes -concentrated in making magic. This beautiful young man's pulses -only beat with the rest--as one with the pulse of the Universe. -Lady Lothwell acting for the Duchess was very kind to him finding -him another partner as soon as a new dance began--this time her -own daughter, Lady Kathryn. - -Even while he had been tangoing with Sara Studleigh he had seen -the girl with the eyelashes, whirling about with someone, and -when he began his dance with Kathryn, he caught a glimpse of her -at the other end of the room. And almost immediately Kathryn spoke -of her. - -"I don't know when you will get a dance with Miss Lawless," she -said. "She is obliged to work out mathematical problems on her -programme." - -"I have a setter who fixes his eyes on you and waits without -moving until you look at him and then he makes a dart and you're -obliged to pat him," he said. "Perhaps if I go and stand near her -and do that she will take notice of me." - -"Take notice of him, the enslaving thing!" thought Kathryn. "She'd -jump--for all her talk about lepers--any girl would. He's TOO nice! -There's something about HIM too." - -Robin did not jump. She had no time to do it because one dance -followed another so quickly and some of them were even divided in -two or three pieces. But the thrill of the singing sound of the -violins behind the greenery, the perfume and stately spaces and -thousand candlelights had suddenly been lifted on to another plane -though she had thought they could reach no higher one. Her whole -being was a keen fine awareness. Every moment she was AWARE. After -all the years--from the far away days--he had come back. No one -had dreamed of the queer half abnormal secret she had always kept -to herself as a child--as a little girl--as a bigger one when she -would have died rather than divulge that in her loneliness there -had been something she had remembered--something she had held on -to--a memory which she had actually made a companion of, making -pictures, telling herself stories in the dark, even inventing -conversations which not for one moment had she thought would -or could ever take place. But they had been living things to her -and her one near warm comfort--closer, oh, so weirdly closer than -kind, kind Dowie and dearly beloved Mademoiselle. She had wondered -if the two would have disapproved if they had known--if Mademoiselle -would have been shocked if she had realized that sometimes when -they walked together there walked with them a growing, laughing -boy in a swinging kilt and plaid and that he had a voice and eyes -that drew the heart out of your breast for joy. At first he had -only been a child like herself, but as she had grown he had grown -with her--but always taller, grander, marvellously masculine and -beyond compare. Yet never once had she dared to believe or hope -that he could take form before her eyes--a living thing. He had -only been the shadow she had loved and which could not be taken -away from her because he was her secret and no one could ever know. - -The music went swinging and singing with notes which were almost a -pain. And he was in the very room with her! Donal! Donal! He had -not known and did not know. He had laughed into her eyes without -knowing--but he had come back. A young man now like all the rest, -but more beautiful. What a laugh, what wonderful shoulders, what -wonderful dancing, how long and strongly smooth and supple he was -in the line fabric of his clothes! Though her mind did not form -these things in words for her, it was only that her eyes saw all -the charm of him from head to foot, and told her that he was only -more than ever what he had been in the miraculous first days. - -"Perhaps he will not find out at all," she thought, dancing all -the while and trying to talk as well as think. "I was too little -for him to remember. I only remembered because I had nothing else. -Oh, if he should not find out!" She could not go and tell him. -Even if a girl could do such a thing, perhaps he could not recall -a childish incident of so long ago--such a small, small thing. It -had only been immense to her and so much water had flowed under -his bridge bearing so many flotillas. She had only stood and -looked down at a thin trickling stream which carried no ships at -all. It was very difficult to keep her eyes from stealing--even -darting--about in search of him. His high fair head with the -clipped wave in its hair could be followed if one dared be alert. -He danced with an auburn haired girl, he spun down the room with -a brown one, he paused for a moment to show the trick of a new step -to a tall one with black coils. He was at the end of the room, he -was tangoing towards her and she felt her heart beat and beat. -He passed close by and his eyes turned upon her and after he had -passed a queer little inner trembling would not cease. Oh! if he -had looked a little longer--if her partner would only carry her -past him! And how dreadful she was to let herself feel so excited -when he could not be EXPECTED to remember such a little thing--just -a baby playing with him in a garden. Oh!--her heart giving a leap--if -he would look--if he would LOOK! - -When did she first awaken to a realization--after what seemed years -and years of waiting and not being able to conquer the inwardly -trembling feeling--that he was BEGINNING to look--that somehow he -had become aware of her presence and that it drew his eyes though -there was no special recognition in them? Down the full length -of the room they met hers first, and again as he passed with yet -another partner. Then when he was resting between danced and being -very gay indeed--though somehow he always seemed gay. He had been -gay when they played in the Gardens. Yes, his eyes cane and found -her. She thought he spoke of her to someone near him. Of course -Robin looked away and tried not to look again too soon. But when -in spite of intention and even determination, something forced her -glance and made it a creeping, following glance--there were his -eyes again. She was frightened each time it happened, but he was -not. She began to know with new beatings of the pulse that he no -longer looked by chance, but because he wanted to see her--and -wished her to see him, as if he had begun to call to her with a -gay Donal challenge. It was like that, though his demeanour was -faultlessly correct. - -The incident of their meeting was faultlessly correct, also, when -after one of those endless lapses of time Lady Lothwell appeared -and presented him as if the brief ceremony were one of the most -ordinary in existence. The conventional grace of his bow said no -more than George's had said to those looking on, but when he put -his arm round her and they began to sway together in the dance, -Robin wondered in terror if he could not feel the beating of her -heart under his hand. If he could it would be horrible--but it -would not stop. To be so near--to try to believe it--to try to -make herself remember that she could mean nothing to him and that -it was only she who was shaking--for nothing! But she could not -help it. This was the disjointed kind of thing that flew past her -mental vision. She was not a shy girl, but she could not speak. -Curiously enough he also was quite silent for several moments. -They danced for a space without a word and they did not notice -that people began to watch them because they were an attracting -pair to watch. And the truth was that neither of the two knew in -the least what the other thought. - -"That--is a beautiful waltz," he said at last. He said it in a -low meaning voice as if it were a sort of emotional confidence. -He had not actually meant to speak in such a tone, but when he -realized what its sound had been he did not care in the least. -What was the matter with him? - -"Yes," Robin answered. (Only "Yes.") - -He had not known when he glanced at her first, he was saying -mentally. He could not, of course, swear to her now. But what an -extraordinary thing that--! She was like a swallow--she was like -any swift flying thing on a man's arm. One could go on to the end -of time. Once round the great ball room, twice, and as the third -round began he gave a little laugh and spoke again. - -"I am going to ask you a question. May I?" - -"Yes." - -"Is your name Robin?" - -"Yes," she could scarcely breathe it. - -"I thought it was," in the voice in which he had spoken of the -music. "I hoped it was--after I first began to suspect. I HOPED -it was." - -"It is--it is." - -"Did we--" he had not indeed meant that his arm should hold her -a shade closer, but--in spite of himself--it did because he was -after all so little more than a boy, "--did we play together in -a garden?" - -"Yes--yes," breathed Robin. "We did." Surely she heard a sound -as if he had caught a quick breath. But after it there were a few -more steps and another brief space of silence. - -"I knew," he said next, very low. "I KNEW that we played together -in a garden." - -"You did not know when you first looked at me tonight." Innocently -revealing that even his first glance had been no casual thing to -her. - -But his answer revealed something too. - -"You were near the door--just coming into the room. I didn't know -why you startled me. I kept looking for you afterwards in the -crowd." - -"I didn't see you look," said Robin softly, revealing still more -in her utter inexperience. - -"No, because you wouldn't look at me--you were too much engaged. -Do you like this step?" - -"I like them all." - -"Do you always dance like this? Do you always make your partner -feel as if he had danced with you all his life?" - -"It is--because we played together in the garden," said Robin -and then was quite terrified at herself. Because after all--after -all they were only two conventional young people meeting for the -first time at a dance, not knowing each other in the least. It -was really the first time. The meeting of two children could not -count. But the beating and strange elated inward tremor would not -stop. - -As for him he felt abnormal also and he was usually a very normal -creature. It was abnormal to be so excited that he found himself, -as it were, upon another plane, because he had recognized and was -dancing with a girl he had not seen since she was five or six. -It was not normal that he should be possessed by a desire to keep -near to her, overwhelmed by an impelling wish to talk to her--to -ask her questions. About what--about herself--themselves--the years -between--about the garden. - -"It began to come back bit by bit after I had two fair looks. You -passed me several times though you didn't know." (Oh! had she not -known!) "I had been promised some dances by other people. But I -went to Lady Lothwell. She's very kind." - -Back swept the years and it had all begun again, the wonderful -happiness--just as the anguish had swept back on the night her -mother had come to talk to her. As he had brought it into her -dreary little world then, he brought it now. He had the power. -She was so happy that she seemed to be only waiting to hear what -he would say--as if that were enough. There are phases like this--rare -ones--and it was her fate that through such a phase she was passing. - -It was indeed true that much more water had passed under his -bridge than under hers, but now--! Memory reproduced for him with -an acuteness like actual pain, a childish torment he thought he had -forgotten. And it was as if it had been endured only yesterday--and -as if the urge to speak and explain was as intense as it had been -on the first day. - -"She's very little and she won't understand," he had said to his -mother. "She's very little, really--perhaps she'll cry." - -How monstrous it had seemed! Had she cried--poor little soul! -He looked down at her eyelashes. Her cheek had been of the same -colour and texture then. That came back to him too. The impulse to -tighten his arms was infernally powerful--almost automatic. - -"She has no one but me to remember!" he heard his own child voice -saying fiercely. Good Lord, it WAS as if it had been yesterday. -He actually gulped something down in his throat. - -"You haven't rested much," he said aloud. "There's a conservatory -with marble seats and corners and a fountain going. Will you let -me take you there when we stop dancing? I want to apologize to -you." - -The eyelashes lifted themselves and made round her eyes the -big soft shadow of which Sara Studleigh had spoken. A strong and -healthy valvular organ in his breast lifted itself curiously at -the same time. - -"To apologize?" - -Was he speaking to her almost as if she were still four or five? -It was to the helplessness of those years he was about to explain--and -yet he did not feel as though he were still eight. - -"I want to tell you why I never came back to the garden. It was -a broken promise, wasn't it?" - -The music had not ceased, but they stopped dancing. - -"Will you come?" he said and she went with him like a child--just -as she had followed in her babyhood. It seemed only natural to do -what he asked. - -The conservatory was like an inner Paradise now. The tropically -scented warmth--the tiers on tiers of bloom above bloom--the -softened swing of music--the splash of the fountain on water and -leaves. Their plane had lifted itself too. They could hear the -splashing water and sometimes feel it in the corner seat of marble -he took her to. A crystal drop fell on her hand when she sat down. -The blue of his eyes was vaguely troubled and he spoke as if he -were not certain of himself. - -"I was wakened up in what seemed to me the middle of the night," -he said, as if indeed the thing had happened only the day before. -"My mother was obliged to go back suddenly to Scotland. I was only -a little chap, but it nearly finished me. Parents and guardians -don't understand how gigantic such a thing can be. I had promised -you--we had promised each other--hadn't we?" - -"Yes," said Robin. Her eyes were fixed upon his face--open and -unmoving. Such eyes! Such eyes! All the touchingness of the past -was in their waiting on his words. - -"Children--little boys especially--are taught that they must not -cry out when they are hurt. As I sat in the train through the -journey that day I thought my heart would burst in my small breast. -I turned my back and stared out of the window for fear my mother -would see my face. I'd always loved her. Do you know I think that -just then I HATED her. I had never hated anything before. Good -Lord! What a thing for a little chap to go through! My mother was -an angel, but she didn't KNOW." - -"No," said Robin in a small strange voice and without moving her -gaze. "She didn't KNOW." - -He had seated himself on a sort of low marble stool near her and -he held a knee with clasped hands. They were hands which held each -other for the moment with a sort of emotional clinch. His position -made him look upward at her instead of down. - -"It was YOU I was wild about," he said. "You see it was YOU. I -could have stood it for myself. The trouble was that I felt I was -such a big little chap. I thought I was years--ages older than -you--and mountains bigger," his faint laugh was touched with pity -for the smallness of the big little chap. "You seemed so tiny and -pretty--and lonely." - -"I was as lonely as a new-born bird fallen out of its nest." - -"You had told me you had 'nothing.' You said no one had ever kissed -you. I'd been loved all my life. You had a wondering way of fixing -your eyes on me as if I could give you everything--perhaps it was -a coxy little chap's conceit that made me love you for it--but -perhaps it wasn't." - -"You WERE everything," Robin said--and the mere simpleness of -the way in which she said it brought the garden so near that he -smelt the warm hawthorn and heard the distant piano organ and it -quickened his breath. - -"It was because I kept seeing your eyes and hearing your laugh -that I thought my heart was bursting. I knew you'd go and wait for -me--and gradually your little face would begin to look different. -I knew you'd believe I'd come. 'She's little'--that was what I kept -saying to myself again and again. 'And she'll cry--awfully--and -she'll think I did it. She'll never know.' There,"--he hesitated -a moment--"there was a kind of mad shame in it. As if I'd BETRAYED -your littleness and your belief, though I was too young to know -what betraying was." - -Just as she had looked at him before, "as if he could give her -everything," she was looking at him now. In what other way could -she look while he gave her this wonderful soothing, binding softly -all the old wounds with unconscious, natural touch because he had -really been all her child being had been irradiated and warmed -by. There was no pose in his manner--no sentimental or flirtatious -youth's affecting of a picturesque attitude. It was real and he -told her this thing because he must for his own relief. - -"Did you cry?" he said. "Did my little chap's conceit make too -much of it? I suppose I ought to hope it did." - -Robin put her hand softly against her heart. - -"No," she answered. "I was only a baby, but I think it KILLED -something--here." - -He caught a big hard breath. - -"Oh!" he said and for a few seconds simply sat and gazed at her. - -"But it came to life again?" he said afterwards. - -"I don't know. I don't know what it was. Perhaps it could only -live in a very little creature. But it was killed." - -"I say!" broke from him. "It was like wringing a canary's neck -when it was singing in the sun!" - -A sudden swelling of the music of a new dance swept in to them -and he rose and stood up before her. - -"Thank you for giving me my chance to tell you," he said. "This -was the apology. You have been kind to listen." - -"I wanted to listen," Robin said. "I am glad I didn't live a long -time and grow old and die without your telling me. When I saw you -tonight I almost said aloud, 'He's come back!'" - -"I'm glad I came. It's queer how one can live a thing over again. -There have been all the years between for us both. For me there's -been all a lad's life--tutors and Eton and Oxford and people and -lots of travel and amusement. But the minute I set eyes on you -near the door something must have begun to drag me back. I'll own -I've never liked to let myself dwell on that memory. It wasn't a -good thing because it had a trick of taking me back in a fiendish -way to the little chap with his heart bursting in the railway -carriage--and the betrayal feeling. It's morbid to let yourself -grouse over what can't be undone. So you faded away. But when I -danced past you somehow I knew I'd come on SOMETHING. It made me -restless. I couldn't keep my eyes away decently. Then all at once -I KNEW! I couldn't tell you what the effect was. There you were -again--I was as much obliged to tell you as I should have been if -I'd found you at Braemarnie when I got there that night. Conventions -had nothing to do with it. It would not have mattered even if -you'd obviously thought I was a fool. You might have thought so, -you know." - -"No, I mightn't," answered Robin. "There have been no Eton and -Oxford and amusements for me. This is my first party." - -She rose as he had done and they stood for a second or so with their -eyes resting on each other's--each with a young smile quivering -into life which neither was conscious of. It was she who first -wakened and came back. He saw a tiny pulse flutter in her throat -and she lifted her hand with a delicate gesture. - -"This dance was Lord Halwyn's and we've sat it out. We must go -back to the ball room." - -"I--suppose--we must," he answered with slow reluctance--but he -could scarcely drag his eyes away from hers--even though he obeyed, -and they turned and went. - -In the shining ball room the music rose and fell and swelled again -into ecstasy as he took her white young lightness in his arm and -they swayed and darted and swooped like things of the air--while -the old Duchess and Lord Coombe looked on almost unseeing and -talked in murmurs of Sarajevo. - -THE END - -PUBLISHERS' NOTE - -The inflexible limitations of magazine space necessitated the -omission--in its serial form--of so large a portion of THE -HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE as to eliminate much of the charm -of characterization and the creation of atmosphere and background -which add so greatly to the power and picturesqueness of the -author's work. - -These values having been unavoidably lost in a greatly compressed -version, it is the publishers' desire to produce the story in its -entirety, and, as during its writing it developed into what might -be regarded as two novels--so distinctly does it deal with two -epochs--it has been decided to present it to its public as two -separate books. The first, THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE, deals -with social life in London during the evolutionary period between -the late Victorian years and the reign of Edward VII and that of -his successor, previous to the Great War. It brings Lord Coombe -and Donal, Feather and her girl Robin to the summer of 1914. It -ends with the ending of a world which can never again be the same. -The second novel, ROBIN, to be published later continues the story -of the same characters, facing existence, however, in a world -transformed by tragedy, and in which new aspects of character, new -social, economic, and spiritual possibilities are to be confronted, -rising to the surface of life as from the depths of unknown seas. -Readers of THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE will follow -the story of Robin with intensified interest. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Head of the House of Coombe -by Frances Hodgson Burnett - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE *** - -This file should be named hdhcm10.txt or hdhcm10.zip -Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, hdhcm11.txt -VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, hdhcm10a.txt - -Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks -and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. - -Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US -unless a copyright notice is included. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Head of the House of Coombe - -Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett - -Release Date: December 22, 2002 [eBook #6491] -[Most recently updated: January 11, 2021] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE *** - -[Illustration] - - - - -The Head of the House of Coombe - -by Frances Hodgson Burnett - -NEW YORK - - -Contents - - CHAPTER I - CHAPTER II - CHAPTER III - CHAPTER IV - CHAPTER V - CHAPTER VI - CHAPTER VII - CHAPTER VIII - CHAPTER IX - CHAPTER X - CHAPTER XI - CHAPTER XII - CHAPTER XIII - CHAPTER XIV - CHAPTER XV - CHAPTER XVI - CHAPTER XVII - CHAPTER XVIII - CHAPTER XIX - CHAPTER XX - CHAPTER XXI - CHAPTER XXII - CHAPTER XXIII - CHAPTER XXIV - CHAPTER XXV - CHAPTER XXVI - CHAPTER XXVII - CHAPTER XXVIII - CHAPTER XXIX - CHAPTER XXX - CHAPTER XXXI - CHAPTER XXXII - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -The history of the circumstances about to be related began many years -ago—or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, years before the -world being rocked to and fro revealed in the pause between each of its -heavings some startling suggestion of a new arrangement of its -kaleidoscopic particles, and then immediately a re-arrangement, and -another and another until all belief in a permanency of design seemed -lost, and the inhabitants of the earth waited, helplessly gazing at -changing stars and colours in a degree of mental chaos. - -Its opening incidents may be dated from a period when people still had -reason to believe in permanency and had indeed many of them—sometimes -through ingenuousness, sometimes through stupidity of type—acquired a -singular confidence in the importance and stability of their -possessions, desires, ambitions and forms of conviction. - -London at the time, in common with other great capitals, felt itself -rather final though priding itself on being much more fluid and -adaptable than it had been fifty years previously. In speaking of -itself it at least dealt with fixed customs, and conditions and -established facts connected with them—which gave rise to brilliant—or -dull—witticisms. - -One of these, heard not infrequently, was to the effect that—in -London—one might live under an umbrella if one lived under it in the -right neighbourhood and on the right side of the street, which axiom is -the reason that a certain child through the first six years of her life -sat on certain days staring out of a window in a small, dingy room on -the top floor of a slice of a house on a narrow but highly fashionable -London street and looked on at the passing of motors, carriages and -people in the dull afternoon grayness. - -The room was exalted above its station by being called The Day Nursery -and another room equally dingy and uninviting was known as The Night -Nursery. The slice of a house was inhabited by the very pretty Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless, its inordinate rent being reluctantly paid by -her—apparently with the assistance of those “ravens” who are expected -to supply the truly deserving. The rent was inordinate only from the -standpoint of one regarding it soberly in connection with the character -of the house itself which was a gaudy little kennel crowded between two -comparatively stately mansions. On one side lived an inordinately rich -South African millionaire, and on the other an inordinately exalted -person of title, which facts combined to form sufficient grounds for a -certain inordinateness of rent. - -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was also, it may be stated, of the fibre which must -live on the right side of the street or dissolve into nothingness—since -as nearly nothingness as an embodied entity can achieve had Nature -seemingly created her at the outset. So light and airy was the fair, -slim, physical presentation of her being to the earthly vision, and so -almost impalpably diaphanous the texture and form of mind and character -to be observed by human perception, that among such friends—and -enemies—as so slight a thing could claim she was prettily known as -“Feather”. Her real name, “Amabel”, was not half as charming and -whimsical in its appropriateness. “Feather” she adored being called and -as it was the fashion among the amazing if amusing circle in which she -spent her life, to call its acquaintances fantastic pet names selected -from among the world of birds, beasts and fishes or inanimate -objects—“Feather” she floated through her curious existence. And it so -happened that she was the mother of the child who so often stared out -of the window of the dingy and comfortless Day Nursery, too much a -child to be more than vaguely conscious in a chaotic way that a certain -feeling which at times raged within her and made her little body hot -and restless was founded on something like actual hate for a special -man who had certainly taken no deliberate steps to cause her -detestation. - -“Feather” had not been called by that delicious name when she married -Robert Gareth-Lawless who was a beautiful and irresponsibly rather than -deliberately bad young man. She was known as Amabel Darrel and the -loveliest girl in the lovely corner of the island of Jersey where her -father, a country doctor, had begotten a large family of lovely -creatures and brought them up on the appallingly inadequate proceeds of -his totally inadequate practice. Pretty female things must be disposed -of early lest their market value decline. Therefore a well-born young -man even without obvious resources represents a sail in the offing -which is naturally welcomed as possibly belonging to a bark which may -at least bear away a burden which the back carrying it as part of its -pack will willingly shuffle on to other shoulders. It is all very well -for a man with six lovely daughters to regard them as capital if he has -money or position or generous relations or if he has energy and an -ingenious unfatigued mind. But a man who is tired and neither clever -nor important in any degree and who has reared his brood in one of the -Channel Islands with a faded, silly, unattractive wife as his only aid -in any difficulty, is wise in leaving the whole hopeless situation to -chance and luck. Sometimes luck comes without assistance but—almost -invariably—it does not. - -“Feather”—who was then “Amabel”—thought Robert Gareth-Lawless -incredible good luck. He only drifted into her summer by merest chance -because a friend’s yacht in which he was wandering about “came in” for -supplies. A girl Ariel in a thin white frock and with big larkspur blue -eyes yearning at you under her flapping hat as she answers your -questions about the best road to somewhere will not be too difficult -about showing the way herself. And there you are at a first-class -beginning. - -The night after she met Gareth-Lawless in a lane whose banks were thick -with bluebells, Amabel and her sister Alice huddled close together in -bed and talked almost pantingly in whispers over the possibilities -which might reveal themselves—God willing—through a further -acquaintance with Mr. Gareth-Lawless. They were eager and breathlessly -anxious but they were young—_young_ in their eagerness and Amabel was -full of delight in his good looks. - -“He is _so_ handsome, Alice,” she whispered actually hugging her, not -with affection but exultation. “And he can’t be more than twenty-six or -seven. And I’m _sure_ he liked me. You know that way a man has of -looking at you—one sees it even in a place like this where there are -only curates and things. He has brown eyes—like dark bright water in -pools. Oh, Alice, if he _should!_” - -Alice was not perhaps as enthusiastic as her sister. Amabel had seen -him first and in the Darrel household there was a sort of unwritten, -not always observed code flimsily founded on “First come first served.” -Just at the outset of an acquaintance one might say “Hands off” as it -were. But not for long. - -“It doesn’t matter how pretty one is they seldom do,” Alice grumbled. -“And he mayn’t have a farthing.” - -“Alice,” whispered Amabel almost agonizingly, “I wouldn’t _care_ a -farthing—if only he _would!_ Have I a farthing—have you a farthing—has -anyone who ever comes here a farthing? He lives in London. He’d take me -away. To live even in a back street _in London_ would be Heaven! And -one _must_—as soon as one possibly can.—One _must!_ And Oh!” with -another hug which this time was a shudder, “think of what Doris Harmer -had to do! Think of his thick red old neck and his horrid fatness! And -the way he breathed through his nose. Doris said that at first it used -to make her ill to look at him.” - -“She’s got over it,” whispered Alice. “She’s almost as fat as he is -now. And she’s loaded with pearls and things.” - -“I shouldn’t have to ‘get over’ anything,” said Amabel, “if this one -_would_. I could fall in love with him in a minute.” - -“Did you hear what Father said?” Alice brought out the words rather -slowly and reluctantly. She was not eager on the whole to yield up a -detail which after all added glow to possible prospects which from her -point of view were already irritatingly glowing. Yet she could not -resist the impulse of excitement. “No, you didn’t hear. You were out of -the room.” - -“What about? Something about _him?_ I hope it wasn’t horrid. How could -it be?” - -“He said,” Alice drawled with a touch of girlishly spiteful -indifference, “that if he was one of the poor Gareth-Lawlesses he -hadn’t much chance of succeeding to the title. His uncle—Lord Lawdor—is -only forty-five and he has four splendid healthy boys—perfect little -giants.” - -“Oh, I didn’t know there was a title. How splendid,” exclaimed Amabel -rapturously. Then after a few moments’ innocent maiden reflection she -breathed with sweet hopefulness from under the sheet, “Children so -often have scarlet fever or diphtheria, and you know they say those -very strong ones are more likely to die than the other kind. The Vicar -of Sheen lost _four_ all in a week. And the Vicar died too. The doctor -said the diphtheria wouldn’t have killed him if the shock hadn’t -helped.” - -Alice—who had a teaspoonful more brain than her sister—burst into a fit -of giggling it was necessary to smother by stuffing the sheet in her -mouth. - -“Oh! Amabel!” she gurgled. “You _are_ such a donkey! You would have -been silly enough to say that even if people could have heard you. -Suppose _he_ had!” - -“Why should he care,” said Amabel simply. “One can’t help thinking -things. If it happened he would be the Earl of Lawdor and—” - -She fell again into sweet reflection while Alice giggled a little more. -Then she herself stopped and thought also. After all perhaps—! One had -to be practical. The tenor of her thoughts was such that she did not -giggle again when Amabel broke the silence by whispering with -tremulous, soft devoutness. - -“Alice—do you think that praying _really_ helps?” - -“I’ve prayed for things but I never got them,” answered Alice. “But you -know what the Vicar said on Sunday in sermon about ‘Ask and ye shall -receive’.” - -“Perhaps you haven’t prayed in the right spirit,” Amabel suggested with -true piety. “Shall we—shall we try? Let us get out of bed and kneel -down.” - -“Get out of bed and kneel down yourself,” was Alice’s sympathetic -rejoinder. “You wouldn’t take that much trouble for _me_.” - -Amabel sat up on the edge of the bed. In the faint moonlight and her -white night-gown she was almost angelic. She held the end of the long -fair soft plait hanging over her shoulder and her eyes were full of -reproach. - -“I think you ought to take _some_ interest,” she said plaintively. “You -know there would be more chances for you and the others—if I were not -here.” - -“I’ll wait until you are not here,” replied the unstirred Alice. - -But Amabel felt there was no time for waiting in this particular case. -A yacht which “came in” might so soon “put out”. She knelt down, -clasping her slim young hands and bending her forehead upon them. In -effect she implored that Divine Wisdom might guide Mr. Robert -Gareth-Lawless in the much desired path. She also made divers promises -because nothing is so easy as to promise things. She ended with a -gently fervent appeal that—if her prayer were granted—something “might -happen” which would result in her becoming a Countess of Lawdor. One -could not have put the request with greater tentative delicacy. - -She felt quite uplifted and a trifle saintly when she rose from her -knees. Alice had actually fallen asleep already and she sighed quite -tenderly as she slipped into the place beside her. Almost as her lovely -little head touched the pillow her own eyes closed. Then she was asleep -herself—and in the faintly moonlit room with the long soft plait -trailing over her shoulder looked even more like an angel than before. - -Whether or not as a result of this touching appeal to the Throne of -Grace, Robert Gareth-Lawless _did_. In three months there was a wedding -at the very ancient village church, and the flowerlike bridesmaids -followed a flower of a bride to the altar and later in the day to the -station from where Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless went on their way -to London. Perhaps Alice and Olive also knelt by the side of their -white beds the night after the wedding, for on that propitious day two -friends of the bridegroom’s—one of them the owner of the yacht—decided -to return again to the place where there were to be found the most -nymphlike of pretty creatures a man had ever by any chance beheld. Such -delicate little fair crowned heads, such delicious little tip-tilted -noses and slim white throats, such ripples of gay chatter and nonsense! -When a man has fortune enough of his own why not take the prettiest -thing he sees? So Alice and Olive were borne away also and poor Mr. and -Mrs. Darrel breathed sighs of relief and there were not only more -chances but causes for bright hopefulness in the once crowded house -which now had rooms to spare. - -A certain inattention on the part of the Deity was no doubt responsible -for the fact that “something” did not “happen” to the family of Lord -Lawdor. On the contrary his four little giants of sons throve -astonishingly and a few months after the Gareth-Lawless wedding Lady -Lawdor—a trifle effusively, as it were—presented her husband with twin -male infants so robust that they were humorously known for years -afterwards as the “Twin Herculeses.” - -By that time Amabel had become “Feather” and despite Robert’s ingenious -and carefully detailed method of living upon nothing whatever, had many -reasons for knowing that “life is a back street in London” is not a -matter of beds of roses. Since the back street must be the “right -street” and its accompaniments must wear an aspect of at least seeming -to belong to the right order of detachment and fashionable ease, one -was always in debt and forced to keep out of the way of duns, and -obliged to pretend things and tell lies with aptness and outward -gaiety. Sometimes one actually was so far driven to the wall that one -could not keep most important engagements and the invention of -plausible excuses demanded absolute genius. The slice of a house -between the two big ones was a rash feature of the honeymoon but a year -of giving smart little dinners in it and going to smart big dinners -from it in a smart if small brougham ended in a condition somewhat akin -to the feat of balancing oneself on the edge of a sword. - -Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity of course. -Nobody had contemplated her for a moment. Feather cried for a week when -she first announced the probability of her advent. Afterwards however -she managed to forget the approaching annoyance and went to parties and -danced to the last hour continuing to be a great success because her -prettiness was delicious and her diaphanous mentality was no strain -upon the minds of her admirers male and female. - -That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light -weight when Robin in the form of a bundle of lace was carried down by -her nurse to be exhibited in the gaudy crowded little drawing-room in -the slice of a house in the Mayfair street. - -It was the Head of the House of Coombe who asked the first question -about her. - -“What will you _do_ with her?” he inquired detachedly. - -The frequently referred to “babe unborn” could not have presented a -gaze of purer innocence than did the lovely Feather. Her eyes of -larkspur blueness were clear of any thought or intention as spring -water is clear at its unclouded best. - -Her ripple of a laugh was clear also—enchantingly clear. - -“Do!” repeated. “What is it people ‘do’ with babies? I suppose the -nurse knows. I don’t. I wouldn’t touch her for the world. She frightens -me.” - -She floated a trifle nearer and bent to look at her. - -“I shall call her Robin,” she said. “Her name is really Roberta as she -couldn’t be called Robert. People will turn round to look at a girl -when they hear her called Robin. Besides she has eyes like a robin. I -wish she’d open them and let you see.” - -By chance she did open them at the moment—quite slowly. They were dark -liquid brown and seemed to be all lustrous iris which gazed unmovingly -at the object in of focus. That object was the Head of the House of -Coombe. - -“She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze,” he said, and -stared back unmovingly also, but with a sort of cold interest. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -The Head of the House of Coombe was not a title to be found in Burke or -Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head’s own and having been accepted -by his acquaintances was not infrequently used by them in their light -moments in the same spirit. The peerage recorded him as a Marquis and -added several lesser attendant titles. - -“When English society was respectable, even to stodginess at times,” -was his point of view, “to be born ‘the Head of the House’ was a -weighty and awe-inspiring thing. In fearful private denunciatory -interviews with one’s parents and governors it was brought up against -one as a final argument against immoral conduct such as debt and not -going to church. As the Head of the House one was called upon to be an -Example. In the country one appeared in one’s pew and announced oneself -a ‘miserable sinner’ in loud tones, one had to invite the rector to -dinner with regularity and ‘the ladies’ of one’s family gave tea and -flannel petticoats and baby clothes to cottagers. Men and women were -known as ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ in those halcyon days. One -Represented things—Parties in Parliament—Benevolent Societies, and -British Hospitality in the form of astounding long dinners at which one -drank healths and made speeches. In roseate youth one danced the -schottische and the polka and the round waltz which Lord Byron -denounced as indecent. To recall the vigour of his poem gives rise to a -smile—when one chances to sup at a cabaret.” - -He was considered very amusing when he analyzed his own mental attitude -towards his world in general. - -“I was born somewhat too late and somewhat too early,” he explained in -his light, rather cold and detached way. “I was born and educated at -the closing of one era and have to adjust myself to living in another. -I was as it were cradled among treasured relics of the ethics of the -Georges and Queen Charlotte, and Queen Victoria in her bloom. _I_ was -in my bloom in the days when ‘ladies’ were reproved for wearing dresses -cut too low at Drawing Rooms. Such training gives curious interest to -fashions in which bodices are unconsidered trifles and Greek nymphs who -dance with bare feet and beautiful bare legs may be one’s own -relations. I trust I do not seem even in the shadowiest way to comment -unfavourably. I merely look on at the rapidities of change with -unalloyed interest. As the Head of the House of Coombe I am not sure -_what_ I am an Example of—or to. Which is why I at times regard myself -in that capacity with a slightly ribald lightness.” - -The detachment of his question with regard to the newborn infant of the -airily irresponsible Feather was in entire harmony with his attitude -towards the singular incident of Life as illustrated by the World, the -Flesh and the Devil by none of which he was—as far as could be -observed—either impressed, disturbed or prejudiced. His own experience -had been richly varied and practically unlimited in its opportunities -for pleasure, sinful or unsinful indulgence, mitigated or unmitigated -wickedness, the gathering of strange knowledge, and the possible -ignoring of all dull boundaries. This being the case a superhuman -charity alone could have forborne to believe that his opportunities had -been neglected in the heyday of his youth. Wealth and lack of -limitations in themselves would have been quite enough to cause the -Nonconformist Victorian mind to regard a young—or middle-aged—male as -likely to represent a fearsome moral example, but these three -temptations combined with good looks and a certain mental brilliance -were so inevitably the concomitants of elegant iniquity that the -results might be taken for granted. - -That the various worlds in which he lived in various lands accepted him -joyfully as an interesting and desirable of more or less abominably -sinful personage, the Head of the House of Coombe—even many years -before he became its head—regarded with the detachment which he had, -even much earlier, begun to learn. Why should it be in the least matter -what people thought of one? Why should it in the least matter what one -thought of oneself—and therefore—why should one think at all? He had -begun at the outset a brilliantly happy young pagan with this simple -theory. After the passing of some years he had not been quite so happy -but had remained quite as pagan and retained the theory which had lost -its first fine careless rapture and gained a secret bitterness. He had -not married and innumerable stories were related to explain the reason -why. They were most of them quite false and none of them quite true. -When he ceased to be a young man his delinquency was much discussed, -more especially when his father died and he took his place as the head -of his family. He was old enough, rich enough, important enough for -marriage to be almost imperative. But he remained unmarried. In -addition he seemed to consider his abstinence entirely an affair of his -own. - -“Are you as wicked as people say you are?” a reckless young woman once -asked him. She belonged to the younger set which was that season trying -recklessness, in a tentative way, as a new fashion. - -“I really don’t know. It is so difficult to decide,” he answered. “I -could tell better if I knew exactly what wickedness is. When I find out -I will let you know. So good of you to take an interest.” - -Thirty years earlier he knew that a young lady who had heard he was -wicked would have perished in flames before immodestly mentioning the -fact to him, but might have delicately attempted to offer “first aid” -to reformation, by approaching with sweetness the subject of going to -church. - -The reckless young woman looked at him with an attention which he was -far from being blind enough not to see was increased by his answer. - -“I never know what you mean,” she said almost wistfully. - -“Neither do I,” was his amiable response. “And I am sure it would not -be worth while going into. Really, we neither of us know what we mean. -Perhaps I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may have painful -limitations—or I may not.” - -After his father’s death he spent rather more time in London and rather -less in wandering over the face of the globe. But by the time he was -forty he knew familiarly far countries and near and was intimate with -most of the peoples thereof. He could have found his way about -blind-folded in the most distinctive parts of most of the great cities. -He had seen and learned many things. The most absorbing to his mind had -been the ambitions and changes of nations, statesmen, rulers and those -they ruled or were ruled by. Courts and capitals knew him, and his -opportunities were such as gave him all ease as an onlooker. He was -outwardly of the type which does not arouse caution in talkers and he -heard much which was suggestive even to illumination, from those to -whom he remained unsuspected of being a man who remembered things long -and was astute in drawing conclusions. The fact remained however that -he possessed a remarkable memory and one which was not a rag-bag filled -with unassorted and parti-coloured remnants, but a large and orderly -space whose contents were catalogued and filed and well enclosed from -observation. He was also given to the mental argument which follows a -point to its conclusion as a mere habit of mind. He saw and knew well -those who sat and pondered with knit brows and cautiously hovering hand -at the great chess-board which is formed by the Map of Europe. He found -an enormous interest in watching their play. It was his fortune as a -result of his position to know persons who wore crowns and a natural -incident in whose lives it was to receive the homage expressed by the -uncovering of the head and the bending of the knee. At forty he looked -back at the time when the incongruousness, the abnormality and the -unsteadiness of the foundations on which such personages stood first -struck him. The realization had been in its almost sacrilegious novelty -and daring, a sort of thunderbolt passing through his mind. He had at -the time spoken of it only to one person. - -“I have no moral or ethical views to offer,” he had said. “I only -_see_. The thing—as it is—will disintegrate. I am so at sea as to what -will take its place that I feel as if the prospect were rather -horrible. One has had the old landmarks and been impressed by the old -pomp and picturesqueness so many centuries, that one cannot see the -earth without them. There have been kings even in the Cannibal -Islands.” - -As a statesman or a diplomat he would have seen far but he had been too -much occupied with Life as an entertainment, too self-indulgent for -work of any order. He freely admitted to himself that he was a -worthless person but the fact did not disturb him. Having been born -with a certain order of brain it observed and worked in spite of him, -thereby adding flavour and interest to existence. But that was all. - -It cannot be said that as the years passed he quite enjoyed the fact -that he knew he was rarely spoken of to a stranger without its being -mentioned that he was the most perfectly dressed man in London. He -rather detested the idea though he was aware that the truth was -unimpeachable. The perfection of his accompaniments had arisen in his -youth from a secret feeling for fitness and harmony. Texture and colour -gave him almost abnormal pleasure. His expression of this as a -masculine creature had its limits which resulted in a concentration on -perfection. Even at five-and-twenty however he had never been called a -dandy and even at five-and-forty no one had as yet hinted at Beau -Brummel though by that time men as well as women frequently described -to each other the cut and colour of the garments he wore, and tailors -besought him to honour them with crumbs of his patronage in the -ambitious hope that they might mention him as a client. And the simple -fact that he appeared in a certain colour or cut set it at once on its -way to become a fashion to be seized upon, worn and exaggerated until -it was dropped suddenly by its originator and lost in the oblivion of -cheap imitations and cheap tailor shops. The first exaggeration of the -harmony he had created and the original was seen no more. - -Feather herself had a marvellous trick in the collecting of her -garments. It was a trick which at times barely escaped assuming the -proportions of absolute creation. Her passion for self-adornment -expressed itself in ingenious combination and quite startling -uniqueness of line now and then. Her slim fairness and ash-gold -gossamer hair carried airily strange tilts and curves of little or -large hats or daring tints other women could not sustain but invariably -strove to imitate however disastrous the results. Beneath soft drooping -or oddly flopping brims hopelessly unbecoming to most faces hers looked -out quaintly lovely as a pictured child’s wearing its grandmother’s -bonnet. Everything draped itself about or clung to her in entrancing -folds which however whimsical were never grotesque. - -“Things are always becoming to me,” she said quite simply. “But often I -stick a few pins into a dress to tuck it up here and there, or if I -give a hat a poke somewhere to make it crooked, they are much more -becoming. People are always asking me how I do it but I don’t know how. -I bought a hat from Cerise last week and I gave it two little thumps -with my fist—one in the crown and one in the brim and they made it -wonderful. The maid of the most grand kind of person tried to find out -from my maid where I bought it. I wouldn’t let her tell of course.” - -She created fashions and was imitated as was the Head of the House of -Coombe but she was enraptured by the fact and the entire power of such -gray matter as was held by her small brain cells was concentrated upon -her desire to evolve new fantasies and amazements for her world. - -Before he had been married for a year there began to creep into the -mind of Bob Gareth-Lawless a fearsome doubt remotely hinting that she -might end by becoming an awful bore in the course of time—particularly -if she also ended by being less pretty. She chattered so incessantly -about nothing and was such an empty-headed, extravagant little fool in -her insistence on clothes—clothes—clothes—as if they were the breath of -life. After watching her for about two hours one morning as she sat -before her mirror directing her maid to arrange and re-arrange her hair -in different styles—in delicate puffs and curls and straying rings—soft -bands and loops—in braids and coils—he broke forth into an uneasy short -laugh and expressed himself—though she did not know he was expressing -himself and would not have understood him if she had. - -“If you have a soul—and I’m not at all certain you have—” he said, -“it’s divided into a dressmaker’s and a hairdresser’s and a milliner’s -shop. It’s full of tumbled piles of hats and frocks and diamond combs. -It’s an awful mess, Feather.” - -“I hope it’s a shoe shop and a jeweller’s as well,” she laughed quite -gaily. “And a lace-maker’s. I need every one of them.” - -“It’s a rag shop,” he said. “It has nothing but _chiffons_ in it.” - -“If ever I _do_ think of souls I think of them as silly gauzy things -floating about like little balloons,” was her cheerful response. - -“That’s an idea,” he answered with a rather louder laugh. “Yours might -be made of pink and blue gauze spangled with those things you call -_paillettes_.” - -The fancy attracted her. - -“If I had one like that”—with a pleased creative air, “it would look -rather ducky floating from my shoulder—or even my hat—or my hair in the -evenings, just held by a tiny sparkling chain fastened with a diamond -pin—and with lovely little pink and blue streamers.” With the touch of -genius she had at once relegated it to its place in the scheme of her -universe. And Robert laughed even louder than before. - -“You mustn’t make me laugh,” she said holding up her hand. “I am having -my hair done to match that quakery thin pale mousey dress with the tiny -poke bonnet—and I want to try my face too. I must look sweet and -demure. You mustn’t really laugh when you wear a dress and hat like -that. You must only smile.” - -Some months earlier Bob would have found it difficult to believe that -she said this entirely without any touch of humour but he realized now -that it was so said. He had some sense of humour of his own and one of -his reasons for vaguely feeling that she might become a bore was that -she had none whatever. - -It was at the garden party where she wore the thin quakery mousey dress -and tiny poke bonnet that the Head of the House of Coombe first saw -her. It was at the place of a fashionable artist who lived at Hampstead -and had a garden and a few fine old trees. It had been Feather’s -special intention to strike this note of delicate dim colour. Every -other woman was blue or pink or yellow or white or flowered and she in -her filmy coolness of unusual hue stood out exquisitely among them. -Other heads wore hats broad or curved or flopping, hers looked like a -little nun’s or an imaginary portrait of a delicious young -great-grandmother. She was more arresting than any other female -creature on the emerald sward or under the spreading trees. - -When Coombe’s eyes first fell upon her he was talking to a group of -people and he stopped speaking. Someone standing quite near him said -afterwards that he had for a second or so become pale—almost as if he -saw something which frightened him. - -“Who is that under the copper beech—being talked to by Harlow?” he -inquired. - -Feather was in fact listening with a gentle air and with her eyelids -down drooped to the exact line harmonious with the angelic little poke -bonnet. - -“It is Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless—‘Feather’ we call her,” he was -answered. “Was there ever anything more artful than that startling -little smoky dress? If it was flame colour one wouldn’t see it as -quickly.” - -“One wouldn’t look at it as long,” said Coombe. “One is in danger of -staring. And the little hat—or bonnet—which pokes and is fastened under -her pink ear by a satin bow held by a loose pale bud! Will someone -rescue me from staring by leading me to her. It won’t be staring if I -am talking to her. Please.” - -The paleness appeared again as on being led across the grass he drew -nearer to the copper beech. He was still rather pale when Feather -lifted her eyes to him. Her eyes were so shaped by Nature that they -looked like an angel’s when they were lifted. There are eyes of that -particular cut. But he had not talked to her fifteen minutes before he -knew that there was no real reason why he should ever again lose his -colour at the sight of her. He had thought at first there was. With the -perception which invariably marked her sense of fitness of things she -had begun in the course of the fifteen minutes—almost before the colour -had quite returned to his face—the story of her husband’s idea of her -soul, as a balloon of pink and blue gauze spangled with _paillettes_. -And of her own inspiration of wearing it floating from her shoulder or -her hair by the light sparkling chain—and with delicate ribbon -streamers. She was much delighted with his laugh—though she thought it -had a rather cracked, harsh sound. She knew he was an important person -and she always felt she was being a success when people laughed. - -“Exquisite!” he said. “I shall never see you in the future without it. -But wouldn’t it be necessary to vary the colour at times?” - -“Oh! Yes—to match things,” seriously. “I couldn’t wear a pink and blue -one with this—” glancing over the smoky mousey thing “—or -_paillettes_.” - -“Oh, no—not _paillettes_,” he agreed almost with gravity, the harsh -laugh having ended. - -“One couldn’t imagine the exact colour in a moment. One would have to -think,” she reflected. “Perhaps a misty dim bluey thing—like the edge -of a rain-cloud—scarcely a colour at all.” - -For an instant her eyes were softly shadowed as if looking into a -dream. He watched her fixedly then. A woman who was a sort of angel -might look like that when she was asking herself how much her pure soul -might dare to pray for. Then he laughed again and Feather laughed also. - -Many practical thoughts had already begun to follow each other hastily -through her mind. It would be the best possible thing for them if he -really admired her. Bob was having all sorts of trouble with people -they owed money to. Bills were sent in again and again and disagreeable -letters were written. Her dressmaker and milliner had given her most -rude hints which could indeed be scarcely considered hints at all. She -scarcely dared speak to their smart young footman who she knew had only -taken the place in the slice of a house because he had been told that -it might be an opening to better things. She did not know the exact -summing up at the agency had been as follows: - -“They’re a good looking pair and he’s Lord Lawdor’s nephew. They’re -bound to have their fling and smart people will come to their house -because she’s so pretty. They’ll last two or three years perhaps and -you’ll open the door to the kind of people who remember a well set-up -young fellow if he shows he knows his work above the usual.” - -The more men of the class of the Head of the House of Coombe who came -in and out of the slice of a house the more likely the owners of it -were to get good invitations and continued credit, Feather was aware. -Besides which, she thought ingenuously, if he was rich he would no -doubt lend Bob money. She had already known that certain men who liked -her had done it. She did not mind it at all. One was obliged to have -money. - -This was the beginning of an acquaintance which gave rise to much -argument over tea-cups and at dinner parties and in boudoirs—even in -corners of Feather’s own gaudy little drawing-room. The argument -regarded the degree of Coombe’s interest in her. There was always -curiosity as to the degree of his interest in any woman—especially and -privately on the part of the woman herself. Casual and shallow -observers said he was quite infatuated if such a thing were possible to -a man of his temperament; the more concentrated of mind said it was not -possible to a man of his temperament and that any attraction Feather -might have for him was of a kind special to himself and that he alone -could explain it—and he would not. - -Remained however the fact that he managed to see a great deal of her. -It might be said that he even rather followed her about and more than -one among the specially concentrated of mind had seen him on occasion -stand apart a little and look at her—watch her—with an expression -suggesting equally profound thought and the profound intention to -betray his private meditations in no degree. There was no shadow of -profundity of thought in his treatment of her. He talked to her as she -best liked to be talked to about herself, her successes and her clothes -which were more successful than anything else. He went to the little -but exceedingly lively dinners the Gareth-Lawlesses gave and though he -was understood not to be fond of dancing now and then danced with her -at balls. - -Feather was guilelessly doubtless concerning him. She was quite sure -that he was in love with her. Her idea of that universal emotion was -that it was a matter of clothes and propinquity and loveliness and that -if one were at all clever one got things one wanted as a result of it. -Her overwhelming affection for Bob and his for her had given her life -in London and its entertaining accompaniments. Her frankness in the -matter of this desirable capture when she talked to her husband was at -once light and friendly. - -“Of course you will be able to get credit at his tailor’s as you know -him so well,” she said. “When I persuaded him to go with me to Madame -Hélène’s last week she was quite amiable. He helped me to choose six -dresses and I believe she would have let me choose six more.” - -“Does she think he is going to pay for them?” asked Bob. - -“It doesn’t matter what she thinks”; Feather laughed very prettily. - -“Doesn’t it?” - -“Not a bit. I shall have the dresses. What’s the matter, Rob? You look -quite red and cross.” - -“I’ve had a headache for three days,” he answered, “and I feel hot and -cross. I don’t care about a lot of things you say, Feather.” - -“Don’t be silly,” she retorted. “I don’t care about a lot of things you -say—and do, too, for the matter of that.” - -Robert Gareth-Lawless who was sitting on a chair in her dressing-room -grunted slightly as he rubbed his red and flushed forehead. - -“There’s a—sort of limit,” he commented. He hesitated a little before -he added sulkily “—to the things one—_says_.” - -“That sounds like Alice,” was her undisturbed answer. “She used to -squabble at me because I _said_ things. But I believe one of the -reasons people like me is because I make them laugh by _saying_ things. -Lord Coombe laughs. He is a very good person to know,” she added -practically. “Somehow he _counts_. Don’t you recollect how before we -knew him—when he was abroad so long—people used to bring him into their -talk as if they couldn’t help remembering him and what he was like. I -knew quite a lot about him—about his cleverness and his manners and his -way of keeping women off without being rude—and the things he says -about royalties and the aristocracy going out of fashion. And about his -clothes. I adore his clothes. And I’m convinced he adores mine.” - -She had in fact at once observed his clothes as he had crossed the -grass to her seat under the copper beech. She had seen that his fine -thinness was inimitably fitted and presented itself to the eye as that -final note of perfect line which ignores any possibility of comment. He -did not wear things—they were expressions of his mental subtleties. -Feather on her part knew that she wore her clothes—carried them about -with her—however beautifully. - -“I like him,” she went on. “I don’t know anything about political -parties and the state of Europe so I don’t understand the things he -says which people think are so brilliant, but I like him. He isn’t -really as old as I thought he was the first day I saw him. He had a -haggard look about his mouth and eyes then. He looked as if a spangled -pink and blue gauze soul with little floating streamers was a relief to -him.” - -The child Robin was a year old by that time and staggered about -uncertainly in the dingy little Day Nursery in which she passed her -existence except on such occasions as her nurse—who had promptly fallen -in love with the smart young footman—carried her down to the kitchen -and Servants’ Hall in the basement where there was an earthy smell and -an abundance of cockroaches. The Servants’ Hall had been given that -name in the catalogue of the fashionable agents who let the home and it -was as cramped and grimy as the two top-floor nurseries. - -The next afternoon Robert Gareth-Lawless staggered into his wife’s -drawing-room and dropped on to a sofa staring at her and breathing -hard. - -“Feather!” he gasped. “Don’t know what’s up with me. I believe -I’m—awfully ill! I can’t see straight. Can’t think.” - -He fell over sidewise on to the cushions so helplessly that Feather -sprang at him. - -“Don’t, Rob, don’t!” she cried in actual anguish. “Lord Coombe is -taking us to the opera and to supper afterwards. I’m going to wear—” -She stopped speaking to shake him and try to lift his head. “Oh! do try -to sit up,” she begged pathetically. “Just try. _Don’t_ give up till -afterwards.” But she could neither make him sit up nor make him hear. -He lay back heavily with his mouth open, breathing stertorously and -quite insensible. - -It happened that the Head of the House of Coombe was announced at that -very moment even as she stood wringing her hands over the sofa. - -He went to her side and looked at Gareth-Lawless. - -“Have you sent for a doctor?” he inquired. - -“He’s—only just done it!” she exclaimed. “It’s more than I can bear. -You said the Prince would be at the supper after the opera and—” - -“Were you thinking of going?” he put it to her quietly. - -“I shall have to send for a nurse of course—” she began. He went so far -as to interrupt her. - -“You had better not go—if you’ll pardon my saying so,” he suggested. - -“Not go? Not go at all?” she wailed. - -“Not go at all,” was his answer. And there was such entire lack of -encouragement in it that Feather sat down and burst into sobs. - -In few than two weeks Robert was dead and she was left a lovely -penniless widow with a child. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -Two or three decades earlier the prevailing sentiment would have been -that “poor little Mrs. Gareth-Lawless” and her situation were pathetic. -Her acquaintances would sympathetically have discussed her helplessness -and absolute lack of all resource. So very pretty, so young, the mother -of a dear little girl—left with no income! How very sad! What _could_ -she do? The elect would have paid her visits and sitting in her -darkened drawing-room earnestly besought her to trust to her Maker and -suggested “the Scriptures” as suitable reading. Some of them—rare and -strange souls even in their time—would have known what they meant and -meant what they said in a way they had as yet only the power to express -through the medium of a certain shibboleth, the rest would have used -the same forms merely because shibboleth is easy and always safe and -creditable. - -But to Feather’s immediate circle a multiplicity of engagements, fevers -of eagerness in the attainment of pleasures and ambitions, anxieties, -small and large terrors, and a whirl of days left no time for the -regarding of pathetic aspects. The tiny house up whose staircase—tucked -against a wall—one had seemed to have the effect of crowding even when -one went alone to make a call, suddenly ceased to represent hilarious -little parties which were as entertaining as they were up to date and -noisy. The most daring things London gossiped about had been said and -done and worn there. Novel social ventures had been tried—dancing and -songs which seemed almost startling at first—but which were gradually -being generally adopted. There had always been a great deal of laughing -and talking of nonsense and the bandying of jokes and catch phrases. -And Feather fluttering about and saying delicious, silly things at -which her hearers shouted with glee. Such a place could not suddenly -become pathetic. It seemed almost indecent for Robert Gareth-Lawless to -have dragged Death nakedly into their midst—to have died in his bed in -one of the little bedrooms, to have been put in his coffin and carried -down the stairs scraping the wall, and sent away in a hearse. Nobody -could bear to think of it. - -Feather could bear it less than anybody else. It seemed incredible that -such a trick could have been played her. She shut herself up in her -stuffy little bedroom with its shrimp pink frills and draperies and -cried lamentably. At first she cried as a child might who was suddenly -snatched away in the midst of a party. Then she began to cry because -she was frightened. Numbers of cards “with sympathy” had been left at -the front door during the first week after the funeral, they had -accumulated in a pile on the salver but very few people had really come -to see her and while she knew they had the excuse of her recent -bereavement she felt that it made the house ghastly. It had never been -silent and empty. Things had always been going on and now there was -actually not a sound to be heard—no one going up and down stairs—Rob’s -room cleared of all his belongings and left orderly and empty—the -drawing-room like a gay little tomb without an occupant. How long -_would_ it be before it would be full of people again—how long must she -wait before she could decently invite anyone?—It was really at this -point that fright seized upon her. Her brain was not given to -activities of reasoning and followed no thought far. She had not begun -to ask herself questions as to ways and means. Rob had been winning at -cards and had borrowed some money from a new acquaintance so no -immediate abyss had yawned at her feet. But when the thought of future -festivities rose before her a sudden check made her involuntarily -clutch at her throat. She had no money at all, bills were piled -everywhere, perhaps now Robert was dead none of the shops would give -her credit. She remembered hearing Rob come into the house swearing -only the day before he was taken ill and it had been because he had met -on the door-step a collector of the rent which was long over-due and -must be paid. She had no money to pay it, none to pay the servants’ -wages, none to pay the household bills, none to pay for the monthly -hire of the brougham! Would they turn her into the street—would the -servants go away—would she be left without even a carriage? What could -she do about clothes! She could not wear anything but mourning now and -by the time she was out of mourning her old clothes would have gone out -of fashion. The morning on which this aspect of things occurred to her, -she was so terrified that she began to run up and down the room like a -frightened little cat seeing no escape from the trap it is caught in. - -“It’s awful—it’s awful—it’s awful!” broke out between her sobs. “What -can I do? I can’t do anything! There’s nothing to do! It’s awful—it’s -awful—it’s awful!” She ended by throwing herself on the bed crying -until she was exhausted. She had no mental resources which would -suggest to her that there was anything but crying to be done. She had -cried very little in her life previously because even in her days of -limitation she had been able to get more or less what she wanted—though -of course it had generally been less. And crying made one’s nose and -eyes red. On this occasion she actually forgot her nose and eyes and -cried until she scarcely knew herself when she got up and looked in the -glass. - -She rang the bell for her maid and sat down to wait her coming. Tonson -should bring her a cup of beef tea. - -“It’s time for lunch,” she thought. “I’m faint with crying. And she -shall bathe my eyes with rose-water.” - -It was not Tonson’s custom to keep her mistress waiting but today she -was not prompt. Feather rang a second time and an impatient third and -then sat in her chair and waited until she began to feel as she felt -always in these dreadful days the dead silence of the house. It was the -thing which most struck terror to her soul—that horrid stillness. The -servants whose place was in the basement were too much closed in their -gloomy little quarters to have made themselves heard upstairs even if -they had been inclined to. During the last few weeks Feather had even -found herself wishing that they were less well trained and would make a -little noise—do anything to break the silence. - -The room she sat in—Rob’s awful little room adjoining—which was awful -because of what she had seen for a moment lying stiff and hard on the -bed before she was taken away in hysterics—were dread enclosures of -utter silence. The whole house was dumb—the very street had no sound in -it. She could not endure it. How dare Tonson? She sprang up and rang -the bell again and again until its sound came back to her pealing -through the place. - -Then she waited again. It seemed to her that five minutes passed before -she heard the smart young footman mounting the stairs slowly. She did -not wait for his knock upon the door but opened it herself. - -“How dare Tonson!” she began. “I have rung four or five times! How dare -she!” - -The smart young footman’s manner had been formed in a good school. It -was attentive, impersonal. - -“I don’t know, ma’am,” he answered. - -“What do you mean? What does _she_ mean? Where is she?” Feather felt -almost breathless before his unperturbed good style. - -“I don’t know, ma’am,” he answered as before. Then with the same -unbiassed bearing added, “None of us know. She has gone away.” - -Feather clutched the door handle because she felt herself swaying. - -“Away! Away!” the words were a faint gasp. - -“She packed her trunk yesterday and carried it away with her on a -four-wheeler. About an hour ago, ma’am.” Feather dropped her hand from -the knob of the door and trailed back to the chair she had left, -sinking into it helplessly. - -“Who—who will dress me?” she half wailed. - -“I don’t know, ma’am,” replied the young footman, his excellent manner -presuming no suggestion or opinion whatever. He added however, “Cook, -ma’am, wishes to speak to you.” - -“Tell her to come to me here,” Feather said. “And I—I want a cup of -beef tea.” - -“Yes, ma’am,” with entire respect. And the door closed quietly behind -him. - -It was not long before it was opened again. “Cook” had knocked and -Feather had told her to come in. Most cooks are stout, but this one was -not. She was a thin, tall woman with square shoulders and a square face -somewhat reddened by constant proximity to fires. She had been trained -at a cooking school. She carried a pile of small account books but she -brought nothing else. - -“I wanted some beef tea, Cook,” said Feather protestingly. - -“There is no beef tea, ma’am,” said Cook. “There is neither beef, nor -stock, nor Liebig in the house.” - -“Why—why not?” stammered Feather and she stammered because even her -lack of perception saw something in the woman’s face which was new to -her. It was a sort of finality. - -She held out the pile of small books. - -“Here are the books, ma’am,” was her explanation. “Perhaps as you don’t -like to be troubled with such things, you don’t know how far behind -they are. Nothing has been paid for months. It’s been an every-day -fight to get the things that was wanted. It’s not an agreeable thing -for a cook to have to struggle and plead. I’ve had to do it because I -had my reputation to think of and I couldn’t send up rubbish when there -was company.” - -Feather felt herself growing pale as she sat and stared at her. Cook -drew near and laid one little book after another on the small table -near her. - -“That’s the butcher’s book,” she said. “He’s sent nothing in for three -days. We’ve been living on leavings. He’s sent his last, he says and he -means it. This is the baker’s. He’s not been for a week. I made up -rolls because I had some flour left. It’s done now—and _he’s_ done. -This is groceries and Mercom & Fees wrote to Mr. Gareth-Lawless when -the last month’s supply came, that it would BE the last until payment -was made. This is wines—and coal and wood—and laundry—and milk. And -here is wages, ma’am, which _can’t_ go on any longer.” - -Feather threw up her hands and quite wildly. - -“Oh, go away!—go away!” she cried. “If Mr. Lawless were here—” - -“He isn’t, ma’am,” Cook interposed, not fiercely but in a way more -terrifying than any ferocity could have been—a way which pointed -steadily to the end of things. “As long as there’s a gentleman in a -house there’s generally a sort of a prospect that things _may_ be -settled some way. At any rate there’s someone to go and speak your mind -to even if you have to give up your place. But when there’s no -gentleman and nothing—and nobody—respectable people with their livings -to make have got to protect themselves.” - -The woman had no intention of being insolent. Her simple statement that -her employer’s death had left “Nothing” and “Nobody” was prompted by no -consciously ironic realization of the diaphanousness of Feather. As for -the rest she had been professionally trained to take care of her -interests as well as to cook and the ethics of the days of her -grandmother when there had been servants with actual affections had not -reached her. - -“Oh! go away! Go _awa-ay!_” Feather almost shrieked. - -“I am going, ma’am. So are Edward and Emma and Louisa. It’s no use -waiting and giving the month’s notice. We shouldn’t save the month’s -wages and the trades-people wouldn’t feed us. We can’t stay here and -starve. And it’s a time of the year when places has to be looked for. -You can’t hold it against us, ma’am. It’s better for you to have us out -of the house tonight—which is when our boxes will be taken away.” - -Then was Feather seized with a panic. For the first time in her life -she found herself facing mere common facts which rose before her like a -solid wall of stone—not to be leapt, or crept under, or bored through, -or slipped round. She was so overthrown and bewildered that she could -not even think of any clever and rapidly constructed lie which would -help her; indeed she was so aghast that she did not remember that there -were such things as lies. - -“Do you mean,” she cried out, “that you are all going to _leave_ the -house—that there won’t be any servants to wait on me—that there’s -nothing to eat or drink—that I shall have to stay here _alone_—and -starve!” - -“We should have to starve if we stayed,” answered Cook simply. “And of -course there are a few things left in the pantry and closets. And you -might get in a woman by the day. You won’t starve, ma’am. You’ve got -your family in Jersey. We waited because we thought Mr. and Mrs. Darrel -would be sure to come.” - -“My father is ill. I think he’s dying. My mother could not leave him -for a moment. Perhaps he’s dead now,” Feather wailed. - -“You’ve got your London friends, ma’am—” - -Feather literally beat her hands together. - -“My friends! Can I go to people’s houses and knock at their front door -and tell them I haven’t any servants or anything to eat! Can I do that? -Can I?” And she said it as if she were going crazy. - -The woman had said what she had come to say as spokeswoman for the -rest. It had not been pleasant but she knew she had been quite within -her rights and dealt with plain facts. But she did not enjoy the -prospect of seeing her little fool of a mistress raving in hysterics. - -“You mustn’t let yourself go, ma’am,” she said. “You’d better lie down -a bit and try to get quiet.” She hesitated a moment looking at the -pretty ruin who had risen from her seat and stood trembling. - -“It’s not my place of course to—make suggestions,” she said quietly. -“But—had you ever thought of sending for Lord Coombe, ma’am?” - -Feather actually found the torn film of her mind caught for a second by -something which wore a form of reality. Cook saw that her tremor -appeared to verge on steadying itself. - -“Coombe,” she faintly breathed as if to herself and not to Cook. - -“Coombe.” - -“His lordship was very friendly with Mr. Lawless and he seemed fond -of—coming to the house,” was presented as a sort of added argument. “If -you’ll lie down I’ll bring you a cup of tea, ma’am—though it can’t be -beef.” - -Feather staggered again to her bed and dropped flat upon it—flat as a -slim little pancake in folds of thin black stuff which hung and -floated. - -“I can’t bring you cream,” said Cook as she went out of the room. -“Louisa has had nothing but condensed milk—since yesterday—to give Miss -Robin.” - -“Oh-h!” groaned Feather, not in horror of the tea without cream though -that was awful enough in its significance, but because this was the -first time since the falling to pieces of her world that she had given -a thought to the added calamity of Robin. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -If one were to devote one’s mental energies to speculation as to what -is going on behind the noncommittal fronts of any row of houses in any -great city the imaginative mind might be led far. Bricks, mortar, -windows, doors, steps which lead up to the threshold, are what are to -be seen from the outside. Nothing particular may be transpiring within -the walls, or tragedies, crimes, hideous suffering may be enclosed. The -conclusion is obvious to banality—but as suggestive as banal—so -suggestive in fact that the hyper-sensitive and too imaginative had -better, for their own comfort’s sake, leave the matter alone. In most -cases the existing conditions would not be altered even if one knocked -at the door and insisted on entering with drawn sword in the form of -attendant policeman. The outside of the slice of a house in which -Feather lived was still rather fresh from its last decorative touching -up. It had been painted cream colour and had white doors and windows -and green window boxes with variegated vinca vines trailing from them -and pink geraniums, dark blue lobelia and ferns filling the earth -stuffed in by the florist who provided such adornments. Passers-by -frequently glanced at it and thought it a nice little house whose -amusing diminutiveness was a sort of attraction. It was rather like a -new doll’s house. - -No one glancing at it in passing at the closing of this particular day -had reason to suspect that any unaccustomed event was taking place -behind the cream-coloured front. The front door “brasses” had been -polished, the window-boxes watered and no cries for aid issued from the -rooms behind them. The house was indeed quiet both inside and out. -Inside it was indeed even quieter than usual. The servants’ preparation -for departure had been made gradually and undisturbedly. There had been -exhaustive quiet discussion of the subject each night for weeks, even -before Robert Gareth-Lawless’ illness. The smart young footman Edward -who had means of gaining practical information had constituted himself -a sort of private detective. He had in time learned all that was to be -learned. This, it had made itself clear to him on investigation, was -not one of those cases when to wait for evolutionary family events -might be the part of discretion. There were no prospects ahead—none at -all. Matters would only get worse and the whole thing would end in -everybody not only losing their unpaid back wages but having to walk -out into the street through the door of a disgraced household whose -owners would be turned out into the street also when their belongings -were sold over their heads. Better get out before everything went to -pieces and there were unpleasantnesses. There would be unpleasantnesses -because there was no denying that the trades-people had been played -tricks with. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was only one of a lot of pretty -daughters whose father was a poor country doctor in Jersey. He had had -“a stroke” himself and his widow would have nothing to live on when he -died. That was what Mrs. Lawless had to look to. As to Lord Lawdor -Edward had learned from those who _did_ know that he had never approved -of his nephew and that he’d said he was a fool for marrying and had -absolutely refused to have anything to do with him. He had six boys and -a girl now and big estates weren’t what they had been, everyone knew. -There was only one thing left for Cook and Edward and Emma and Louisa -to do and that was to “get out” without any talk or argument. - -“She’s not one that won’t find someone to look after her,” ended -Edward. “Somebody or other will take her up because they’ll be sorry -for her. But us lot aren’t widows and orphans. No one’s going to be -sorry for us or care a hang what we’ve been let in for. The longer we -stay, the longer we won’t be paid.” He was not a particularly depraved -or cynical young footman but he laughed a little at the end of his -speech. “There’s the Marquis,” he added. “He’s been running in and out -long enough to make a good bit of talk. Now’s his time to turn up.” - -After she had taken her cup of tea without cream Feather had fallen -asleep in reaction from her excited agitation. It was in accord with -the inevitable trend of her being that even before her eyes closed she -had ceased to believe that the servants were really going to leave the -house. It seemed too ridiculous a thing to happen. She was possessed of -no logic which could lead her to a realization of the indubitable fact -that there was no reason why servants who could neither be paid nor -provided with food should remain in a place. The mild stimulation of -the tea also gave rise to the happy thought that she would not give -them any references if they “behaved badly”. It did not present itself -to her that references from a house of cards which had ignominiously -fallen to pieces and which henceforth would represent only shady -failure, would be of no use. So she fell asleep. - -When she awakened the lights were lighted in the streets and one -directly across the way threw its reflection into her bedroom. It lit -up the little table near which she had sat and the first thing she saw -was the pile of small account books. The next was that the light which -revealed them also fell brightly on the glass knob of the door which -led into Robert’s room. - -She turned her eyes away quickly with a nervous shudder. She had a -horror of the nearness of Rob’s room. If there had been another part of -the house in which she could have slept she would have fled to it as -soon as he was taken ill. But the house was too small to have “parts”. -The tiny drawing-rooms piled themselves on top of the dining-room, the -“master’s bedrooms” on top of the drawing-rooms, and the nurseries and -attics where Robin and the servants slept one on the other at the top -of the house. So she had been obliged to stay and endure everything. -Rob’s cramped quarters had always been full of smart boots and the -smell of cigars and men’s clothes. He had moved about a good deal and -had whistled and laughed and sworn and grumbled. They had neither of -them had bad tempers so that they had not quarrelled with each other. -They had talked through the open door when they were dressing and they -had invented clever tricks which helped them to get out of money -scrapes and they had gossiped and made fun of people. And now the door -was locked and the room was a sort of horror. She could never think of -it without seeing the stiff hard figure on the bed, the straight close -line of the mouth and the white hard nose sharpened and narrowed as -Rob’s had never been. Somehow she particularly could not bear the -recollection of the sharp unnatural modeling of the hard, white nose. -She could not _bear_ it! She found herself recalling it the moment she -saw the light on the door handle and she got up to move about and try -to forget it. - -It was then that she went to the window and looked down into the -street, probably attracted by some slight noise though she was not -exactly aware that she had heard anything. - -She must have heard something however. Two four-wheeled cabs were -standing at the front door and the cabman assisted by Edward were -putting trunks on top of them. They were servants’ trunks and Cook was -already inside the first cab which was filled with paper parcels and -odds and ends. Even as her mistress watched Emma got in carrying a -sedate band-box. She was the house-parlourmaid and a sedate person. The -first cab drove away as soon as its door was closed and the cabman -mounted to his seat. Louisa looking wholly unprofessional without her -nurse’s cap and apron and wearing a tailor-made navy blue costume and a -hat with a wing in it, entered the second cab followed by Edward -intensely suggesting private life and possible connection with a Bank. -The second cab followed the first and Feather having lost her breath -looked after them as they turned the corner of the street. - -When they were quite out of sight she turned back into the room. The -colour had left her skin, and her eyes were so wide stretched and her -face so drawn and pinched with abject terror that her prettiness itself -had left her. - -“They’ve gone—all of them!” she gasped. She stopped a moment, her chest -rising and falling. Then she added even more breathlessly, “There’s no -one left in the house. It’s—empty!” - -This was what was going on behind the cream-coloured front, the white -windows and green flower-boxes of the slice of a house as motors and -carriages passed it that evening on their way to dinner parties and -theatres, and later as the policeman walked up and down slowly upon his -beat. - -Inside a dim light in the small hall showed a remote corner where on a -peg above a decorative seat hung a man’s hat of the highest gloss and -latest form; and on the next peg a smart evening overcoat. They had -belonged to Robert Gareth-Lawless who was dead and needed such things -no more. The same dim light showed the steep narrowness of the -white-railed staircase mounting into gruesome little corners of -shadows, while the miniature drawing-rooms illumined only from the -street seemed to await an explanation of dimness and chairs unfilled, -combined with unnatural silence. - -It would have been the silence of the tomb but that it was now and then -broken by something like a half smothered shriek followed by a sort of -moaning which made their way through the ceiling from the room above. - -Feather had at first run up and down the room like a frightened cat as -she had done in the afternoon. Afterwards she had had something like -hysterics, falling face downward upon the carpet and clutching her hair -until it fell down. She was not a person to be judged—she was one of -the unexplained incidents of existence. The hour has passed when the -clearly moral can sum up the responsibilities of a creature born -apparently without brain, or soul or courage. Those who aspire to such -morals as are expressed by fairness—mere fairness—are much given to -hesitation. Courage had never been demanded of Feather so far. She had -none whatever and now she only felt panic and resentment. She had no -time to be pathetic about Robert, being too much occupied with herself. -Robert was dead—she was alive—here—in an empty house with no money and -no servants. She suddenly and rather awfully realized that she did not -know a single person whom it would not be frantic to expect anything -from. - -Nobody had money enough for themselves, however rich they were. The -richer they were the more they needed. It was when this thought came to -her that she clutched her hands in her hair. The pretty and smart women -and agreeable more or less good looking men who had chattered and -laughed and made love in her drawing-rooms were chattering, laughing -and making love in other houses at this very moment—or they were at the -theatre applauding some fashionable actor-manager. At this very -moment—while she lay on the carpet in the dark and every little room in -the house had horror shut inside its closed doors—particularly Robert’s -room which was so hideously close to her own, and where there seemed -still to lie moveless on the bed, the stiff hard figure. It was when -she recalled this that the unnatural silence of the drawing-rooms was -intruded upon by the brief half-stifled hysteric shriek, and the -moaning which made its way through the ceiling. She felt almost as if -the door handle might turn and something stiff and cold try to come in. - -So the hours went on behind the cream-coloured outer walls and the -white windows and gay flower-boxes. And the street became more and more -silent—so silent at last that when the policeman walked past on his -beat his heavy regular footfall seemed loud and almost resounding. - -To even vaguely put to herself any question involving action would not -have been within the scope of her mentality. Even when she began to -realize that she was beginning to feel faint for want of food she did -not dare to contemplate going downstairs to look for something to eat. -What did she know about downstairs? She had never there and had paid no -attention whatever to Louisa’s complaints that the kitchen and -Servants’ Hall were small and dark and inconvenient and that -cockroaches ran about. She had cheerfully accepted the simple -philosophy that London servants were used to these things and if they -did their work it did not really matter. But to go out of one’s room in -the horrible stillness and creep downstairs, having to turn up the gas -as one went, and to face the basement steps and cockroaches scuttling -away, would be even more impossible than to starve. She sat upon the -floor, her hair tumbling about her shoulders and her thin black dress -crushed. - -“I’d give almost _anything_ for a cup of coffee,” she protested feebly. -“And there’s no _use_ in ringing the bell!” - -Her mother ought to have come whether her father was ill or not. He -wasn’t dead. Robert was dead and her mother ought to have come so that -whatever happened she would not be quite alone and _something_ could be -done for her. It was probably this tender thought of her mother which -brought back the recollection of her wedding day and a certain wedding -present she had received. It was a pretty silver travelling flask and -she remembered that it must be in her dressing-bag now, and there was -some cognac left in it. She got up and went to the place where the bag -was kept. Cognac raised your spirits and made you go to sleep, and if -she could sleep until morning the house would not be so frightening by -daylight—and something might happen. The little flask was almost full. -Neither she nor Robert had cared much about cognac. She poured some -into a glass with water and drank it. - -Because she was unaccustomed to stimulant it made her feel quite warm -and in a few minutes she forgot that she had been hungry and realized -that she was not so frightened. It was such a relief not to be -terrified; it was as if a pain had stopped. She actually picked up one -or two of the account books and glanced at the totals. If you couldn’t -pay bills you couldn’t and nobody was put in prison for debt in these -days. Besides she would not have been put in prison—Rob would—and Rob -was dead. Something would happen—something. - -As she began to arrange her hair for the night she remembered what Cook -had said about Lord Coombe. She had cried until she did not look as -lovely as usual, but after she had bathed her eyes with cold rose-water -they began to seem only shadowy and faintly flushed. And her fine -ash-gold hair was wonderful when it hung over each shoulder in wide, -soft plaits. She might be a school-girl of fifteen. A delicate lacy -night-gown was one of the most becoming things one wore. It was a pity -one couldn’t wear them to parties. There was nothing the least indecent -about them. Millicent Hardwicke had been photographed in one of hers -and no one had suspected what it was. Yes; she would send a little note -to Coombe. She knew Madame Hélène had only let her have her beautiful -mourning because—. The things she had created were quite unique—thin, -gauzy, black, floating or clinging. She had been quite happy the -morning she gave Hélène her orders. Tomorrow when she had slept through -the night and it was broad daylight again she would be able to think of -things to say in her letter to Lord Coombe. She would have to be a -little careful because he did not like things to bore him.—Death and -widows might—a little—at first. She had heard him say once that he did -not wish to regard himself in the light of a charitable institution. It -wouldn’t do to frighten him away. Perhaps if he continued coming to the -house and seemed very intimate the trades-people might be managed. - -She felt much less helpless and when she was ready for bed she took a -little more cognac. The flush had faded from her eye-lids and bloomed -in delicious rose on her cheeks. As she crept between the cool sheets -and nestled down on her pillow she had a delightful sense of increasing -comfort—comfort. What a beautiful thing it was to go to sleep! - -And then she was disturbed—started out of the divine doze stealing upon -her—by a shrill prolonged wailing shriek! - -It came from the Night Nursery and at the moment it seemed almost worse -than anything which had occurred all through the day. It brought -everything back so hideously. She had of course forgotten Robin -again—and it was Robin! And Louisa had gone away with Edward. She had -perhaps put the child to sleep discreetly before she went. And now she -had wakened and was screaming. Feather had heard that she was a child -with a temper but by fair means or foul Louisa had somehow managed to -prevent her from being a nuisance. - -The shrieks shocked her into sitting upright in bed. Their shrillness -tearing through the utter soundlessness of the empty house brought back -all her terrors and set her heart beating at a gallop. - -“I—I _won’t!_” she protested, fairly with chattering teeth. “I won’t! I -_won’t!_” - -She had never done anything for the child since its birth, she did not -know how to do anything, she had not wanted to know. To reach her now -she would be obliged to go out in the dark—the gas-jet she would have -to light was actually close to the outer door of Robert’s bedroom—_the_ -room! If she did not die of panic while she was trying to light it she -would have to make her way almost in the dark up the steep crooked -little staircase which led to the nurseries. And the awful little -creature’s screams would be going on all the time making the blackness -and dead silence of the house below more filled with horror by -contrast—more shut off and at the same time more likely to waken to -some horror which was new. - -“I-I couldn’t—even if I wanted to!” she quaked. “I daren’t! I daren’t! -I wouldn’t do it—for _a million pounds?_” And she flung herself down -again shuddering and burrowing her head under the coverings and pillows -she dragged over her ears to shut out the sounds. - -The screams had taken on a more determined note and a fiercer -shrillness which the still house heard well and made the most of, but -they were so far deadened for Feather that she began beneath her soft -barrier to protest pantingly. - -“I shouldn’t know what to do if I went. If no one goes near her she’ll -cry herself to sleep. It’s—it’s only temper. Oh-h! what a horrible -wail! It—it sounds like a—a lost soul!” - -But she did not stir from the bed. She burrowed deeper under the bed -clothes and held the pillow closer to her ears. - -It did sound like a lost soul at times. What panic possesses a baby who -cries in the darkness alone no one will ever know and one may perhaps -give thanks to whatever gods there be that the baby itself does not -remember. What awful woe of sudden unprotectedness when life exists -only through protection—what piteous panic in the midst of black -unmercifulness, inarticulate sound howsoever wildly shrill can neither -explain nor express. - -Robin knew only Louisa, warmth, food, sleep and waking. Or if she knew -more she was not yet aware that she did. She had reached the age when -she generally slept through the night. She might not have disturbed her -mother until daylight but Louisa had with forethought given her an -infant sleeping potion. It had disagreed with and awakened her. She was -uncomfortable and darkness enveloped her. A cry or so and Louisa would -ordinarily have come to her sleepy, and rather out of temper, but -knowing what to do. In this strange night the normal cry of warning and -demand produced no result. - -No one came. The discomfort continued—the blackness remained black. The -cries became shrieks—but nothing followed; the shrieks developed into -prolonged screams. No Louisa, no light, no milk. The blackness drew in -closer and became a thing to be fought with wild little beating hands. -Not a glimmer—not a rustle—not a sound! Then came the cries of the lost -soul—alone—alone—in a black world of space in which there was not even -another lost soul. And then the panics of which there have been no -records and never will be, because if the panic stricken does not die -in mysterious convulsions he or she grows away from the memory of a -formless past—except that perhaps unexplained nightmares from which one -wakens quaking, with cold sweat, may vaguely repeat the long hidden -thing. - -What the child Robin knew in the dark perhaps the silent house which -echoed her might curiously have known. But the shrieks wore themselves -out at last and sobs came—awful little sobs shuddering through the tiny -breast and shaking the baby body. A baby’s sobs are unspeakable -things—incredible things. Slower and slower Robin’s came—with small -deep gasps and chokings between—and when an uninfantile druglike sleep -came, the bitter, hopeless, beaten little sobs went on. - -But Feather’s head was still burrowed under the soft protection of the -pillow. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -The morning was a brighter one than London usually indulges in and the -sun made its way into Feather’s bedroom to the revealing of its coral -pink glow and comfort. She had always liked her bedroom and had usually -wakened in it to the sense of luxuriousness it is possible a pet cat -feels when it wakens to stretch itself on a cushion with its saucer of -cream awaiting it. - -But she did not awaken either to a sense of brightness or luxury this -morning. She had slept it was true, but once or twice when the pillow -had slipped aside she had found herself disturbed by the far-off sound -of the wailing of some little animal which had caused her automatically -and really scarcely consciously to replace the pillow. It had only -happened at long intervals because it is Nature that an exhausted baby -falls asleep when it is worn out. Robin had probably slept almost as -much as her mother. - -Feather staring at the pinkness around her reached at last, with the -assistance of a certain physical consciousness, a sort of spiritless -intention. - -“She’s asleep now,” she murmured. “I hope she won’t waken for a long -time. I feel faint. I shall have to find something to eat—if it’s only -biscuits.” Then she lay and tried to remember what Cook had said about -her not starving. “She said there were a few things left in the pantry -and closets. Perhaps there’s some condensed milk. How do you mix it up? -If she cries I might go and give her some. It wouldn’t be so awful now -it’s daylight.” - -She felt shaky when she got out of bed and stood on her feet. She had -not had a maid in her girlhood so she could dress herself, much as she -detested to do it. After she had begun however she could not help -becoming rather interested because the dress she had worn the day -before had become crushed and she put on a fresh one she had not worn -at all. It was thin and soft also, and black was quite startlingly -becoming to her. She would wear this one when Lord Coombe came, after -she wrote to him. It was silly of her not to have written before though -she knew he had left town after the funeral. Letters would be -forwarded. - -“It will be quite bright in the dining-room now,” she said to encourage -herself. “And Tonson once said that the only places the sun came into -below stairs were the pantry and kitchen and it only stayed about an -hour early in the morning. I must get there as soon as I can.” - -When she had so dressed herself that the reflection the mirror gave -back to her was of the nature of a slight physical stimulant she opened -her bedroom door and faced exploration of the deserted house below with -a quaking sense of the proportions of the inevitable. She got down the -narrow stairs casting a frightened glance at the emptiness of the -drawing-rooms which seemed to stare at her as she passed them. There -was sun in the dining-room and when she opened the sideboard she found -some wine in decanters and some biscuits and even a few nuts and some -raisins and oranges. She put them on the table and sat down and ate -some of them and began to feel a little less shaky. - -If she had been allowed time to sit longer and digest and reflect she -might have reached the point of deciding on what she would write to -Lord Coombe. She had not the pen of a ready writer and it must be -thought over. But just when she was beginning to be conscious of the -pleasant warmth of the sun which shone on her shoulders from the -window, she was almost startled our of her chair by hearing again -stealing down the staircase from the upper regions that faint wail like -a little cat’s. - -“Just the moment—the very _moment_ I begin to feel a little quieted—and -try to think—she begins again!” she cried out. “It’s worse then -_anything!_” - -Large crystal tears ran down her face and upon the polished table. - -“I suppose she would starve to death if I didn’t give her some food—and -then _I_ should be blamed! People would be horrid about it. I’ve got -nothing to eat myself.” - -She must at any rate manage to stop the crying before she could write -to Coombe. She would be obliged to go down into the pantry and look for -some condensed milk. The creature had no teeth but perhaps she could -mumble a biscuit or a few raisins. If she could be made to swallow a -little port wine it might make her sleepy. The sun was paying its brief -morning visit to the kitchen and pantry when she reached there, but a -few cockroaches scuttled away before her and made her utter a -hysterical little scream. But there _was_ some condensed milk and there -was a little warm water in a kettle because the fire was not quite out. -She imperfectly mixed a decoction and filled a bottle which ought not -to have been downstairs but had been brought and left there by Louisa -as a result of tender moments with Edward. - -When she put the bottle and some biscuits and scraps of cold ham on a -tray because she could not carry them all in her hands, her sense of -outrage and despair made her almost sob. - -“I am just like a servant—carrying trays upstairs,” she wept. “I—I -might be Edward—or—or Louisa.” And her woe increased when she added in -the dining-room the port wine and nuts and raisins and macaroons as -viands which _might_ somehow add to infant diet and induce sleep. She -was not sure of course—but she knew they sucked things and liked -sweets. - -A baby left unattended to scream itself to sleep and awakening to -scream itself to sleep again, does not present to a resentful observer -the flowerlike bloom and beauty of infancy. When Feather carried her -tray into the Night Nursery and found herself confronting the -disordered crib on which her offspring lay she felt the child horrible -to look at. Its face was disfigured and its eyes almost closed. She -trembled all over as she put the bottle to its mouth and saw the -fiercely hungry clutch of its hands. It was old enough to clutch, and -clutch it did, and suck furiously and starvingly—even though actually -forced to stop once or twice at first to give vent to a thwarted -remnant of a scream. - -Feather had only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in Louisa’s -arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid and -brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked as they passed. - -“Who will give her a bath?” wailed Feather. “Who will change her -clothes? Someone must! Could a woman by the day do it? Cook said I -could get a woman by the day.” - -And then she remembered that one got servants from agencies. And where -were the agencies? And even a woman “by the day” would demand wages and -food to eat. - -And then the front door bell rang. - -What could she do—what could she do? Go downstairs and open the door -herself and let everyone know! Let the ringer go on ringing until he -was tired and went away? She was indeed hard driven, even though the -wail had ceased as Robin clutched her bottle to her breast and fed with -frenzy. Let them go away—let them! And then came the wild thought that -it might be Something—the Something which must happen when things were -at their worst! And if it had come and the house seemed to be empty! -She did not walk down the stairs, she ran. Her heart beat until she -reached the door out of breath and when she opened it stood their -panting. - -The people who waited upon the steps were strangers. They were very -nice looking and quite young—a man and a woman very perfectly dressed. -The man took a piece of paper out of his pocketbook and handed it to -her with an agreeable apologetic courtesy. - -“I hope we have not called early enough to disturb you,” he said. “We -waited until eleven but we are obliged to catch a train at half past. -It is an ‘order to view’ from Carson & Bayle.” He added this because -Feather was staring at the paper. - -Carson & Bayle were the agents they had rented the house from. It was -Carson & Bayle’s collector Robert had met on the threshold and sworn at -two days before he had been taken ill. They were letting the house over -her head and she would be turned out into the street? - -The young man and woman finding themselves gazing at this exquisitely -pretty creature in exquisite mourning, felt themselves appallingly -embarrassed. She was plainly the widow Carson had spoken of. But why -did she open the door herself? And why did she look as if she did not -understand? Indignation against Carson & Bayle began to stir the young -man. - -“Beg pardon! So sorry! I am afraid we ought not to have come,” he -protested. “Agents ought to know better. They said you were giving up -the house at once and we were afraid someone might take it.” - -Feather held the “order to view” in her hand and snared at them quite -helplessly. - -“There—are no—no servants to show it to you,” she said. “If you could -wait—a few days—perhaps—” - -She was so lovely and Madame Hélène’s filmy black creation was in -itself such an appeal, that the amiable young strangers gave up at -once. - -“Oh, certainly—certainly! Do excuse us! Carson and Bayle ought not to -have—! We are so sorry. Good morning, _good_ morning,” they gave forth -in discomfited sympathy and politeness, and really quite scurried away. - -Having shut the door on their retreat Feather stood shivering. - -“I am going to be turned out of the house! I shall have to live in the -street!” she thought. “Where shall I keep my clothes if I live in the -street!” - -Even she knew that she was thinking idiotically. Of course if -everything was taken from you and sold, you would have no clothes at -all, and wardrobes and drawers and closets would not matter. The -realization that scarcely anything in the house had been paid for came -home to her with a ghastly shock. She staggered upstairs to the first -drawing-room in which there was a silly pretty little buhl writing -table. - -She felt even more senseless when she sank into a chair before it and -drew a sheet of note-paper towards her. Her thoughts would not connect -themselves with each other and she could not imagine what she ought to -say in her letter to Coombe. In fact she seemed to have no thoughts at -all. She could only remember the things which had happened, and she -actually found she could write nothing else. There seemed nothing else -in the world. - -“Dear Lord Coombe,” trailed tremulously over the page—“The house is -quite empty. The servants have gone away. I have no money. And there is -not any food. And I am going to be turned out into the street—and the -baby is crying because it is hungry.” - -She stopped there, knowing it was not what she ought to say. And as she -stopped and looked at the words she began herself to wail somewhat as -Robin had wailed in the dark when she would not listen or go to her. It -was like a beggar’s letter—a beggar’s! Telling him that she had no -money and no food—and would be turned out for unpaid rent. And that the -baby was crying because it was starving! - -“It’s a beggar’s letter—just a beggar’s,” she cried out aloud to the -empty room. “And it’s tru-ue!” Robin’s wail itself had not been more -hopeless than hers was as she dropped her head and let it lie on the -buhl table. - -She was not however even to be allowed to let it lie there, for the -next instant there fell on her startled ear quite echoing through the -house another ring at the doorbell and two steely raps on the smart -brass knocker. It was merely because she did not know what else to do, -having just lost her wits entirely that she got up and trailed down the -staircase again. - -When she opened the door, Lord Coombe—the apotheosis of exquisite -fitness in form and perfect appointment as also of perfect -expression—was standing on the threshold. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -If he had meant to speak he changed his mind after his first sight of -her. He merely came in and closed the door behind him. Curious -experiences with which life had provided him had added finish to an -innate aptness of observation, and a fine readiness in action. - -If she had been of another type he would have saved both her and -himself a scene and steered ably through the difficulties of the -situation towards a point where they could have met upon a normal -plane. A very pretty woman with whose affairs one has nothing whatever -to do, and whose pretty home has been the perfection of modern -smartness of custom, suddenly opening her front door in the unexplained -absence of a footman and confronting a visitor, plainly upon the verge -of hysteria, suggests the necessity of promptness. - -But Feather gave him not a breath’s space. She was in fact not merely -on the verge of her hysteria. She had gone farther. And here he was. -Oh, here he was! She fell down upon her knees and actually clasped his -immaculateness. - -“Oh, Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!” She said it three times -because he presented to her but the one idea. - -He did not drag himself away from her embrace but he distinctly removed -himself from it. - -“You must not fall upon your knees, Mrs. Lawless,” he said. “Shall we -go into the drawing-room?” - -“I—was writing to you. I am starving—but it seemed too silly when I -wrote it. And it’s true!” Her broken words were as senseless in their -sound as she had thought them when she saw them written. - -“Will you come up into the drawing-room and tell me exactly what you -mean,” he said and he made her release him and stand upon her feet. - -As the years had passed he had detached himself from so many weaknesses -and their sequelae of emotion that he had felt himself a safely -unreachable person. He was not young and he knew enough of the -disagreeableness of consequences to be adroit in keeping out of the way -of apparently harmless things which might be annoying. Yet as he -followed Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and watched her stumbling up the stairs -like a punished child he was aware that he was abnormally in danger of -pitying her as he did not wish to pity people. The pity was also -something apart from the feeling that it was hideous that a creature so -lovely, so shallow and so fragile should have been caught in the great -wheels of Life. - -He knew what he had come to talk to her about but he had really no -clear idea of what her circumstances actually were. Most people had of -course guessed that her husband had been living on the edge of his -resources and was accustomed to debt and duns, but a lovely being -greeting you by clasping your knees and talking about “starving”—in -this particular street in Mayfair, led one to ask oneself what one was -walking into. Feather herself had not known, in fact neither had any -other human being known, that there was a special reason why he had -drifted into seeming rather to allow her about—why he had finally been -counted among the frequenters of the narrow house—and why he had seemed -to watch her a good deal sometimes with an expression of serious -interest—sometimes with an air of irritation, and sometimes with no -expression at all. But there existed this reason and this it was and -this alone which had caused him to appear upon her threshold and it had -also been the power which had prevented his disengaging himself with -more incisive finality when he found himself ridiculously clasped about -the knees as one who played the part of an obdurate parent in a -melodrama. - -Once in the familiar surroundings of her drawing-room her ash-gold -blondness and her black gauzy frock heightened all her effects so -extraordinarily that he frankly admitted to himself that she possessed -assets which would have modified most things to most men. - -As for Feather, when she herself beheld him against the background of -the same intimate aspects, the effect of the sound of his voice, the -manner in which he sat down in a chair and a certain remotely dim hint -in the hue of his clothes and an almost concealed note of some touch of -colour which scarcely seemed to belong to anything worn—were so -reminiscent of the days which now seemed past forever that she began to -cry again. - -He received this with discreet lack of melodrama of tone. - -“You mustn’t do that, Mrs. Lawless,” he said, “or I shall burst into -tears myself. I am a sensitive creature.” - -“Oh, _do_ say ‘Feather’ instead of Mrs. Lawless,” she implored. -“Sometimes you said ‘Feather’.” - -“I will say it now,” he answered, “if you will not weep. It is an -adorable name.” - -“I feel as if I should never hear it again,” she shuddered, trying to -dry her eyes. “It is all over!” - -“What is all over?” - -“This—!” turning a hopeless gaze upon the two tiny rooms crowded with -knick-knacks and nonsense. “The parties and the fun—and everything in -the world! I have only had some biscuits and raisins to eat today—and -the landlord is going to turn me out.” - -It seemed almost too preposterous to quite credit that she was uttering -naked truth.—And yet—! After a second’s gaze at her he repeated what he -had said below stairs. - -“Will you tell me exactly what you mean?” - -Then he sat still and listened while she poured it all forth. And as he -listened he realized that it was the mere every day fact that they were -sitting in the slice of a house with the cream-coloured front and the -great lady in her mansion on one side and the millionaire and his -splendours on the other, which peculiarly added to a certain hint of -gruesomeness in the situation. - -It was not necessary to add colour and desperation to the story. Any -effort Feather had made in that direction would only have detracted -from the nakedness of its stark facts. They were quite enough in -themselves in their normal inevitableness. Feather in her pale and -totally undignified panic presented the whole thing with clearness -which had—without being aided by her—an actual dramatic value. This in -spite of her mental dartings to and from and dragging in of points and -bits of scenes which were not connected with each other. Only a brain -whose processes of inclusion and exclusion were final and rapid could -have followed her. Coombe watched her closely as she talked. No -grief-stricken young widowed loneliness and heart-break were the -background of her anguish. She was her own background and also her own -foreground. The strength of the fine body laid prone on the bed of the -room she held in horror, the white rigid face whose good looks had -changed to something she could not bear to remember, had no pathos -which was not concerned with the fact that Robert had amazingly and -unnaturally failed her by dying and leaving her nothing but unpaid -bills. This truth indeed made the situation more poignantly and finally -squalid, as she brought forth one detail after another. There were -bills which had been accumulating ever since they began their life in -the narrow house, there had been trades-people who had been juggled -with, promises made and supported by adroit tricks and cleverly -invented misrepresentations and lies which neither of the pair had felt -any compunctions about and had indeed laughed over. Coombe saw it all -though he also saw that Feather did not know all she was telling him. -He could realize the gradually increasing pressure and anger at tricks -which betrayed themselves, and the gathering determination on the part -of the creditors to end the matter in the only way in which it could be -ended. It had come to this before Robert’s illness, and Feather herself -had heard of fierce interviews and had seen threatening letters, but -she had not believed they could mean all they implied. Since things had -been allowed to go on so long she felt that they would surely go on -longer in the same way. There had been some serious threatening about -the rent and the unpaid-for furniture. Robert’s supporting idea had -been that he might perhaps “get something out of Lawdor who wouldn’t -enjoy being the relation of a fellow who was turned into the street!” - -“He ought to have done something,” Feather complained. “Robert would -have been Lord Lawdor himself if his uncle had died before he had all -those disgusting children.” - -She was not aware that Coombe frequently refrained from saying things -to her—but occasionally allowed himself _not_ to refrain. He did not -refrain now from making a simple comment. - -“But he is extremely robust and he has the children. Six stalwart boys -and a stalwart girl. Family feeling has apparently gone out of -fashion.” - -As she wandered on with her story he mentally felt himself actually -dragged into the shrimp-pink bedroom and standing an onlooker when the -footman outside the door “did not know” where Tonson had gone. For a -moment he felt conscious of the presence of some scent which would have -been sure to exhale itself from draperies and wardrobe. He saw Cook put -the account books on the small table, he heard her, he also -comprehended her. And Feather at the window breathlessly watching the -two cabs with the servants’ trunks on top, and the servants respectably -unprofessional in attire and going away quietly without an unpractical -compunction—he saw these also and comprehended knowing exactly why -compunctions had no part in latter-day domestic arrangements. Why -should they? - -When Feather reached the point where it became necessary to refer to -Robin some fortunate memory of Alice’s past warnings caused her to -feel—quite suddenly—that certain details might be eliminated. - -“She cried a little at first,” she said, “but she fell asleep -afterwards. I was glad she did because I was afraid to go to her in the -dark.” - -“Was she in the dark?” - -“I think so. Perhaps Louisa taught her to sleep without a light. There -was none when I took her some condensed milk this morning. There was -only c-con-d-densed milk to give her.” - -She shed tears and choked as she described her journey into the lower -regions and the cockroaches scuttling away before her into their -hiding-places. - -“I _must_ have a nurse! I _must_ have one!” she almost sniffed. -“Someone must change her clothes and give her a bath!” - -“You can’t?” Coombe said. - -“I!” dropping her handkerchief. “How—how _can_ I?” - -“I don’t know,” he answered and picked up the handkerchief with an -aloof grace of manner. - -It was really Robin who was for Feather the breaking-point. - -He thought she was in danger of flinging herself upon him again. She -caught at his arm and her eyes of larkspur blue were actually wild. - -“Don’t you see where I am! How there is nothing and nobody—Don’t you -_see?_” - -“Yes, I see,” he answered. “You are quite right. There is nothing _and_ -nobody. I have been to Lawdor myself.” - -“You have been to _talk_ to him?” - -“Yesterday. That was my reason for coming here. He will not see you or -be written to. He says he knows better than to begin that sort of -thing. It may be that family feeling has not the vogue it once had, but -you may recall that your husband infuriated him years ago. Also England -is a less certain quantity than it once was—and the man has a family. -He will allow you a hundred a year but there he draws the line.” - -“A hundred a year!” Feather breathed. From her delicate shoulders hung -floating scarf-like sleeves of black transparency and she lifted one of -them and held it out like a night moth’s wing—“This cost forty pounds,” -she said, her voice quite faint and low. “A good nurse would cost -forty! A cook—and a footman and a maid—and a coachman—and the -brougham—I don’t know how much they would cost. Oh-h!” - -She drooped forward upon her sofa and laid face downward on a -cushion—slim, exquisite in line, lost in despair. - -The effect produced was that she gave herself into his hands. He felt -as well as saw it and considered. She had no suggestion to offer, no -reserve. There she was. - -“It is an incredible sort of situation,” he said in an even, -low-pitched tone rather as if he were thinking aloud, “but it is baldly -real. It is actually simple. In a street in Mayfair a woman and child -might—” He hesitated a second and a wailed word came forth from the -cushion. - -“Starve!” - -He moved slightly and continued. - -“Since their bills have not been paid the trades-people will not send -in food. Servants will not stay in a house where they are not fed and -receive no wages. No landlord will allow a tenant to occupy his -property unless he pays rent. It may sound inhuman—but it is only -human.” - -The cushion in which Feather’s face was buried retained a faint scent -of Robert’s cigar smoke and the fragrance brought back to her things -she had heard him say dispassionately about Lord Coombe as well as -about other men. He had not been a puritanic or condemnatory person. -She seemed to see herself groveling again on the floor of her bedroom -and to feel the darkness and silence through which she had not dared to -go to Robin. - -Not another night like that! No! No! - -“You must go to Jersey to your mother and father,” Coombe said. “A -hundred a year will help you there in your own home.” - -Then she sat upright and there was something in her lovely little -countenance he had never seen before. It was actually determination. - -“I have heard,” she said, “of poor girls who were driven—by starvation -to—to go on the streets. I—would go _anywhere_ before I would go back -there.” - -“Anywhere!” he repeated, his own countenance expressing—or rather -refusing to express something as new as the thing he had seen in her -own. - -“Anywhere!” she cried and then she did what he had thought her on the -verge of doing a few minutes earlier—she fell at his feet and embraced -his knees. She clung to him, she sobbed, her pretty hair loosened -itself and fell about her in wild but enchanting disorder. - -“Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe!” she cried as she -had cried in the hall. - -He rose and endeavoured to disengage himself as he had done before. -This time with less success because she would not let him go. He had -the greatest possible objection to scenes. - -“Mrs. Lawless—Feather—I beg you will get up,” he said. - -But she had reached the point of not caring what happened if she could -keep him. He was a gentleman—he had everything in the world. What did -it matter? - -“I have no one but you and—and you always seemed to like me, I would do -anything—_anyone_ asked me, if they would take care of me. I have -always liked you very much—and I did amuse you—didn’t I? You liked to -come here.” - -There was something poignant about her delicate distraught loveliness -and, in the remoteness of his being, a shuddering knowledge that it was -quite true that she would do anything for any man who would take care -of her, produced an effect on him nothing else would have produced. -Also a fantastic and finely ironic vision of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife -rose before him and the vision of himself as Joseph irked a certain -complexness of his mentality. Poignant as the thing was in its modern -way, it was also faintly ridiculous. - -Then Robin awakened and shrieked again. The sound which had gained -strength through long sleep and also through added discomfort quite -rang through the house. What that sound added to the moment he himself -would not have been able to explain until long afterwards. But it -singularly and impellingly added. - -“Listen!” panted Feather. “She has begun again. And there is no one to -go to her.” - -“Get up, Mrs. Lawless,” he said. “Do I understand that you are willing -that _I_ should arrange this for you!” - -He helped her to her feet. - -“Do you mean—really!” she faltered. “Will you—will you—?” - -Her uplifted eyes were like a young angel’s brimming with crystal drops -which slipped—as a child’s tears slip—down her cheeks. She clasped her -hands in exquisite appeal. He stood for a moment quite still, his mind -fled far away and he forgot where he was. And because of this the -little simpleton’s shallow discretion deserted her. - -“If you were a—a marrying man—?” she said foolishly—almost in a -whisper. - -He recovered himself. - -“I am not,” with a finality which cut as cleanly as a surgical knife. - -Something which was not the words was of a succinctness which filled -her with new terror. - -“I—I know!” she whimpered, “I only said if you were!” - -“If I were—in this instance—it would make no difference.” He saw the -kind of slippery silliness he was dealing with and what it might -transform itself into if allowed a loophole. “There must be no -mistakes.” - -In her fright she saw him for a moment more distinctly than she had -ever seen him before and hideous dread beset her lest she had blundered -fatally. - -“There shall be none,” she gasped. “I always knew. There shall be none -at all.” - -“Do you know what you are asking me?” he inquired. - -“Yes, yes—I’m not a girl, you know. I’ve been married. I won’t go home. -I can’t starve or live in awful lodgings. _Somebody_ must save me!” - -“Do you know what people will say?” his steady voice was slightly -lower. - -“It won’t be said to me.” Rather wildly. “Nobody minds—really.” - -He ceased altogether to look serious. He smiled with the light detached -air his world was most familiar with. - -“No—they don’t really,” he answered. “I had, however, a slight -preference for knowing whether you would or not. You flatter me by -intimating that you would not.” - -He knew that if he had held out an arm she would have fallen upon his -breast and wept there, but he was not at the moment in the mood to hold -out an arm. He merely touched hers with a light pressure. - -“Let us sit down and talk it over,” he suggested. - -A hansom drove up to the door and stopped before he had time to seat -himself. Hearing it he went to the window and saw a stout businesslike -looking man get out, accompanied by an attendant. There followed a -loud, authoritative ringing of the bell and an equally authoritative -rap of the knocker. This repeated itself. Feather, who had run to the -window and caught sight of the stout man, clutched his sleeve. - -“It’s the agent we took the house from. We always said we were out. -It’s either Carson or Bayle. I don’t know which.” - -Coombe walked toward the staircase. - -“You can’t open the door!” she shrilled. - -“He has doubtless come prepared to open it himself.” he answered and -proceeded at leisure down the narrow stairway. - -The caller had come prepared. By the time Coombe stood in the hall a -latchkey was put in the keyhole and, being turned, the door opened to -let in Carson—or Bayle—who entered with an air of angered -determination, followed by his young man. - -The physical presence of the Head of the House of Coombe was always -described as a subtly impressive one. Several centuries of rather -careful breeding had resulted in his seeming to represent things by -silent implication. A man who has never found the necessity of -explaining or excusing himself inevitably presents a front wholly -unsuggestive of uncertainty. The front Coombe presented merely awaited -explanations from others. - -Carson—or Bayle—had doubtless contemplated seeing a frightened servant -trying to prepare a stammering obvious lie. He confronted a tall, thin -man about whom—even if his clothes had been totally different—there -could be no mistake. He stood awaiting an apology so evidently that -Carson—or Bayle—began to stammer himself even before he had time to -dismiss from his voice the suggestion of bluster. It would have -irritated Coombe immensely if he had known that he—and a certain -overcoat—had been once pointed out to the man at Sandown and that—in -consequence of the overcoat—he vaguely recognized him. - -“I—I beg pardon,” he began. - -“Quite so,” said Coombe. - -“Some tenants came to look at the house this morning. They had an order -to view from us. They were sent away, my lord—and decline to come back. -The rent has not been paid since the first half year. There is no one -now who can even _pretend_ it’s going to be paid. Some step had to be -taken.” - -“Quite so,” said Coombe. “Suppose you step into the dining-room.” - -He led the pair into the room and pointed to chairs, but neither the -agent nor his attendant was calm enough to sit down. - -Coombe merely stood and explained himself. - -“I quite understand,” he said. “You are entirely within your rights. -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is, naturally, not able to attend to business. For -the present—as a friend of her late husband’s—I will arrange matters -for her. I am Lord Coombe. She does not wish to give up the house. -Don’t send any more possible tenants. Call at Coombe House in an hour -and I will give you a cheque.” - -There were a few awkward apologetic moments and then the front door -opened and shut, the hansom jingled away and Coombe returned to the -drawing-room. Robin was still shrieking. - -“She wants some more condensed milk,” he said. “Don’t be frightened. Go -and give her some. I know an elderly woman who understands children. -She was a nurse some years ago. I will send her here at once. Kindly -give me the account books. My housekeeper will send you some servants. -The trades-people will come for orders.” - -Feather was staring at him. - -“W-will they?” she stammered. “W-will everything—?” - -“Yes—everything,” he answered. “Don’t be frightened. Go upstairs and -try to stop her. I must go now. I never heard a creature yell with such -fury.” - -She turned away and went towards the second flight of stairs with a -rather dazed air. She had passed through a rather tremendous crisis and -she _was_ dazed. He made her feel so. She had never understood him for -a moment and she did not understand him now—but then she never did -understand people and the whole situation was a new one to her. If she -had not been driven to the wall she would have been quite as -respectable as she knew how to be. - -Coombe called a hansom and drove home, thinking of many things and -looking even more than usually detached. He had remarked the facial -expression of the short and stout man as he had got into his cab and he -was turning over mentally his own exact knowledge of the views the -business mind would have held and what the business countenance would -have decently covered if he—Coombe—had explained in detail that he was -so far—in this particular case—an entirely blameless character. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -The slice of a house from that time forward presented the external -aspect to which the inhabitants of the narrow and fashionable street -and those who passed through it had been accustomed. Such individuals -as had anticipated beholding at some early day notices conspicuously -placed announcing “Sale by Auction. Elegant Modern Furniture” were -vaguely puzzled as well as surprised by the fact that no such notices -appeared even inconspicuously. Also there did not draw up before the -door—even as the weeks went on—huge and heavy removal vans with their -resultant litter, their final note of farewell a “To Let” in the front -windows. - -On the contrary, the florist came and refilled the window boxes with an -admirable arrangement of fresh flowers; new and even more correct -servants were to be seen ascending and descending the area step; a -young footman quite as smart as the departed Edward opened the front -door and attended Mrs. Gareth-Lawless to her perfect little brougham. -The trades-people appeared promptly every day and were obsequiously -respectful in manner. Evidently the household had not disintegrated as -a result of the death of Mr. Gareth-Lawless. - -As it became an established fact that the household had not fallen to -pieces its frequenters gradually returned to it, wearing indeed the air -of people who had never really remained away from it. There had been -natural reasons enough for considerate absence from a house of -bereavement and a desolate widow upon whose grief it would have been -indelicate to intrude. As Feather herself had realized, the circle of -her intimates was not formed of those who could readily adjust -themselves to entirely changed circumstances. If you dance on a tight -rope and the rope is unexpectedly withdrawn, where are you? You cannot -continue dancing until the rope is restrung. - -The rope, however, being apparently made absolutely secure, it was not -long before the dancing began again. Feather’s mourning, wonderfully -shading itself from month to month, was the joy of all beholders. -Madame Hélène treated her as a star gleaming through gradually -dispersing clouds. Her circle watched her with secretly humorous -interest as each fine veil of dimness was withdrawn. - -“The things she wears are priceless,” was said amiably in her own -drawing-room. “Where does she get them? Figure to yourself Lawdor -paying the bills.” - -“She gets them from Hélène,” said a long thin young man with a rather -good-looking narrow face and dark eyes, peering through _pince nez_, -“But I couldn’t.” - -In places where entertainment as a means of existence proceed so to -speak, fast and furiously, questions of taste are not dwelt upon at -leisure. You need not hesitate before saying anything you liked in any -one’s drawing-room so long as it was amusing enough to make somebody—if -not everybody—laugh. Feather had made people laugh in the same fashion -in the past. The persons she most admired were always making sly little -impudent comments and suggestions, and the thwarted years on the island -of Jersey had, in her case, resulted in an almost hectic desire to keep -pace. Her efforts had usually been successes because Nature’s self had -provided her with the manner of a silly pretty child who did not know -how far she went. Shouts of laughter had often greeted her, and the -first time she had for a moment doubted her prowess was on an occasion -when she had caught a glimpse of Coombe who stared at her with an -expression which she would—just for one second—have felt might be -horror, if she had not been so sure it couldn’t be, and must of course -be something else—one of the things nobody ever understood in him. - -By the time the softly swathing veils of vaporous darkness were -withdrawn, and the tight rope assuring everyone of its permanent -security became a trusted support, Feather at her crowded little -parties and at other people’s bigger ones did not remain wholly unaware -of the probability that even people who rather liked her made, among -themselves, more or less witty comments upon her improved fortunes. -They were improved greatly. Bills were paid, trades-people were polite, -servants were respectful; she had no need to invent excuses and lies. -She and Robert had always kept out of the way of stodgy, critical -people, so they had been intimate with none of the punctilious who -might have withdrawn themselves from a condition of things they chose -to disapprove: accordingly, she found no gaps in her circle. Those who -had formed the habit of amusing themselves at her house were as ready -as before to amuse themselves again. - -The fact remained, however,—curiously, perhaps, in connection with the -usual slightness of all impressions made on her—that there was a memory -which never wholly left her. Even when she tried to force it so far -into the background of her existence that it might almost be counted as -forgotten, it had a trick of rising before her. It was the memory of -the empty house as its emptiness had struck to the centre of her being -when she had turned from her bedroom window after watching the servants -drive away in their cabs. It was also the memory of the hours which had -followed—the night in which nobody had been in any of the rooms—no one -had gone up or down the stairs—when all had seemed dark and -hollow—except the Night Nursery where Robin screamed, and her own room -where she herself cowered under the bed clothes and pulled the pillow -over her head. But though the picture would not let itself be blotted -out, its effect was rather to intensify her sense of relief because she -had slipped so safely from under the wheels of destiny. - -“Sometimes,” she revealed artlessly to Coombe, “while I am driving in -the park on a fine afternoon when every one is out and the dresses look -like the flower beds, I let myself remember it just to make myself -enjoy everything more by contrast.” - -The elderly woman who had been a nurse in her youth and who had been -sent by Lord Coombe temporarily to replace Louisa had not remained long -in charge of Robin. She was not young and smart enough for a house on -the right side of the right street, and Feather found a young person -who looked exactly as she should when she pushed the child’s carriage -before her around the square. - -The square—out of which the right street branches—and the “Gardens” in -the middle of the square to which only privileged persons were admitted -by private key, the basement kitchen and Servants’ Hall, and the two -top floor nurseries represented the world to the child Robin for some -years. When she was old enough to walk in the street she was led by the -hand over the ground she had travelled daily in her baby carriage. Her -first memory of things was a memory of standing on the gravel path in -the Square Gardens and watching some sparrows quarrel while Andrews, -her nurse, sat on a bench with another nurse and talked in low tones. -They were talking in a way Robin always connected with servants and -which she naturally accepted as being the method of expression of their -species—much as she accepted the mewing of cats and the barking of -dogs. As she grew older, she reached the stage of knowing that they -were generally saying things they did not wish her to hear. - -She liked watching the sparrows in the Gardens because she liked -watching sparrows at all times. They were the only friends she had ever -known, though she was not old enough to call them friends, or to know -what friends meant. Andrews had taught her, by means of a system of her -own, to know better than to cry or to make any protesting noise when -she was left alone in her ugly small nursery. Andrews’ idea of her -duties did not involve boring herself to death by sitting in a room on -the top floor when livelier entertainment awaited her in the basement -where the cook was a woman of wide experience, the housemaid a young -person who had lived in gay country houses, and the footman at once a -young man of spirit and humour. So Robin spent many hours of the -day—taking them altogether—quite by herself. She might have more -potently resented her isolations if she had ever known any other -condition than that of a child in whom no one was in the least -interested and in whom “being good” could only mean being passive under -neglect and calling no one’s attention to the fact that she wanted -anything from anybody. As a bird born in captivity lives in its cage -and perhaps believes it to be the world, Robin lived in her nursery and -knew every square inch of it with a deadly if unconscious sense of -distaste and fatigue. She was put to bed and taken up, she was fed and -dressed in it, and once a day—twice perhaps if Andrews chose—she was -taken out of it downstairs and into the street. That was all. And that -was why she liked the sparrows so much. - -And sparrows are worth watching if you live in a nursery where nothing -ever happens and where, when you look out, you are so high up that it -is not easy to see the people in the world below, in addition to which -it seems nearly always raining. Robin used to watch them hopping about -on the slate roofs of the homes on the other side of the street. They -fluttered their wings, they picked up straws and carried them away. She -thought they must have houses of their own among the chimneys—in places -she could not see. She fancied it would be nice to hop about on the top -of a roof oneself if one were not at all afraid of falling. She liked -the chippering and chirping sounds the birds made became it sounded -like talking and laughing—like the talking and laughing she sometimes -wakened out of her sleep to lie and listen to when the Lady Downstairs -had a party. She often wondered what the people were doing because it -sounded as if they liked doing it very much. - -Sometimes when it had rained two or three days she had a feeling which -made her begin to cry to herself—but not aloud. She had once had a -little black and blue mark on her arm for a week where Andrews had -pinched her because she had cried loud enough to be heard. It had -seemed to her that Andrews twisted and pinched the bit of flesh for -five minutes without letting it go and she had held her large hand over -her mouth as she did it. - -“Now you keep that in your mind,” she had said when she had finished -and Robin had almost choked in her awful little struggle to keep back -all sound. - -The one thing Andrews was surest of was that nobody would come upstairs -to the Nursery to inquire the meaning of any cries which were not -unearthly enough to disturb the household. So it was easy to regulate -the existence of her charge in such a manner as best suited herself. - -“Just give her food enough and keep her from making silly noises when -she wants what she doesn’t get,” said Andrews to her companions below -stairs. “That one in the drawing-room isn’t going to interfere with the -Nursery. Not her! I know my business and I know how to manage her kind. -I go to her politely now and then and ask her permission to buy things -from Best’s or Liberty’s or some other good place. She always stares a -minute when I begin, as if she scarcely understood what I was talking -about and then she says ‘Oh, yes, I suppose she must have them.’ And I -go and get them. I keep her as well dressed as any child in Mayfair. -And she’s been a beauty since she was a year old so she looks first -rate when I wheel her up and down the street, so the people can see -she’s well taken care of and not kept hidden away. No one can complain -of her looks and nobody is bothered with her. That’s all that’s wanted -of _me_. I get good wages and I get them regular. I don’t turn up my -nose at a place like this, whatever the outside talk is. Who cares in -these days anyway? Fashionable people’s broader minded than they used -to be. In Queen Victoria’s young days they tell me servants were no -class that didn’t live in families where they kept the commandments.” - -“Fat lot the commandments give any one trouble in these times,” said -Jennings, the footman, who was a wit. “There’s one of ’em I could -mention that’s been broken till there’s no bits of it left to keep. If -I smashed that plate until it was powder it’d have to be swept into the -dust din. That’s what happened to one or two commandments in -particular.” - -“Well,” remarked Mrs. Blayne, the cook, “she don’t interfere and he -pays the bills prompt. That’ll do _me_ instead of commandments. If -you’ll believe me, my mother told me that in them Queen Victoria days -ladies used to inquire about cold meat and ask what was done with the -dripping. Civilisation’s gone beyond that—commandments or no -commandments.” - -“He’s precious particular about bills being paid,” volunteered -Jennings, with the air of a man of the world. “I heard him having a row -with her one day about some bills she hadn’t paid. She’d spent the -money for some nonsense and he was pretty stiff in that queer way of -his. Quite right he was too. I’d have been the same myself,” pulling up -his collar and stretching his neck in a manner indicating exact -knowledge of the natural sentiments of a Marquis when justly annoyed. -“What he intimated was that if them bills was not paid with the money -that was meant to pay them, the money wouldn’t be forthcoming the next -time.” Jennings was rather pleased by the word “forthcoming” and -therefore he repeated it with emphasis, “It wouldn’t be _forthcoming_.” - -“That’d frighten her,” was Andrews’ succinct observation. - -“It did!” said Jennings. “She’d have gone in hysterics if he hadn’t -kept her down. He’s got a way with him, Coombe has.” - -Andrews laughed, a brief, dry laugh. - -“Do you know what the child calls her?” she said. “She calls her the -Lady Downstairs. She’s got a sort of fancy for her and tries to get -peeps at her when we go out. I notice she always cranes her little neck -if we pass a room she might chance to be in. It’s her pretty clothes -and her laughing that does it. Children’s drawn by bright colours and -noise that sounds merry.” - -“It’s my belief the child doesn’t know she _is_ her mother!” said Mrs. -Blayne as she opened an oven door to look at some rolls. - -“It’s my belief that if I told her she was she wouldn’t know what the -word meant. It was me she got the name from,” Andrews still laughed as -she explained. “I used to tell her about the Lady Downstairs would hear -if she made a noise, or I’d say I’d let her have a peep at the Lady -Downstairs if she was very good. I saw she had a kind of awe of her -though she liked her so much, so it was a good way of managing her. You -mayn’t believe me but for a good bit I didn’t take in that she didn’t -know there was such things as mothers and, when I did take it in, I saw -there wasn’t any use in trying to explain. She wouldn’t have -understood.” - -“How would you go about to explain a mother, anyway?” suggested -Jennings. “I’d have to say that she was the person that had the right -to slap your head if you didn’t do what she told you.” - -“I’d have to say that she was the woman that could keep you slaving at -kitchen maid’s work fifteen hours a day,” said Mrs. Blayne; “My mother -was cook in a big house and trained me under her.” - -“I never had one,” said Andrews stiffly. The truth was that she had -taken care of eight infant brothers and sisters, while her maternal -parent slept raucously under the influence of beer when she was not -quarrelling with her offspring. - -Jane, the housemaid, had passed a not uncomfortable childhood in the -country and was perhaps of a soft nature. - -“I’d say that a mother’s the one that you belong to and that’s fond of -you, even if she does keep you straight,” she put in. - -“Her mother isn’t fond of her and doesn’t keep herself straight,” said -Jennings. “So that wouldn’t do.” - -“And she doesn’t slap her head or teach her to do kitchen maid’s work,” -put in Mrs. Blayne, “so yours is no use, Mr. Jennings, and neither is -mine. Miss Andrews ’ll have to cook up an explanation of her own -herself when she finds she has to.” - -“She can get it out of a Drury Lane melodrama,” said Jennings, with -great humour. “You’ll have to sit down some night, Miss Andrews, and -say, ‘The time has come, me chee-ild, when I must tell you All’.” - -In this manner were Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and her maternal affections -discussed below stairs. The interesting fact remained that to Robin the -Lady Downstairs was merely a radiant and beautiful being who floated -through certain rooms laughing or chattering like a bird, and always -wearing pretty clothes, which were different each time one beheld her. -Sometimes one might catch a glimpse of her through a door, or, if one -pressed one’s face against the window pane at the right moment, she -might get into her bright little carnage in the street below and, after -Jennings had shut its door, she might be seen to give a lovely flutter -to her clothes as she settled back against the richly dark blue -cushions. - -It is a somewhat portentous thing to realize that a newborn human -creature can only know what it is taught. The teaching may be conscious -or unconscious, intelligent or idiotic, exquisite or brutal. The images -presented by those surrounding it, as its perceptions awaken day by -day, are those which record themselves on its soul, its brain, its -physical being which is its sole means of expressing, during physical -life, all it has learned. That which automatically becomes the Law at -the dawning of newborn consciousness remains, to its understanding, the -Law of Being, the Law of the Universe. To the cautious of -responsibility this at times wears the aspect of an awesome thing, -suggesting, however remotely, that it might seem well, perhaps, to -remove the shoes from one’s feet, as it were, and tread with deliberate -and delicate considering of one’s steps, as do the reverently courteous -even on the approaching of an unknown altar. - -This being acknowledged a scientific, as well as a spiritual truth, -there remains no mystery in the fact that Robin at six years old—when -she watched the sparrows in the Square Gardens—did not know the name of -the feeling which had grown within her as a result of her pleasure in -the chance glimpses of the Lady Downstairs. It was a feeling which made -her eager to see her or anything which belonged to her; it made her -strain her child ears to catch the sound of her voice; it made her long -to hear Andrews or the other servants speak of her, and yet much too -shy to dare to ask any questions. She had found a place on the -staircase leading to the Nursery, where, by squeezing against the -balustrade, she could sometimes see the Lady pass in and out of her -pink bedroom. She used to sit on a step and peer between the railing -with beating heart. Sometimes, after she had been put to bed for the -night and Andrews was safely entertained downstairs, Robin would be -awakened from her first sleep by sounds in the room below and would -creep out of bed and down to her special step and, crouching in a -hectic joy, would see the Lady come out with sparkling things in her -hair and round her lovely, very bare white neck and arms, all swathed -in tints and draperies which made her seem a vision of colour and -light. She was so radiant a thing that often the child drew in her -breath with a sound like a little sob of ecstasy, and her lip trembled -as if she were going to cry. But she did not know that what she felt -was the yearning of a thing called love—a quite simple and natural -common thing of which she had no reason for having any personal -knowledge. As she was unaware of mothers, so she was unaware of -affection, of which Andrews would have felt it to be superfluously -sentimental to talk to her. - -On the very rare occasions when the Lady Downstairs appeared on the -threshold of the Day Nursery, Robin—always having been freshly dressed -in one of her nicest frocks—stood and stared with immense startled eyes -and answered in a whisper the banal little questions put to her. The -Lady appeared at such rare intervals and remained poised upon the -threshold like a tropic plumaged bird for moments so brief, that there -never was time to do more than lose breath and gaze as at a sudden -vision. Why she came—when she did come—Robin did not understand. She -evidently did not belong to the small, dingy nurseries which grew -shabbier every year as they grew steadily more grimy under the -persistent London soot and fogs. - -Feather always held up her draperies when she came. She would not have -come at all but for the fact that she had once or twice been asked if -the child was growing pretty, and it would have seemed absurd to admit -that she never saw her at all. - -“I think she’s rather pretty,” she said downstairs. “She’s round and -she has a bright colour—almost too bright, and her eyes are round too. -She’s either rather stupid or she’s shy—and one’s as bad as the other. -She’s a child that stares.” - -If, when Andrews had taken her into the Gardens, she had played with -other children, Robin would no doubt have learned something of the -existence and normal attitude of mothers through the mere accident of -childish chatter, but it somehow happened that she never formed -relations with the charges of other nurses. She took it for granted for -some time that this was because Andrews had laid down some mysterious -law. Andrews did not seem to form acquaintances herself. Sometimes she -sat on a bench and talked a little to another nurse, but she seldom sat -twice with the same person. It was indeed generally her custom to sit -alone, crocheting or sewing, with a rather lofty and exclusive air and -to call Robin back to her side if she saw her slowly edging towards -some other child. - -“My rule is to keep myself to myself,” she said in the kitchen. “And to -look as if I was the one that would turn up noses, if noses was to be -turned up. There’s those that would snatch away their children if I let -Robin begin to make up to them. Some wouldn’t, of course, but I’m not -going to run risks. I’m going to save my own pride.” - -But one morning when Robin was watching her sparrows, a nurse, who was -an old acquaintance, surprised Andrews by appearing in the Gardens with -two little girls in her charge. They were children of nine and eleven -and quite sufficient for themselves, apart from the fact that they -regarded Robin as a baby and, therefore, took no notice of her. They -began playing with skipping ropes, which left their nurse free to -engage in delighted conversation with Andrews. - -It was conversation so delightful that Robin was forgotten, even to the -extent of being allowed to follow her sparrows round a clump of -shrubbery and, therefore, out of Andrews’ sight, though she was only a -few yards away. The sparrows this morning were quarrelsome and suddenly -engaged in a fight, pecking each other furiously, beating their wings -and uttering shrill, protesting chipperings. Robin did not quite -understand what they were doing and stood watching them with spellbound -interest. - -It was while she watched them that she heard footsteps on the gravel -walk which stopped near her and made her look up to see who was at her -side. A big boy in Highland kilts and bonnet and sporan was standing by -her, and she found herself staring into a pair of handsome deep blue -eyes, blue like the waters of a hillside tarn. They were wide, glowing, -friendly eyes and none like them had ever looked into hers before. He -seemed to her to be a very big boy indeed, and in fact, he was -unusually tall and broad for his age, but he was only eight years old -and a simple enough child pagan. Robin’s heart began to beat as it did -when she watched the Lady Downstairs, but there was something different -in the beating. It was something which made her red mouth spread and -curve itself into a smile which showed all her small teeth. - -So they stood and stared at each other and for some strange, strange -reason—created, perhaps, with the creating of Man and still hidden -among the deep secrets of the Universe—they were drawn to each -other—wanted each other—knew each other. Their advances were, of -course, of the most primitive—as primitive and as much a matter of -instinct as the nosing and sniffing of young animals. He spread and -curved his red mouth and showed the healthy whiteness of his own -handsome teeth as she had shown her smaller ones. Then he began to run -and prance round in a circle, capering like a Shetland pony to exhibit -at once his friendliness and his prowess. He tossed his curled head and -laughed to make her laugh also, and she not only laughed but clapped -her hands. He was more beautiful than anything she had ever seen before -in her life, and he was plainly trying to please her. No child creature -had ever done anything like it before, because no child creature had -ever been allowed by Andrews to make friends with her. He, on his part, -was only doing what any other little boy animal would have -done—expressing his child masculinity by “showing off” before a little -female. But to this little female it had never happened before. - -It was all beautifully elemental. As does not too often happen, two -souls as well as two bodies were drawn towards each other by the Magnet -of Being. When he had exhibited himself for a minute or two he came -back to her, breathing fast and glowing. - -“My pony in Scotland does that. His name is Chieftain. He is a Shetland -pony and he is only that high,” he measured forty inches from the -ground. “I’m called Donal. What are you called?” - -“Robin,” she answered, her lips and voice trembling with joy. He was so -beautiful. His hair was bright and curly. His broad forehead was clear -white where he had pushed back his bonnet with the eagle feather -standing upright on it. His strong legs and knees were white between -his tartan kilt and his rolled back stockings. The clasps which held -his feather and the plaid over his shoulder were set with fine stones -in rich silver. She did not know that he was perfectly equipped as a -little Highland chieftain, the head of his clan, should be. - -They began to play together, and the unknown Fates, which do their work -as they choose, so wrought on this occasion as to cause Andrews’ friend -to set forth upon a journey through a story so exciting in its nature -that its hearer was held spellbound and oblivious to her surroundings -themselves. Once, it is true, she rose as in a dream and walked round -the group of shrubs, but the Fates had arranged for that moment also. -Robin was alone and was busily playing with some leaves she had plucked -and laid on the seat of a bench for some mysterious reason. She looked -good for an hour’s safe occupation, and Andrews returned to her -friend’s detailed and intimate version of a great country house -scandal, of which the papers were full because it had ended in the -divorce court. - -Donal had, at that special moment, gone to pick some of the biggest -leaves from the lilac bush of which the Gardens contained numerous -sooty specimens. The leaves Robin was playing with were some he had -plucked first to show her a wonderful thing. If you laid a leaf flat on -the seat of the bench and were fortunate enough to possess a large pin -you could prick beautiful patterns on the leaf’s greenness—dots and -circles, and borders and tiny triangles of a most decorative order. -Neither Donal nor Robin had a pin but Donal had, in his rolled down -stocking, a little dirk the point of which could apparently be used for -any interesting purpose. It was really he who did the decoration, but -Robin leaned against the bench and looked on enthralled. She had never -been happy before in the entire course of her brief existence. She had -not known or expected any conditions other than those she was familiar -with—the conditions of being fed and clothed, kept clean and exercised, -but totally unloved and unentertained. She did not even know that this -nearness to another human creature, the exchange of companionable -looks, which were like flashes of sunlight, the mutual outbreaks of -child laughter and pleasure were happiness. To her, what she felt, the -glow and delight of it, had no name but she wanted it to go on and on, -never to be put an end to by Andrews or anyone else. - -The boy Donal was not so unconscious. He had been happy all his life. -What he felt was that he had liked this little girl the minute he saw -her. She was pretty, though he thought her immensely younger than -himself, and, when she had looked up at him with her round, asking -eyes, he had wanted to talk to her and make friends. He had not played -much with boys and he had no haughty objection to girls who liked him. -This one did, he saw at once. - -Through what means children so quickly convey to each other—while -seeming scarcely to do more than play—the entire history of their lives -and surroundings, is a sort of occult secret. It is not a matter of -prolonged conversation. Perhaps images created by the briefest of -unadorned statements produce on the unwritten tablets of the child mind -immediate and complete impressions. Safe as the locked garden was, -Andrews cannot have forgotten her charge for any very great length of -time and yet before Donal, hearing his attendant’s voice from her -corner, left Robin to join her and be taken home, the two children knew -each other intimately. Robin knew that Donal’s home was in -Scotland—where there are hills and moors with stags on them. He lived -there with “Mother” and he had been brought to London for a visit. The -person he called “Mother” was a woman who took care of him and he spoke -of her quite often. Robin did not think she was like Andrews, though -she did not in the least know why. On his part Donal knew about the -nurseries and the sparrows who hopped about on the slates of the houses -opposite. Robin did not describe the nurseries to him, but Donal knew -that they were ugly and that there were no toys in them and nothing to -do. Also, in some mystic fashion, he realized that Andrews would not -let Robin play with him if she saw them together, and that, therefore, -they must make the most of their time. Full of their joy in each other, -they actually embarked upon an ingenious infant intrigue, which -involved their trying to meet behind the shrubs if they were brought to -the Gardens the next day. Donal was sure he could come because his -nurse always did what he asked of her. He was so big now that she was -not a real nurse, but she had been his nurse when he was quite little -and “Mother” liked her to travel with them. He had a tutor but he had -stayed behind in Scotland at Braemarnie, which was their house. Donal -would come tomorrow and he would look for Robin and when she saw him -she must get away from Andrews and they would play together again. - -“I will bring one of my picture books,” he said grandly. “Can you read -at all?” - -“No,” answered Robin adoring him. “What are picture books?” - -“Haven’t you any?” he blurted out. - -“No,” said Robin. She looked at the gravel walk, reflecting a moment -thoughtfully on the Day Nursery and the Night Nursery. Then she lifted -her eyes to the glowing blueness of his and said quite simply, “I -haven’t anything.” - -He suddenly remembered things his Mother had told him about poor -people. Perhaps she was poor. Could she be poor when her frock and hat -and coat were so pretty? It was not polite to ask. But the thought made -him love her more. He felt something warm rush all over his body. The -truth, if he had been old enough to be aware of it, was that the entire -simpleness of her acceptance of things as they were, and a something -which was unconsciousness of any cause for complaint, moved his child -masculinity enormously. His old nurse’s voice came from her corner -again. - -“I must go to Nanny,” he said, feeling somehow as if he had been -running fast. “I’ll come tomorrow and bring two picture books.” - -He was a loving, warm blooded child human thing, and the expression of -affection was, to him, a familiar natural impulse. He put his strong -little eight-year-old arms round her and kissed her full on her mouth, -as he embraced her with all his strength. He kissed her twice. - -It was the first time for Robin. Andrews did not kiss. There was no one -else. It was the first time, and Nature had also made her a loving, -warm blooded, human thing. How beautiful he was—how big—how strong his -arms were—and how soft and warm his mouth felt. She stood and gazed at -him with wide asking eyes and laughed a little. She had no words -because she did not know what had happened. - -“Don’t you like to be kissed?” said Donal, uncertain because she looked -so startled and had not kissed him back. - -“Kissed,” she repeated, with a small, caught breath, “ye-es.” She knew -now what it was. It was being kissed. She drew nearer at once and -lifted up her face as sweetly and gladly, as a flower lifts itself to -the sun. “Kiss me again,” she said quite eagerly. As ingenuously and -heartily as before, he kissed her again and, this time, she kissed too. -When he ran quickly away, she stood looking after him with smiling, -trembling lips, uplifted, joyful—wondering and amazed. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -When she went back to Andrews she carried the pricked leaves with her. -She could not have left them behind. From what source she had drawn a -characterizing passionate, though silent, strength of mind and body, it -would be difficult to explain. Her mind and her emotions had been left -utterly unfed, but they were not of the inert order which scarcely -needs feeding. Her feeling for the sparrows had held more than she -could have expressed; her secret adoration of the “Lady Downstairs” was -an intense thing. Her immediate surrender to the desire in the first -pair of human eyes—child eyes though they were—which had ever called to -her being for response, was simple and undiluted rapture. She had -passed over her little soul without a moment’s delay and without any -knowledge of the giving. It had flown from her as a bird might fly from -darkness into the sun. Eight-year-old Donal was the sun. - -No special tendency to innate duplicity was denoted by the fact that -she had acquired, through her observation of Andrews, Jennings, Jane -and Mrs. Blayne, the knowledge that there were things it was best not -to let other people know. You were careful about them. From the occult -communications between herself and Donal, which had resulted in their -intrigue, there had of course evolved a realizing sense of the value of -discretion. She did not let Andrews see the decorated leaves, but put -them into a small pocket in her coat. Her Machiavellian intention was -to slip them out when she was taken up to the Nursery. Andrews was -always in a hurry to go downstairs to her lunch and she would be left -alone and could find a place where she could hide them. - -Andrews’ friend started when Robin drew near to them. The child’s -cheeks and lips were the colour of Jacqueminot rose petals. Her eyes -glowed with actual rapture. - -“My word! That’s a beauty if I ever saw one,” said the woman. “First -sight makes you jump. My word!” - -Robin, however, did not know what she was talking about and in fact -scarcely heard her. She was thinking of Donal. She thought of him as -she was taken home, and she did not cease thinking of him during the -whole rest of the day and far into the night. When Andrews left her, -she found a place to hide the pricked leaves and before she put them -away she did what Donal had done to her—she kissed them. She kissed -them several times because they were Donal’s leaves and he had made the -stars and lines on them. It was almost like kissing Donal but not quite -so beautiful. - -After she was put to bed at night and Andrews left her she lay awake -for a long time. She did not want to go to sleep because everything -seemed so warm and wonderful and she could think and think and think. -What she thought about was Donal’s face, his delightful eyes, his white -forehead with curly hair pushed back with his Highland bonnet. His -plaid swung about when he ran and jumped. When he held her tight the -buttons of his jacket hurt her a little because they pressed against -her body. What was “Mother” like? Did he kiss her? What pretty stones -there were in his clasps and buckles! How nice it was to hear him laugh -and how fond he was of laughing. Donal! Donal! Donal! He liked to play -with her though she was a girl and so little. He would play with her -tomorrow. His cheeks were bright pink, his hair was bright, his eyes -were bright. He was all bright. She tried to see into the blueness of -his eyes again as it seemed when they looked at each other close to. As -she began to see the clear colour she fell asleep. - -The power which had on the first morning guided Robin to the seclusion -behind the clump of shrubs and had provided Andrews with an enthralling -companion, extended, the next day, an even more beneficient and -complete protection. Andrews was smitten with a cold so alarming as to -confine her to bed. Having no intention of running any risks, -whatsoever, she promptly sent for a younger sister who, temporarily -being “out of place”, came into the house as substitute. She was a -pretty young woman who assumed no special responsibilities and was fond -of reading novels. - -“She’s been trained to be no trouble, Anne. She’ll amuse herself -without bothering you as long as you keep her out,” Andrews said of -Robin. - -Anne took “Lady Audley’s Secret” with her to the Gardens and, having -led her charge to a shady and comfortable seat which exactly suited -her, she settled herself for a pleasant morning. - -“Now, you can play while I read,” she said to Robin. - -As they had entered the Gardens they had passed, not far from the gate, -a bench on which sat a highly respectable looking woman who was hemming -a delicate bit of cambric, and evidently in charge of two picture books -which lay on the seat beside her. A fine boy in Highland kilts was -playing a few yards away. Robin felt something like a warm flood rush -over her and her joy was so great and exquisite that she wondered if -Anne felt her hand trembling. Anne did not because she was looking at a -lady getting into a carriage across the street. - -The marvel of that early summer morning in the gardens of a splendid -but dingy London square was not a thing for which human words could -find expression. It was not an earthly thing, or, at least, not a thing -belonging to an earth grown old. A child Adam and Eve might have known -something like it in the Garden of Eden. It was as clear and simple as -spring water and as warm as the sun. - -Anne’s permission to “play” once given, Robin found her way behind the -group of lilacs and snowballs. Donal would come, not only because he -was so big that Nanny would let him do what he wanted to do, but -because he would do everything and anything in the world. Donal! Donal! -Her heart was a mere baby’s heart but it beat as if she were -seventeen—beat with pure rapture. He was all bright and he would laugh -and laugh. - -The coming was easy enough for Donal. He had told his mother and Nanny -rejoicingly about the little girl he had made friends with and who had -no picture books. But he did not come straight to her. He took his -picture books under his arm, and showing all his white teeth in a -joyous grin, set out to begin their play properly with a surprise. He -did not let her see him coming but “stalked” her behind the trees and -bushes until he found where she was waiting, and then thrust his face -between the branches of a tall shrub near her and laughed the outright -laugh she loved. And when she turned she was looking straight into the -clear blue she had tried to see when she fell asleep. “Donal! Donal!” -she cried like a little bird with but one note. - -The lilac and the snowball were in blossom and there was a big hawthorn -tree which smelt sweet and sweet. They could not see the drift of smuts -on the blossoms, they only smelled the sweetness and sat under the -hawthorn and sniffed and sniffed. The sun was deliciously warm and a -piano organ was playing beautifully not far away. They sat close to -each other, so close that the picture book could lie open on both pairs -of knees and the warmth of each young body penetrated the softness of -the other. Sometimes Donal threw an arm around her as she bent over the -page. Love and caresses were not amazements to him; he accepted them as -parts of the normal joy of life. To Robin they were absolute wonder. -The pictures were delight and amazement in one. Donal knew all about -them and told her stories. She felt that such splendour could have -emanated only from him. It could not occur to her that he had not -invented them and made the pictures. He showed her Robinson Crusoe and -Robin Hood. The scent of the hawthorn and lilac intoxicated them and -they laughed tremendously because Robin Hood’s name was like Robin’s -own and he was a man and she was a girl. They could scarcely stop -laughing and Donal rolled over and over on the grass, half from -unconquerable high spirits and half to make Robin laugh still more. - -He had some beautiful coloured glass marbles in his pocket and he -showed her how to play with them, and gave her two of the prettiest. He -could shoot them over the ground in a way to thrill the beholder. He -could hop on one leg as far as he liked. He could read out of books. - -“Do you like me?” he said once in a pause between displays of his -prowess. - -Robin was kneeling upon the grass watching him and she clasped her -little hands as if she were uttering a prayer. - -“Oh, yes, yes!” she yearned. “Yes! Yes!” - -“I like you,” he answered; “I told my mother all about you.” - -He came to her and knelt by her side. - -“Have you a mother?” he asked. - -“No,” shaking her head. - -“Do you live with your aunt?” - -“No, I don’t live with anybody.” - -He looked puzzled. - -“Isn’t there any lady in your house?” he put it to her. She brightened -a little, relieved to think she had something to tell him. - -“There’s the Lady Downstairs,” she said. “She’s so pretty—so pretty.” - -“Is she——” he stopped and shook his head. “She couldn’t be your -mother,” he corrected himself. “You’d know about _her_.” - -“She wears pretty clothes. Sometimes they float about and sparkle and -she wears little crowns on her head—or flowers. She laughs,” Robin -described eagerly. “A great many people come to see her. They all -laugh. Sometimes they sing. I lie in bed and listen.” - -“Does she ever come upstairs to the Nursery?” inquired Donal with a -somewhat reflective air. - -“Yes. She comes and stands near the door and says, ‘Is she quite well, -Andrews?’ She does not laugh then. She—she _looks_ at me.” - -She stopped there, feeling suddenly that she wished very much that she -had more to tell. What she was saying was evidently not very -satisfactory. He seemed to expect more—and she had no more to give. A -sense of emptiness crept upon her and for no reason she understood -there was a little click in her throat. - -“Does she only stand near the door?” he suggested, as one putting the -situation to a sort of crucial test. “Does she never sit on a big chair -and take you on her knee?” - -“No, no,” in a dropped voice. “She will not sit down. She says the -chairs are grubby.” - -“Doesn’t she _love_ you at all?” persisted Donal. “Doesn’t she _kiss_ -you?” - -There was a thing she had known for what seemed to her a long time—God -knows in what mysterious fashion she had learned it, but learned it -well she had. That no human being but herself was aware of her -knowledge was inevitable. To whom could she have told it? But -Donal—Donal wanted to know all about her. The little click made itself -felt in her throat again. - -“She—she doesn’t _like_ me!” Her dropped voice was the whisper of one -humbled to the dust by confession, “She—doesn’t _like_ me!” And the -click became another thing which made her put up her arm over her -eyes—her round, troubled child eyes, which, as she had looked into -Donal’s, had widened with sudden, bewildered tears. - -Donal flung his arms round her and squeezed his buttons into her tender -chest. He hugged her close; he kissed her; there was a choking in his -throat. He was hot all over. - -“She does like you. She must like you. I’ll make her!” he cried -passionately. “She’s not your mother. If she was, she’d _love_ you! -She’d _love_ you!” - -“Do Mothers l-love you?” the small voice asked with a half sob. -“What’s—what’s _love_ you?” It was not vulgar curiosity. She only -wanted to find out. - -He loosed his embrace, sitting back on his heels to stare. - -“Don’t you _know?_” - -She shook her head with soft meekness. - -“N-no,” she answered. - -Big boys like himself did not usually play with such little girls. But -something had drawn him to her at their first moment of encounter. She -wasn’t like any other little girls. He felt it all the time and that -was part of the thing which drew him. He was not, of course, aware that -the male thrill at being regarded as one who is a god had its power -over the emotions. She wasn’t making silly fun and pretending. She -really didn’t know—because she was different. - -“It’s liking very much. It’s more,” he explained. “My mother loves -_me_. I—I _love_ you!” stoutly. “Yes, I _love_ you. That’s why I kissed -you when you cried.” - -She was so uplifted, so overwhelmed with adoring gratitude that as she -knelt on the grass she worshipped him. - -“I love _you_,” she answered him. “I _love_ you—_love_ you!” And she -looked at him with such actual prayerfulness that he caught at her and, -with manly promptness, kissed her again—this being mere Nature. - -Because he was eight years old and she was six her tears flashed away -and they both laughed joyously as they sat down on the grass again to -talk it over. - -He told her all the pleasant things he knew about Mothers. The world -was full of them it seemed—full. You belong to them from the time you -were a baby. He had not known many personally because he had always -lived at Braemarnie, which was in the country in Scotland. There were -no houses near his home. You had to drive miles and miles before you -came to a house or a castle. He had not seen much of other children -except a few who lived at the Manse and belonged to the minister. -Children had fathers as well as mothers. Fathers did not love you or -take care of you quite as much as Mothers—because they were men. But -they loved you too. His own father had died when he was a baby. His -mother loved him as much as he loved her. She was beautiful but—it -seemed to reveal itself—not like the Lady Downstairs. She did not laugh -very much, though she laughed when they played together. He was too big -now to sit on her knee, but squeezed into the big chair beside her when -she read or told him stories. He always did what his mother told him. -She knew everything in the world and so knew what he ought to do. Even -when he was a big man he should do what his mother told him. - -Robin listened to every word with enraptured eyes and bated breath. -This was the story of Love and Life and it was the first time she had -ever heard it. It was as much a revelation as the Kiss. She had spent -her days in the grimy Nursery and her one close intimate had been a -bony woman who had taught her not to cry, employing the practical -method of terrifying her into silence by pinching her—knowing it was -quite safe to do it. It had not been necessary to do it often. She had -seen people on the streets, but she had only seen them in passing by. -She had not watched them as she had watched the sparrows. When she was -taken down for a few minutes into the basement, she vaguely knew that -she was in the way and that Mrs. Blayne’s and Andrews’ and Jennings’ -low voices and occasional sidelong look meant that they were talking -about her and did not want her to hear. - -“I have no mother and no father,” she explained quite simply to Donal. -“No one kisses me.” - -“No one!” Donal said, feeling curious. “Has no one ever kissed you but -me?” - -“No,” she answered. - -Donal laughed—because children always laugh when they do not know what -else to do. - -“Was that why you looked as if you were frightened when I said good-bye -to you yesterday?” - -“I—I didn’t know,” said Robin, laughing a little too—but not very much, -“I wasn’t frightened. I liked you.” - -“I’ll kiss you as often as you want me to,” he volunteered nobly. “I’m -used to it—because of my mother. I’ll kiss you again now.” And he did -it quite without embarrassment. It was a sort of manly gratuity. - -Once Anne, with her book in her hand, came round the shrubs to see how -her charge was employing herself, and seeing her looking at pictures -with a handsomely dressed companion, she returned to “Lady Audley’s -Secret” feeling entirely safe. - -The lilac and the hawthorn tree continued to breathe forth warmed -scents of paradise in the sunshine, the piano organ went on playing, -sometimes nearer, sometimes farther away, but evidently finding the -neighbourhood a desirable one. Sometimes the children laughed at each -other, sometimes at pictures Donal showed, or stories he told, or at -his own extreme wit. The boundaries were removed from Robin’s world. -She began to understand that there was another larger one containing -wonderful and delightful things she had known nothing about. Donal was -revealing it to her in everything he said even when he was not aware -that he was telling her anything. When Eve was formed from the rib of -Adam the information it was necessary for him to give her regarding her -surroundings must have filled her with enthralling interest and a -reverence which adored. The planted enclosure which was the central -feature of the soot sprinkled, stately London Square was as the Garden -of Eden. - -The Garden of Eden it remained for two weeks. Andrews’ cold was serious -enough to require a doctor and her sister Anne continued to perform -their duties. The weather was exceptionally fine and, being a vain -young woman, she liked to dress Robin in her pretty clothes and take -her out because she was a beauty and attracted attention to her nurse -as well as to herself. Mornings spent under the trees reading were -entirely satisfactory. Each morning the children played together and -each night Robin lay awake and lived again the delights of the past -hours. Each day she learned more wonders and her young mind and soul -were fed. There began to stir in her brain new thoughts and the -beginning of questioning. Scotland, Braemarnie, Donal’s mother, even -the Manse and the children in it, combined to form a world of -enchantment. There were hills with stags living in them, there were -moors with purple heather and yellow brome and gorse; birds built their -nests under the bushes and Donal’s pony knew exactly where to step even -in the roughest places. There were two boys and two girls at the Manse -and they had a father and a mother. These things were enough for a new -heaven and a new earth to form themselves around. The centre of the -whole Universe was Donal with his strength and his laugh and his eyes -which were so alive and glowing that she seemed always to see them. She -knew nothing about the thing which was their somehow—not-to-be-denied -allure. They were _asking_ eyes—and eyes which gave. The boy was in -truth a splendid creature. His body and beauty were perfect life and -joyous perfect living. His eyes asked other eyes for everything. “Tell -me more,” they said. “Tell me more! Like me! Answer me! Let us give -each other everything in the world.” He had always been well, he had -always been happy, he had always been praised and loved. He had known -no other things. - -During the first week in which the two children played together, his -mother, whose intense desire it was to understand him, observed in him -a certain absorption of mood when he was not talking or amusing himself -actively. He began to fall into a habit of standing at the windows, -often with his chin in his hand, looking out as if he were so full of -thought that he saw nothing. It was not an old habit, it was a new one. - -“What are you thinking about, Donal?” she asked one afternoon. - -He seemed to awaken, as it were, when he heard her. He turned about -with his alluring smile. - -“I am thinking it is _funny_,” he said. “It is funny that I should like -such a little girl such a lot. She is years and years younger than I -am. But I like her so. It is such fun to tell her things.” He marched -over to his mother’s writing table and leaned against it. What his -mother saw was that he had an impassioned desire to talk about this -child. She felt it was a desire even a trifle abnormal in its -eagerness. - -“She has such a queer house, I think,” he explained. “She has a nurse -and such pretty clothes and she is so pretty herself, but I don’t -believe she has any toys or books in her nursery.” - -“Where is her mother?” - -“She must be dead. There is no lady in her house but the Lady -Downstairs. She is very pretty and is always laughing. But she is not -her mother because she doesn’t like her and she never kisses her. I -think that’s the queerest thing of all. No one had _ever_ kissed her -till I did.” - -His mother was a woman given to psychological analysis. Her eyes began -to dwell on his face with slightly anxious questioning. - -“Did you kiss her?” she inquired. - -“Yes. I kissed her when I said good morning the first day. I thought -she didn’t like me to do it but she did. It was only because no one had -ever done it before. She likes it very much.” - -He leaned farther over the writing table and began to pour forth, his -smile growing and his eyes full of pleasure. His mother was a trifle -alarmedly struck by the feeling that he was talking like a young man in -love who cannot keep his tongue still, though in his case even the -youngest manhood was years away, and he made no effort to conceal his -sentiments which a young man would certainly have striven to do. - -“She’s got such a pretty little face and such a pretty mouth and -cheeks,” he touched a Jacqueminot rose in a vase. “They are the colour -of that. Today a robin came with the sparrows and hopped about near us. -We laughed and laughed because her eyes are like the robin’s, and she -is called Robin. I wish you would come into the Gardens and see her, -mother. She likes everything I do.” - -“I must come, dear,” she answered. - -“Nanny thinks she is lovely,” he announced. “She says I am in love with -her. Am I, mother?” - -“You are too young to be in love,” she said. “And even when you are -older you must not fall in love with people you know nothing about.” - -It was an unconscious bit of Scotch cautiousness which she at once -realized was absurd and quite out of place. But—! - -She realized it because he stood up and squared his shoulders in an odd -young-mannish way. He had not flushed even faintly before and now a -touch of colour crept under his fair skin. - -“But I _do_ love her,” he said. “I _do_. I can’t stop.” And though he -was quite simple and obviously little boy-like, she actually felt -frightened for a moment. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was -standing in Feather’s drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand and -wearing the look of a man who is given up to reflection. - -“I saw Mrs. Muir today for the first time for several years,” he said -after a silence. “She is in London with the boy.” - -“Is she as handsome as ever?” - -“Quite. Hers is not the beauty that disappears. It is line and bearing -and a sort of splendid grace and harmony.” - -“What is the boy like?” - -Coombe reflected again before he answered. - -“He is—amazing. One so seldom sees anything approaching physical -perfection that it strikes one a sort of blow when one comes upon it -suddenly face to face.” - -“Is he as beautiful as all that?” - -“The Greeks used to make statues of bodies like his. They often called -them gods—but not always. The Creative Intention plainly was that all -human beings should be beautiful and he is the expression of it.” - -Feather was pretending to embroider a pink flower on a bit of gauze and -she smiled vaguely. - -“I don’t know what you mean,” she admitted with no abasement of spirit, -“but if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has not been -carried out.” Her smile broke into a little laugh as she stuck her -needle into her work. “I’m thinking of Henry,” she let drop in -addition. - -“So was I, it happened,” answered Coombe after a second or so of pause. - -Henry was the next of kin who was—to Coombe’s great objection—his heir -presumptive, and was universally admitted to be a repulsive sort of -person both physically and morally. He had brought into the world a -weakly and rickety framework and had from mere boyhood devoted himself -to a life which would have undermined a Hercules. A relative may so -easily present the aspect of an unfortunate incident over which one has -no control. This was the case with Henry. His character and appearance -were such that even his connection with an important heritage was not -enough to induce respectable persons to accept him in any form. But if -Coombe remained without issue Henry would be the Head of the House. - -“How is his cough?” inquired Feather. - -“Frightful. He is an emaciated wreck and he has no physical cause for -remaining alive.” - -Feather made three or four stitches. - -“Does Mrs. Muir know?” she said. - -“If Mrs. Muir is conscious of his miserable existence, that is all,” he -answered. “She is not the woman to inquire. Of course she cannot help -knowing that—when he is done with—her boy takes his place in the line -of succession.” - -“Oh, yes, she’d know that,” put in Feather. - -It was Coombe who smiled now—very faintly. - -“You have a mistaken view of her,” he said. - -“You admire her very much,” Feather bridled. The figure of this big -Scotch creature with her “line” and her “splendid grace and harmony” -was enough to make one bridle. - -“She doesn’t admire me,” said Coombe. “She is not proud of me as a -connection. She doesn’t really want the position for the boy, in her -heart of hearts.” - -“Doesn’t want it!” Feather’s exclamation was a little jeer only because -she would not have dared a big one. - -“She is Scotch Early Victorian in some things and extremely advanced in -others,” he went on. “She has strong ideas of her own as to how he -shall be brought up. She’s rather Greek in her feeling for his being as -perfect physically and mentally as she can help him to be. She believes -things. It was she who said what you did not understand—about the -Creative Intention.” - -“I suppose she is religious,” Feather said. “Scotch people often are -but their religion isn’t usually like that. Creative Intention’s a new -name for God, I suppose. I ought to know all about God. I’ve heard -enough about Him. My father was not a clergyman but he was very -miserable, and it made him so religious that he was _almost_ one. We -were every one of us christened and catechized and confirmed and all -that. So God’s rather an old story.” - -“Queer how old—from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strand,” -said Coombe. “It’s an ancient search—that for the Idea—whether it takes -form in metal or wood or stone.” - -“Well,” said Feather, holding her bit of gauze away from her the better -to criticize the pink flower. “As _almost_ a clergyman’s daughter I -must say that if there is one thing God didn’t do, it was to fill the -world with beautiful people and things as if it was only to be happy -in. It was made to—to try us by suffering and—that sort of thing. It’s -a—a—what d’ye call it? Something beginning with P.” - -“Probation,” suggested Coombe regarding her with an expression of -speculative interest. Her airy bringing forth of her glib time-worn -little scraps of orthodoxy—as one who fished them out of a bag of -long-discarded remnants of rubbish—was so true to type that it almost -fascinated him for a moment. - -“Yes. That’s it—probation,” she answered. “I knew it began with a P. It -means ‘thorny paths’ and ‘seas of blood’ and, if you are religious, you -‘tread them with bleeding feet—’ or swim them as the people do in -hymns. And you praise and glorify all the time you’re doing it. Of -course, I’m not religious myself and I can’t say I think it’s -pleasant—but I do _know!_ Every body beautiful and perfect indeed! -That’s not religion—it’s being irreligious. Good gracious, think of the -cripples and lepers and hunchbacks!” - -“And the idea is that God made them all—by way of entertaining -himself?” he put it to her quietly. - -“Well, who else did?” said Feather cheerfully. - -“I don’t know,” he said. “Certain things I heard Mrs. Muir say -suggested to one that it might be interesting to think it out.” - -“Did she talk to you about God at afternoon tea?” said Feather. “It’s -the kind of thing a religious Scotch woman might do.” - -“No, she did not talk to me. Perhaps that was her mistake. She might -have reformed me. She never says more to me than civility demands. And -it was not at tea. I accidentally dropped in on the Bethunes and found -an Oriental had been lecturing there. Mrs. Muir was talking to him and -I heard her. The man seemed to be a scholar and a deep thinker and as -they talked a group of us stood and listened or asked questions.” - -“How funny!” said Feather. - -“It was not funny at all. It was astonishingly calm and serious—and -logical. The logic was the new note. I had never thought of reason in -that connection.” - -“Reason has nothing to do with it. You must have faith. You must just -believe what you’re told not think at all. Thinking is -wickedness—unless you think what you hear preached.” Feather was even a -trifle delicately smug as she rattled off her orthodoxy—but she laughed -after she had done with it. “But it _must_ have been funny—a Turk or a -Hindoo in a turban and a thing like a tea gown and Mrs. Muir in her -Edinburgh looking clothes talking about God.” - -“You are quite out of it,” Coombe did not smile at all as he said it. -“The Oriental was as physically beautiful as Donal Muir is. And Mrs. -Muir—no other woman in the room compared with her. Perhaps people who -think grow beautiful.” - -Feather was not often alluring or coquettish in her manner to Coombe -but she tilted her head prettily and looked down at her flower through -lovely lashes. - -“_I_ don’t think,” she said. “And I am not so bad looking.” - -“No,” he answered coldly. “You are not. At times you look like a young -angel.” - -“If Mrs. Muir is like that,” she said after a brief pause, “I should -like to know what she thinks of me?” - -“No, you would not—neither should I—if she thinks at all,” was his -answer. “But you remember you said you did not mind that sort of -thing.” - -“I don’t. Why should I? It can’t harm me.” Her hint of a pout made her -mouth entrancing. “But, if she thinks good looks are the result of -religiousness I should like to let her see Robin—and compare her with -her boy. I saw Robin in the park last week and she’s a perfect beauty.” - -“Last week?” said Coombe. - -“She doesn’t need anyone but Andrews. I should bore her to death if I -went and sat in the Nursery and stared at her. No one does that sort of -thing in these days. But I should like to see Mrs. Muir to see the two -children together!” - -“That could not easily be arranged, I am afraid,” he said. - -“Why not?” - -His answer was politely deliberate. - -“She greatly disapproves of me, I have told you. She is not proud of -the relationship.” - -“She does not like _me_ you mean?” - -“Excuse me. I mean exactly what I said in telling you that she has her -own very strong views of the boy’s training and surroundings. They may -be ridiculous but that sort of thing need not trouble you.” - -Feather held up her hand and actually laughed. - -“If Robin meets him in ten years from now—_that_ for her very strong -views of his training and surroundings!” - -And she snapped her fingers. - -Mrs. Muir’s distaste for her son’s unavoidable connection with the man -he might succeed had a firm foundation. She had been brought up in a -Scottish Manse where her father dominated as an omnipotent and almost -divine authority. As a child of imagination she had not been happy but -she had been obedient. In her girlhood she had varied from type through -her marriage with a young man who was a dreamer, an advanced thinker, -an impassioned Greek scholar and a lover of beauty. After he had -released her from her terrors of damnation, they had been profoundly -happy. They were young and at ease and they read and thought together -ardently. They explored new creeds and cults and sometimes found -themselves talking nonsense and sometimes discovering untrodden paths -of wisdom. They were youthful enough to be solemn about things at -times, and clever enough to laugh at their solemnity when they awakened -to it. Helen Muir left the reverent gloom of the life at the Manse far -behind despite her respect for certain meanings they beclouded. - -“I live in a new structure,” she said to her husband, “but it is built -on a foundation which is like a solid subterranean chamber. I don’t use -the subterranean chamber or go into it. I don’t want to. But now and -then echoes—almost noises—make themselves heard in it. Sometimes I find -I have listened in spite of myself.” - -She had always been rather grave about her little son and when her -husband’s early death left him and his dignified but not large estate -in her care she realized that there lay in her hands the power to -direct a life as she chose, in as far as was humanly possible. The pure -blood and healthy tendencies of a long and fine ancestry expressing -themselves in the boy’s splendid body and unusual beauty had set the -minds of two imaginative people working from the first. One of Muir’s -deepest interests was the study of development of the race. It was he -who had planted in her mind that daringly fearless thought of a human -perfection as to the Intention of the Creative Cause. They used to look -at the child as he lay asleep and note the beauty of him—his hands, his -feet, his torso, the tint and texture and line of him. - -“This is what was _meant_—in the plan for every human being—How could -there be scamping and inefficiency in Creation. It is we ourselves who -have scamped and been incomplete in our thought and life. Here he is. -Look at him. But he will only develop as he is—if living does not warp -him.” This was what his father said. His mother was at her gravest as -she looked down at the little god in the crib. - -“It’s as if some power had thrust a casket of loose jewels into our -hands and said, ‘It is for you to see that not one is lost’,” she -murmured. Then the looked up and smiled. - -“Are we being solemn—over a baby?” she said. - -“Perhaps,” he was always even readier to smile than she was. “I’ve an -idea, however, that there’s enough to be solemn about—not too solemn, -but just solemn enough. You are a beautiful thing, Fair Helen! Why -shouldn’t he be like you? Neither of us will forget what we have just -said.” - -Through her darkest hours of young bereavement she remembered the words -many times and felt as if they were a sort of light she might hold in -her hand as she trod the paths of the “Afterwards” which were in the -days before her. She lived with Donal at Braemarnie and lived _for_ him -without neglecting her duty of being the head of a household and an -estate and also a good and gracious neighbour to things and people. She -kept watch over every jewel in his casket, great and small. He was so -much a part of her religion that sometimes she realized that the echoes -from the subterranean chamber were perhaps making her a little strict -but she tried to keep guard over herself. - -He was handsome and radiant with glowing health and vitality. He was a -friendly, rejoicing creature and as full of the joy of life as a -scampering moor pony. He was clever enough but not too clever and he -was friends with the world. Braemarnie was picturesquely ancient and -beautiful. It would be a home of sufficient ease and luxury to be a -pleasure but no burden. Life in it could be perfect and also supply -freedom. Coombe Court and Coombe Keep were huge and castellated and -demanded great things. Even if the Head of the House had been a man to -like and be proud of—the accession of a beautiful young Marquis would -rouse the hounds of war, so to speak, and set them racing upon his -track. Even the totally unalluring “Henry” had been beset with -temptations from his earliest years. That he promptly succumbed to the -first only brought forth others. It did not seem fair that a creature -so different, a splendid fearless thing, should be dragged from his -hills and moors and fair heather and made to breathe the foul scent of -things, of whose poison he could know nothing. She was not an ignorant -childish woman. In her fine aloof way she had learned much in her stays -in London with her husband and in their explorings of foreign cities. - -This was the reason for her views of her boy’s training and -surroundings. She had not asked questions about Coombe himself, but it -had not been necessary. Once or twice she had seen Feather by chance. -In spite of herself she had heard about Henry. Now and then he was -furbished up and appeared briefly at Coombe Court or at The Keep. It -was always briefly because he inevitably began to verge on misbehaving -himself after twenty-four hours had passed. On his last visit to Coombe -House in town, where he had turned up without invitation, he had become -so frightfully drunk that he had been barely rescued from the trifling -_faux pas_ of attempting to kiss a very young royal princess. There -were quite definite objections to Henry. - -Helen Muir was _not_ proud of the Coombe relationship and with unvaried -and resourceful good breeding kept herself and her boy from all chance -of being drawn into anything approaching an intimacy. Donal knew -nothing of his prospects. There would be time enough for that when he -was older, but, in the meantime, there should be no intercourse if it -could be avoided. - -She had smiled at herself when the “echo” had prompted her to the hint -of a quaint caution in connection with his little boy flame of delight -in the strange child he had made friends with. But it _had_ been a -flame and, though she, had smiled, she sat very still by the window -later that night and she had felt a touch of weight on her heart as she -thought it over. There were wonderful years when one could give one’s -children all the things they wanted, she was saying to herself—the -desires of their child hearts, the joy of their child bodies, their -little raptures of delight. Those were divine years. They were so safe -then. Donal was living through those years now. He did not know that -any happiness could be taken from him. He was hers and she was his. It -would be horrible if there were anything one could not let him keep—in -this early unshadowed time! - -She was looking out at the Spring night with all its stars lit and -gleaming over the Park which she could see from her window. Suddenly -she left her chair and rang for Nanny. - -“Nanny,” she said when the old nurse came, “tell me something about the -little girl Donal plays with in the Square gardens.” - -“She’s a bonny thing and finely dressed, ma’am,” was the woman’s -careful answer, “but I don’t make friends with strange nurses and I -don’t think much of hers. She’s a young dawdler who sits novel reading -and if Master Donal were a young pickpocket with the measles, the child -would be playing with him just the same as far as I can see. The young -woman sits under a tree and reads and the pretty little thing may do -what she likes. I keep my eye on them, however, and they’re in no -mischief. Master Donal reads out of his picture books and shows himself -off before her grandly and she laughs and looks up to him as if he were -a king. Every lad child likes a woman child to look up to him. It’s -pretty to see the pair of them. They’re daft about each other. Just wee -things in love at first sight.” - -“Donal has known very few girls. Those plain little things at the Manse -are too dull for him,” his mother said slowly. - -“This one’s not plain and she’s not dull,” Nanny answered. “My word! -but she’s like a bit of witch fire dancing—with her colour and her big -silk curls in a heap. Donal stares at her like a young man at a beauty. -I wish, ma’am, we knew more of her forbears.” - -“I must see her,” Mrs. Muir said. “Tomorrow I’ll go with you both to -the Gardens.” - -Therefore the following day Donal pranced proudly up the path to his -trysting place and with him walked a tall lady at whom people looked as -she passed. She was fair like Donal and had a small head softly swathed -with lovely folds of hair. Also her eyes were very clear and calm. -Donal was plainly proud and happy to be with her and was indeed -prancing though his prance was broken by walking steps at intervals. - -Robin was waiting behind the lilac bushes and her nurse was already -deep in the mystery of Lady Audley. - -“There she is!” cried Donal, and he ran to her. “My mother has come -with me. She wants to see you, too,” and he pulled her forward by her -hand. “This is Robin, Mother! This is Robin.” He panted with elation -and stood holding his prize as if she might get away before he had -displayed her; his eyes lifted to his tall mother’s were those of an -exultant owner. - -Robin had no desire to run away. To adore anything which belonged to -Donal was only nature. And this tall, fair, wonderful person was a -Mother. No wonder Donal talked of her so much. The child could only -look up at her as Donal did. So they stood hand in hand like little -worshippers before a deity. - -Andrews’ sister in her pride had attired the small creature like a -flower of Spring. Her exquisiteness and her physical brilliancy gave -Mrs. Muir something not unlike a slight shock. Oh! no wonder—since she -was like that. She stooped and kissed the round cheek delicately. - -“Donal wanted me to see his little friend,” she said. “I always want to -see his playmates. Shall we walk round the Garden together and you -shall show me where you play and tell me all about it.” - -She took the small hand and they walked slowly. Robin was at first too -much awed to talk but as Donal was not awed at all and continued his -prancing and the Mother lady said pretty things about the flowers and -the grass and the birds and even about the pony at Braemarnie, she -began now and then to break into a little hop herself and presently -into sudden ripples of laughter like a bird’s brief bubble of song. The -tall lady’s hand was not like Andrews, or the hand of Andrews’ sister. -It did not pull or jerk and it had a lovely feeling. The sensation she -did not know was happiness again welled up within her. Just one walk -round the Garden and then the tall lady sat down on a seat to watch -them play. It was wonderful. She did not read or work. She sat and -watched them as if she wanted to do that more than anything else. Donal -kept calling out to her and making her smile: he ran backwards and -forwards to her to ask questions and tell her what they were “making -up” to play. When they gathered leaves to prick stars and circles on, -they did them on the seat on which she sat and she helped them with new -designs. Several times, in the midst of her play, Robin stopped and -stood still a moment with a sort of puzzled expression. It was because -she did not feel like Robin. Two people—a big boy and a lady—letting -her play and talk to them as if they liked her and had time! - -The truth was that Mrs. Muir’s eyes followed Robin more than they -followed Donal. Their clear deeps yearned over her. Such a glowing -vital little thing! No wonder! No wonder! And as she grew older she -would be more vivid and compelling with every year. And Donal was of -her kind. His strength, his beauty, his fearless happiness-claiming -temperament. How could one—with dignity and delicacy—find out why she -had this obvious air of belonging to nobody? Donal was an exact little -lad. He had had foundation for his curious scraps of her story. No -mother—no playthings or books—no one had ever kissed her! And she -dressed and _soignée_ like this! Who was the Lady Downstairs? - -A victoria was driving past the Gardens. It was going slowly because -the two people in it wished to look at the spring budding out of -hyacinths and tulips. Suddenly one of the pair—a sweetly-hued figure -whose early season attire was hyacinth-like itself—spoke to the -coachman. - -“Stop here!” she said. “I want to get out.” - -As the victoria drew up near a gate she made a light gesture. - -“What do you think, Starling,” she laughed. “The very woman we are -talking about is sitting in the Gardens there. I know her perfectly -though I only saw her portrait at the Academy years ago. Yes, there she -is. Mrs. Muir, you know.” She clapped her hands and her laugh became a -delighted giggle. “And my Robin is playing on the grass near her—with a -boy! What a joke! It must be _the_ boy! And I wanted to see the pair -together. Coombe said couldn’t be done. And more than anything I want -to speak to _her_. Let’s get out.” - -They got out and this was why Helen Muir, turning her eyes a moment -from Robin whose hand she was holding, saw two women coming towards her -with evident intention. At least one of them had evident intention. She -was the one whose light attire produced the effect of being made of -hyacinth petals. - -Because Mrs. Muir’s glance turned towards her, Robin’s turned also. She -started a little and leaned against Mrs. Muir’s knee, her eyes growing -very large and round indeed and filling with a sudden worshipping -light. - -“It is—” she ecstatically sighed or rather gasped, “the Lady -Downstairs!” - -Feather floated near to the seat and paused smiling. - -“Where is your nurse, Robin?” she said. - -Robin being always dazzled by the sight of her did not of course shine. - -“She is reading under the tree,” she answered tremulously. - -“She is only a few yards away,” said Mrs. Muir. “She knows Robin is -playing with my boy and that I am watching them. Robin is your little -girl?” amiably. - -“Yes. So kind of you to let her play with your boy. Don’t let her bore -you. I am Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” - -There was a little silence—a delicate little silence. - -“I recognized you as Mrs. Muir at once,” said Feather, unperturbed and -smiling brilliantly, “I saw your portrait at the Grosvenor.” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Muir gently. She had risen and was beautifully -tall,—“the line” was perfect, and she looked with a gracious calm into -Feather’s eyes. - -Donal, allured by the hyacinth petal colours, drew near. Robin made an -unconscious little catch at his plaid and whispered something. - -“Is this Donal?” Feather said. - -“_Are_ you the Lady Downstairs, please?” Donal put in politely, because -he wanted so to know. - -Feather’s pretty smile ended in the prettiest of outright laughs. Her -maid had told her Andrews’ story of the name. - -“Yes, I believe that’s what she calls me. It’s a nice name for a -mother, isn’t it?” - -Donal took a quick step forward. - -“_Are_ you her mother?” he asked eagerly. - -“Of course I am.” - -Donal quite flushed with excitement. - -“She doesn’t _know_,” he said. - -He turned on Robin. - -“She’s your Mother! You thought you hadn’t one! She’s your Mother!” - -“But I am the Lady Downstairs, too.” Feather was immensely amused. She -was not subtle enough to know why she felt a perverse kind of pleasure -in seeing the Scotch woman standing so still, and that it led her into -a touch of vulgarity. “I wanted very much to see your boy,” she said. - -“Yes,” still gently from Mrs. Muir. - -“Because of Coombe, you know. We are such old friends. How queer that -the two little things have made friends, too. I didn’t know. I am so -glad I caught a glimpse of you and that I had seen the portrait. _Good_ -morning. Goodbye, children.” - -While she strayed airily away they all watched her. She picked up her -friend, the Starling, who, not feeling concerned or needed, had paused -to look at daffodils. The children watched her until her victoria drove -away, the chiffon ruffles of her flowerlike parasol fluttering in the -air. - -Mrs. Muir had sat down again and Donal and Robin leaned against her. -They saw she was not laughing any more but they did not know that her -eyes had something like grief in them. - -“She’s her Mother!” Donal cried. “She’s lovely, too. But she’s—her -_Mother!_” and his voice and face were equally puzzled. - -Robin’s little hand delicately touched Mrs. Muir. - -“_Is_—she?” she faltered. - -Helen Muir took her in her arms and held her quite close. She kissed -her. - -“Yes, she is, my lamb,” she said. “She’s your mother.” - -She was clear as to what she must do for Donal’s sake. It was the only -safe and sane course. But—at this age—the child _was_ a lamb and she -could not help holding her close for a moment. Her little body was -deliciously soft and warm and the big silk curls all in a heap were a -fragrance against her breast. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -Donal talked a great deal as he pranced home. Feather had excited as -well as allured him. Why hadn’t she told Robin she was her mother? Why -did she never show her pictures in the Nursery and hold her on her -knee? She was little enough to be held on knees! Did some mothers never -tell their children and did the children never find out? This was what -he wanted to hear explained. He took the gloved hand near him and held -it close and a trifle authoritatively. - -“I am glad I know you are my mother,” he said, “I always knew.” - -He was not sure that the matter was explained very clearly. Not as -clearly as things usually were. But he was not really disturbed. He had -remembered a book he could show Robin tomorrow and he thought of that. -There was also a game in a little box which could be easily carried -under his arm. His mother was “thinking” and he was used to that. It -came on her sometimes and of his own volition he always, on such -occasion, kept as quiet as was humanly possible. - -After he was asleep, Helen sent for Nanny. - -“You’re tired, ma’am,” the woman said when she saw her, “I’m afraid -you’ve a headache.” - -“I have had a good deal of thinking to do since this afternoon,” her -mistress answered, “You were right about the nurse. The little girl -might have been playing with any boy chance sent in her way—boys quite -unlike Donal.” - -“Yes, ma’am.” And because she loved her and knew her face and voice -Nanny watched her closely. - -“You will be as—startled—as I was. By some queer chance the child’s -mother was driving by and saw us and came in to speak to me. Nanny—she -is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” - -Nanny did start; she also reddened and spoke sharply. - -“And she came in and spoke to you, ma’am!” - -“Things have altered and are altering every day,” Mrs. Muir said. -“Society is not at all inflexible. She has a smart set of her own—and -she is very pretty and evidently well provided for. Easy-going people -who choose to find explanations suggest that her husband was a relation -of Lord Lawdor’s.” - -“And him a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie,” -offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir’s hands clasped -strongly as they lay on the table before her. - -“That doesn’t come within my bailiewick,” she said in her quiet voice. -“Her life is her own and not mine. Words are the wind that blows.” She -stopped just a moment and began again. “We must leave for Scotland by -the earliest train.” - -“What’ll he do?” the words escaped from the woman as if involuntarily. -She even drew a quick breath. “He’s a strong feeling bairn—strong!” - -“He’ll be stronger when he is a young man, Nanny!” desperately. “That -is why I must act now. There is no half way. I don’t want to be hard. -Oh, am I hard—am I hard?” she cried out low as if she were pleading. - -“No, ma’am. You are not. He’s your own flesh and blood.” Nanny had -never before seen her mistress as she saw her in the next curious -almost exaggerated moment. - -Her hand flew to her side. - -“He’s my heart and my soul—” she said, “—he is the very entrails of me! -And it will hurt him so and I cannot explain to him because he is too -young to understand. He is only a little boy who must go where he is -taken. And he cannot help himself. It’s—unfair!” - -Nanny was prone to become more Scotch as she became moved. But she -still managed to look grim. - -“He canna help himsel,” she said, “an waur still, _you_ canna.” - -There was a moment of stillness and then she said: - -“I must go and pack up.” And walked out of the room. - -Donal always slept like a young roe in the bracken, and in deep and -rapturous ease he slept this night. Another perfectly joyful day had -passed and his Mother had liked Robin and kissed her. All was well with -the world. As long as he had remained awake—and it had not been long—he -had thought of delightful things unfeverishly. Of Robin, somehow at -Braemarnie, growing bigger very quickly—big enough for all sorts of -games—learning to ride Chieftain, even to gallop. His mother would buy -another pony and they could ride side by side. Robin would laugh and -her hair would fly behind her if they went fast. She would see how fast -he could go—she would see him make Chieftain jump. They would have -picnics—catch sight of deer and fawns delicately lifting their feet as -they stepped. She would always look at him with that nice look in her -eyes and the little smile which came and went in a second. She was -quite different from the minister’s little girls at the Manse. He liked -her—he liked her! - -He was wakened by a light in his room and by the sound of moving about. -He sat up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed and Nanny -putting things into a travelling bag. He felt as if his Mother looked -taller than she had looked yesterday—and almost thin—and her face was -anxious and—shy. - -“We let you sleep as late as we could, Donal,” she said. “You must get -up quickly now and have breakfast. Something has happened. We are -obliged to go back to Scotland by very early train. There is not a -minute to waste.” - -At first he only said: - -“Back!” - -“Yes, dear. Get up.” - -“To Braemarnie?” - -“Yes, dear laddie!” - -He felt himself grow hot and cold. - -“Away! Away!” he said again vaguely. - -“Yes. Get up, dear.” - -He was as she had said only a little boy and accustomed to do as he was -told. He was also a fine, sturdy little Scot with a pride of his own. -His breeding had been of the sort which did not include insubordinate -scenes, so he got out of bed and began to dress. But his mother saw -that his hands shook. - -“I shall not see Robin,” he said in a queer voice. “She won’t find me -when she goes behind the lilac bushes. She won’t know why I don’t -come.” - -He swallowed very hard and was dead still for a few minutes, though he -did not linger over his dressing. His mother felt that the whole thing -was horrible. He was acting almost like a young man even now. She did -not know how she could bear it. She spoke to him in a tone which was -actually rather humble. - -“If we knew where she lived you—you could write a little letter and -tell her about it. But we do not where she lives.” - -He answered her very low. - -“That’s it. And she’s little—and she won’t understand. She’s very -little—really.” There was a harrowingly protective note in his voice. -“Perhaps—she’ll cry.” - -Helen looking down at him with anguished eyes—he was buttoning his -shoes—made an unearthly effort to find words, but, as she said them, -she knew they were not the right ones. - -“She will be disappointed, of course, but she is so little that she -will not feel it as much as if she were bigger. She will get over it, -darling. Very little girls do not remember things long.” Oh, how coarse -and crass and stupid it sounded—how coarse and crass and stupid to say -it to this small defiant scrap of what seemed the inevitable suffering -of the world! - -The clear blue of the eyes Robin had dwelt in, lifted itself to her. -There was something almost fierce in it—almost like impotent hatred of -something. - -“She won’t,” he said, and she actually heard him grind his little teeth -after it. - -He did not look like Donal when he was dressed and sat at the breakfast -table. He did not eat much of his porridge, but she saw that he -determinedly ate some. She felt several times as if he actually did not -look like anybody she had ever seen. And at the same time his fair -hair, his fair cheeks, and the fair sturdy knees beneath his swinging -kilt made him seem as much a little boy as she had ever known him. It -was his hot blue eyes which were different. - -He obeyed her every wish and followed where she led. When the train -laboured out of the big station he had taken a seat in a corner and sat -with his face turned to the window, so that his back was towards her. -He stared and stared at the passing country and she could only see part -of his cheek and the side of his neck. She could not help watching them -and presently she saw a hot red glow under the skin as if a flood had -risen. It subsided in a few moments, but presently she saw it rise -again. This happened several times and he was holding his lip with, his -teeth. Once she saw his shoulders move and he coughed obstinately two -or three times. She knew that he would die before he would let himself -cry, but she wished he would descend to it just this once, as the -fields and hedges raced past and he was carried “Away! Away!” It might -be that it was all his manhood she was saving for him. - -He really made her heart stand still for a moment just as she was -thinking this and saying it to herself almost fiercely. He suddenly -turned on her; the blue of his eyes was flaming and the tide had risen -again in his cheeks and neck. It was a thing like rage she saw before -her—a child’s rage and impotently fierce. He cried out as if he were -ending a sentence he had not finished when he spoke as he sat on the -floor buttoning his shoes. - -“She has no one but me to remember!” he said. “No one but me had ever -even kissed her. She didn’t know!” - -To her amazement he clenched both his savage young fists and shook them -before him. - -“It’ll kill me!” he raged. - -She could not hold herself back. She caught at him with her arms and -meant to drag him to her breast. “No! No! Donal!” she cried. “Darling! -No—No!” But, as suddenly as the queer unchildish thing had broken out, -did he remember himself and boy shame at his fantastic emotion overtook -him. He had never spoken like that to anyone before! It was almost as -bad as bursting out crying! The red tide ebbed away and he withdrew -himself awkwardly from her embrace. He said not another word and sat -down in his corner with his back turned toward the world. - -That the Lady Downstairs, who was so fond of laughing and who knew so -many persons who seemed to laugh nearly all the time, might have been -joking about being her mother presented itself to Robin as a vague -solution of the problem. The Lady had laughed when she said it, as -people so often laughed at children. Perhaps she had only been amusing -herself as grown-up persons were apparently entitled to do. Even Donal -had not seemed wholly convinced and though his mother had said the Lady -Downstairs _was_—somehow the subject had been changed at once. Mrs. -Muir had so soon begun to tell them a story. Robin was not in the least -aware that she had swiftly distracted their attention from a question, -any discussion of which would have involved explanations she could not -have produced. It would have been impossible to make it clear to any -child. She herself was helpless before the situation and therefore her -only refuge was to make the two think of other things. She had so well -done this that Robin had gone home later only remembering the brightly -transitory episode as she recalled others as brief and bright, when she -had stared at a light and lovely figure standing on the nursery -threshold and asking careless questions of Andrews, without coming in -and risking the freshness of her draperies by contact with London -top-floor grubbiness. The child was, in fact, too full of the reality -of her happiness with Donal and Donal’s mother to be more than faintly -bewildered by a sort of visionary conundrum. - -Robin, like Donal, slept perfectly through the night. Her sleep was -perhaps made more perfect by fair dreams in which she played in the -Gardens and she and Donal ran to and from the knees of the Mother lady -to ask questions and explain their games. As the child had often, in -the past, looked up at the sky, so she had looked up into the clear -eyes of the Mother lady. There was something in them which she had -never seen before but which she kept wanting to see again. Then there -came a queer bit of a dream about the Lady Downstairs. She came dancing -towards them dressed in hyacinths and with her arms full of daffodils. -She danced before Donal’s Mother—danced and laughed as if she thought -they were all funny. She threw a few daffodils at them and then danced -away. The daffodils lay on the gravel walk and they all looked at them -but no one picked them up. Afterwards—in the dream—Mrs. Muir suddenly -caught her in her arms and kissed her and Robin was glad and felt warm -all over—inside and out. - -She wakened smiling at the dingy ceiling of the dingy room. There was -but one tiny shadow in the world, which was the fear that Andrews would -get well too quickly. She was no longer in bed but was well enough to -sit up and sew a little before the tiny fire in the atom of a servant’s -room grate. The doctor would not let her go out yet; therefore, Anne -still remained in charge. Founding one’s hope on previous knowledge of -Anne’s habits, she might be trusted to sit and read and show no -untoward curiosity. - -From her bed Robin could see the sky was blue. That meant that she -would be taken out. She lay as quiet as a mouse and thought of the joy -before her, until Anne came to dress her and give her her breakfast. - -“We’ll put on your rose-coloured smock this morning,” the girl said, -when the dressing began. “I like the hat and socks that match.” - -Anne was not quite like Andrews who was not talkative. She made a -conversational sort of remark after she had tied the white shoes. - -“You’ve got pretty little aristocratic legs of your own,” she said -amiably. “I like my children to have nice legs.” - -Robin was uplifted in spirit by the commendation, but she hoped Anne -would put on her own things quickly. Sometimes she was rather a long -time. The one course, however, towards which discretion pointed as -entirely safe was the continuance of being as quiet as a mouse—even -quieter, if such thing might be—so that nothing might interfere with -anything any one wanted to do. To interfere would have been to attract -attention and might lead to delay. So she stood and watched the -sparrows inoffensively until Anne called her. - -When she found herself out on the street her step was so light on the -pavement that she was rather like a rose petal blown fluttering along -by soft vagrant puffs of spring air. Under her flopping hat her eyes -and lips and cheeks were so happy that more than one passer-by turned -head over shoulder to look after her. - -“Your name ought to be Rose,” Anne giggled involuntarily as she glanced -down at her because someone had stared. She had not meant to speak but -the words said themselves. - -Because the time was young June even London sky and air were wonderful. -Stray breaths of fragrance came and went. The green of the trees in the -Gardens was light and fresh and in the bedded-out curves and stars and -circles there were more flowers every hour, so that it seemed as if -blooming things with scents grew thick about one’s feet. It was no -wonder one felt light and smiled back at nurses and governesses who -looked up. Robin drew eyes became she was like a summer bloom suddenly -appearing in the Spring Garden. - -Nanny was not sitting on the bench near the gate and Donal was not to -be seen amusing himself. But he was somewhere just out of sight, or, if -he had chanced to be late, he would come very soon even if his Mother -could not come with him—though Robin could not believe she would not. -To a child thing both happiness and despair cannot be conceived of -except as lasting forever. - -Anne sat down and opened her book. She had reached an exciting part and -looked forward to a thoroughly enjoyable morning. - -Robin hopped about for a few minutes. Donal had taught her to hop and -she felt it an accomplishment. Entangled in the meshes of the feathery, -golden, if criminal, ringlets of Lady Audley, Anne did not know when -she hopped round the curve of the walk behind the lilac and snowball -bushes. - -Once safe in her bit of enchanted land, the child stood still and -looked about her. There was no kilted figure to be seen, but it would -come towards her soon with swinging plaid and eagle’s feather standing -up grandly in its Highland bonnet. He would come soon. Perhaps he would -come running—and the Mother lady would walk behind more slowly and -smile. Robin waited and looked—she waited and looked. - -She was used to waiting but she had never watched for anyone before. -There had never been any one or anything to watch for. The newness of -the suspense gave it a sort of deep thrill at first. How long was “at -first”? She did not know. She stood—and stood—and stood—and looked at -every creature who entered the gate. She did not see any one who looked -in the least like Donal or his Mother or Nanny. There were nurses and -governesses and children and a loitering lady or two. There were never -many people in the Gardens—only those who had keys. She knew nothing -about time but at length she knew that on other mornings they had been -playing together before this. - -The small rose-coloured figure stood so still for so long that it began -to look rigid and a nurse sitting at some distance said to another, - -“What is that child waiting for?” - -What length of time had passed before she found herself looking slowly -down at her feet because of something. The “something” which had drawn -her eyes downward was that she had stood so long without moving that -her tense feet had begun vaguely to hurt her and the ache attracted her -attention. She changed her position slightly and turned her eyes upon -the gate again. He was coming very soon. He would be sure to run fast -now and he would be laughing. Donal! Donal! She even laughed a little -low, quivering laugh herself. - -“What is that child waiting for? I should really like to know,” the -distant nurse said again curiously. - -If she had been eighteen years old she would have said to herself that -she was waiting hours and hours. She would have looked at a little -watch a thousand times; she would have walked up and down and round and -round the garden never losing sight of the gate—or any other point for -that matter—for more than a minute. Each sound of the church clock -striking a few streets away would have brought her young heart thumping -into her throat. - -But a child has no watch, no words out of which to build hopes and -fears and reasons, arguments battling against anguish which -grows—palliations, excuses. Robin, could only wait in the midst of a -slow dark, rising tide of something she had no name for. This slow -rising of an engulfing flood she felt when pins and needles began to -take possession of her feet, when her legs ached, and her eyes felt as -if they had grown big and tightly strained. Donal! Donal! Donal! - -Who knows but that some echo of the terror against which she had fought -and screamed on the night when she had lain alone in the dark in her -cradle and Feather had hid her head under the pillow—came back and -closed slowly around and over her, filling her inarticulate being with -panic which at last reached its unbearable height? She had not really -stood waiting the entire morning, but she was young enough to think -that she had and that at any moment Anne might come and take her away. -He had not come running—he had not come laughing—he had not come with -his plaid swinging and his feather standing high! There came a moment -when her strained eyes no longer seemed to see clearly! Something like -a big lump crawled up into her throat! Something of the same sort -happened the day she had burst into a wail of loneliness and Andrews -had pinched her. Panic seized her; she clutched the breast of her -rose-coloured frock and panic-driven turned and fled into a thick clump -of bushes where there was no path and where even Donal had never -pierced. - -“That child has run away at last,” the distant nurse remarked, “I’d -like to find out what she _was_ waiting for.” - -The shrubs were part of the enclosing planting of the Gardens. The -children who came to play on the grass and paths felt as if they formed -a sort of forest. Because of this, Robin had made her frantic dash to -their shelter. No one would come—no one would see her—no one would hear -her, beneath them it was almost dark. Bereft, broken and betrayed, a -little mad thing, she pushed her way into their shadow and threw -herself face downward, a small, writhing, rose-coloured heap, upon the -damp mould. She could not have explained what she was doing or why she -had given up all, as if some tidal wave had overwhelmed her. Suddenly -she knew that all her new world had gone—forever and ever. As it had -come so it had gone. As she had not doubted the permanence of its joy, -so she _knew_ that the end had come. Only the wisdom of the occult -would dare to suggest that from her child mate, squaring his sturdy -young shoulders against the world as the flying train sped on its way, -some wave of desperate, inchoate thinking rushed backward. There was -nothing more. He would not come back running. He was _gone!_ - -There was no Andrews to hear. Hidden in the shadow under the shrubs, -the rattle and roar of the street outside the railing drowned her mad -little cries. All she had never done before, she did then. Her hands -beat on the damp mould and tore at it—her small feet beat it and dug -into it. She cried, she sobbed; the big lump in her throat almost -strangled her—she writhed and did not know she was writhing. Her tears -pouring forth wet her hair, her face, her dress. She did not cry out, -“Donal! Donal!” because he was nowhere—nowhere. If Andrews had seen her -she would have said she was “in a tantrum,” But she was not. The world -had been torn away. - -A long time afterwards, as it seemed to her, she crawled out from under -the shrubs, carrying her pretty flopping hat in her earth-stained hand. -It was not pretty any more. She had been lying on it and it was crushed -and flat. She crept slowly round the curve to Anne. - -Seeing her, Anne sprang to her feet. The rose was a piteous thing -beaten to earth by a storm. The child’s face was swollen and stained, -her hair was tangled and damp there were dark marks of mould on her -dress, her hat, her hands, her white cheeks; her white shoes were -earth-stained also, and the feet in the rose-coloured socks dragged -themselves heavily—slowly. - -“My gracious!” the young woman almost shrieked. “What’s happened! Where -have you been? Did you fall down? Ah, my good gracious! Mercy me!” - -Robin caught her breath but did not say a word. - -“You fell down on a flower bed where they’d been watering the plants!” -almost wept Anne. “You must have. There isn’t that much dirt anywhere -else in the Gardens.” - -And when she took her charge home that was the story she told Andrews. -Out of Robin she could get nothing, and it was necessary to have an -explanation. - -The truth, of which she knew nothing, was but the story of a child’s -awful dismay and a child’s woe at one of Life’s first betrayals. It -would be left behind by the days which came and went—it would pass—as -all things pass but the everlasting hills—but in this way it was that -it came and wrote itself upon the tablets of a child’s day. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -“The child’s always been well, ma’am,” Andrews was standing, the image -of exact correctness, in her mistress’ bedroom, while Feather lay in -bed with her breakfast on a convenient and decorative little table. -“It’s been a thing I’ve prided myself on. But I should say she isn’t -well now.” - -“Well, I suppose it’s only natural that she should begin sometime,” -remarked Feather. “They always do, of course. I remember we all had -things when we were children. What does the doctor say? I hope it isn’t -the measles, or the beginning of anything worse?” - -“No, ma’am, it isn’t. It’s nothing like a child’s disease. I could have -managed that. There’s good private nursing homes for them in these -days. Everything taken care of exactly as it should be and no trouble -of disinfecting and isolating for the family. I know what you’d have -wished to have done, ma’am.” - -“You do know your business, Andrews,” was Feather’s amiable comment. - -“Thank you, ma’am,” from Andrews. “Infectious things are easy managed -if they’re taken away quick. But the doctor said you must be spoken to -because perhaps a change was needed.” - -“You could take her to Ramsgate or somewhere bracing.” said Feather. -“But what did he _say?_” - -“He seemed puzzled, ma’am. That’s what struck me. When I told him about -her not eating—and lying awake crying all night—to judge from her looks -in the morning—and getting thin and pale—he examined her very careful -and he looked queer and he said, ‘This child hasn’t had a _shock_ of -any kind, has she? This looks like what we should call shock—if she -were older’.” - -Feather laughed. - -“How could a baby like that have a shock?” - -“That’s what I thought myself, ma’am,” answered Andrews. “A child -that’s had her hours regular and is fed and bathed and sleeps by the -clock, and goes out and plays by herself in the Gardens, well watched -over, hasn’t any chance to get shocks. I told him so and he sat still -and watched her quite curious, and then he said very slow: ‘Sometimes -little children are a good deal shaken up by a fall when they are -playing. Do you remember any chance fall when she cried a good deal?’” - -“But you didn’t, of course,” said Feather. - -“No, ma’am, I didn’t. I keep my eye on her pretty strict and shouldn’t -encourage wild running or playing. I don’t let her play with other -children. And she’s not one of those stumbling, falling children. I -told him the only fall I ever knew of her having was a bit of a slip on -a soft flower bed that had just been watered—to judge from the state -her clothes were in. She had cried because she’s not used to such -things, and I think she was frightened. But there wasn’t a scratch or a -shadow of a bruise on her. Even that wouldn’t have happened if I’d been -with her. It was when I was ill and my sister Anne took my place. Anne -thought at first that she’d been playing with a little boy she had made -friends with—but she found out that the boy hadn’t come that morning—” - -“A boy!” Andrews was sharp enough to detect a new and interested note. -“What boy?” - -“She wouldn’t have played with any other child if I’d been there” said -Andrews, “I was pretty sharp with Anne about it. But she said he was an -aristocratic looking little fellow—” - -“Was he in Highland costume?” Feather interrupted. - -“Yes, ma’am. Anne excused herself by saying she thought you must know -something about him. She declares she saw you come into the Gardens and -speak to his Mother quite friendly. That was the day before Robin fell -and ruined her rose-coloured smock and things. But it wasn’t through -playing boisterous with the boy—because he didn’t come that morning, as -I said, and he never has since.” - -Andrews, on this, found cause for being momentarily puzzled by the -change of expression in her mistress’ face. Was it an odd little gleam -of angry spite she saw? - -“And never has since, has he?” Mrs. Gareth-Lawless said with a half -laugh. - -“Not once, ma’am,” answered Andrews. “And Anne thinks it queer the -child never seemed to look for him. As if she’d lost interest. She just -droops and drags about and doesn’t try to play at all.” - -“How much did she play with him?” - -“Well, he was such a fine little fellow and had such a respectable, -elderly, Scotch looking woman in charge of him that Anne owned up that -she hadn’t thought there was any objections to them playing together. -She says they were as well behaved and quiet as children could be.” -Andrews thought proper to further justify herself by repeating, “She -didn’t think there could be any objection.” - -“There couldn’t,” Mrs. Gareth-Lawless remarked. “I do know the boy. He -is a relation of Lord Coombe’s.” - -“Indeed, ma’am,” with colourless civility, “Anne said he was a big -handsome child.” - -Feather took a small bunch of hothouse grapes from her breakfast tray -and, after picking one off, suddenly began to laugh. - -“Good gracious, Andrews!” she said. “He was the ‘shock’! How perfectly -ridiculous! Robin had never played with a boy before and she fell in -love with him. The little thing’s actually pining away for him.” She -dropped the grapes and gave herself up to delicate mirth. “He was taken -away and disappeared. Perhaps she fainted and fell into the wet flower -bed and spoiled her frock, when she first realized that he wasn’t -coming.” - -“It did happen that morning,” admitted Andrews, smiling a little also. -“It does seem funny. But children take to each other in a queer way now -and then. I’ve seen it upset them dreadful when they were parted.” - -“You must tell the doctor,” laughed Feather. “Then he’ll see there’s -nothing to be anxious about. She’ll get over it in a week.” - -“It’s five weeks since it happened, ma’am,” remarked Andrews, with just -a touch of seriousness. - -“Five! Why, so it must be! I remember the day I spoke to Mrs. Muir. If -she’s that sort of child you had better keep her away from boys. _How_ -ridiculous! How Lord Coombe—how people will laugh when I tell them!” - -She had paused a second because—for that second—she was not quite sure -that Coombe _would_ laugh. Frequently she was of the opinion that he -did not laugh at things when he should have done so. But she had had a -brief furious moment when she had realized that the boy had actually -been whisked away. She remembered the clearness of the fine eyes which -had looked directly into hers. The woman had been deciding then that -she would have nothing to do with her—or even with her child. - -But the story of Robin worn by a bereft nursery passion for a little -boy, whose mamma snatched him away as a brand from the burning, was far -too edifying not to be related to those who would find it delicious. - -It was on the occasion, a night or so later, of a gathering at dinner -of exactly the few elect ones, whose power to find it delicious was the -most highly developed, that she related it. It was a very little -dinner—only four people. One was the long thin young man, with the good -looking narrow face and dark eyes peering through a _pince nez_—the one -who had said that Mrs. Gareth-Lawless “got her wondrous clothes from -Hélène” but that he couldn’t. His name was Harrowby. Another was the -Starling who was a Miss March who had, some years earlier, led the van -of the girls who prostrated their relatives by becoming what was then -called “emancipated”; the sign thereof being the demanding of latchkeys -and the setting up of bachelor apartments. The relatives had -astonishingly settled down, with the unmoved passage of time, and more -modern emancipation had so far left latchkeys and bachelor apartments -behind it that they began to seem almost old-fogeyish. Clara March, -however, had progressed with her day. The third diner was an adored -young actor with a low, veiled voice which, combining itself with -almond eyes and a sentimental and emotional curve of cheek and chin, -made the most commonplace “lines” sound yearningly impassioned. He was -not impassioned at all—merely fond of his pleasures and comforts in a -way which would end by his becoming stout. At present his figure was -perfect—exactly the thing for the uniforms of royal persons of -Ruritania and places of that ilk—and the name by which programmes -presented him was Gerald Vesey. - -Feather’s house pleased him and she herself liked being spoken to in -the veiled voice and gazed at by the almond eyes, as though insuperable -obstacles alone prevented soul-stirring things from being said. That -she knew this was not true did not interfere with her liking it. -Besides he adored and understood her clothes. - -Over coffee in the drawing-room, Coombe joined them. He had not known -of the little dinner and arrived just as Feather was on the point of -beginning her story. - -“You are just in time,” she greeted him, “I was going to tell them -something to make them laugh.” - -“Will it make me laugh?” he inquired. - -“It ought to. Robin is in love. She is five years old and she has been -deserted, and Andrews came to tell me that she can neither eat nor -sleep. The doctor says she has had a shock.” - -Coombe did not join in the ripple of amused laughter but, as he took -his cup of coffee, he looked interested. - -Harrowby was interested too. His dark eyes quite gleamed. - -“I suppose she is in bed by now,” he said. “If it were not so late, I -should beg you to have her brought down so that we might have a look at -her. I’m by way of taking a psychological interest.” - -“I’m psychological myself,” said the Starling. “But what do you mean, -Feather? Are you in earnest?” - -“Andrews is,” Feather answered. “She could manage measles but she could -not be responsible for shock. But she didn’t find out about the love -affair. I found that out—by mere chance. Do you remember the day we got -out of the victoria and went into the Gardens, Starling?” - -“The time you spoke to Mrs. Muir?” - -Coombe turned slightly towards them. - -Feather nodded, with a lightly significant air. - -“It was her boy,” she said, and then she laughed and nodded at Coombe. - -“He was quite as handsome as you said he was. No wonder poor Robin fell -prostrate. He ought to be chained and muzzled by law when he grows up.” - -“But so ought Robin,” threw in the Starling in her brusque, young -mannish way. - -“But Robin’s only a girl and she’s not a parti,” laughed Feather. Her -eyes, lifted to Coombe’s, held a sort of childlike malice. “After his -mother knew she was Miss Gareth-Lawless, he was not allowed to play in -the Gardens again. Did she take him back to Scotland?” - -“They went back to Scotland,” answered Coombe, “and, of course, the boy -was not left behind.” - -“Have _you_ a child five years old?” asked Vesey in his low voice of -Feather. “You?” - -“It seems absurd to _me_,” said Feather, “I never quite believe in -her.” - -“I don’t,” said Vesey. “She’s impossible.” - -“Robin is a stimulating name,” put in Harrowby. “_Is_ it too late to -let us see her? If she’s such a beauty as Starling hints, she ought to -be looked at.” - -Feather actually touched the bell by the fireplace. A sudden caprice -moved her. The love story had not gone off quite as well as she had -thought it would. And, after all, the child was pretty enough to show -off. She knew nothing in particular about her daughter’s hours, but, if -she was asleep, she could be wakened. - -“Tell Andrews,” she said to the footman when he appeared, “I wish Miss -Robin to be brought downstairs.” - -“They usually go to bed at seven, I believe,” remarked Coombe, “but, of -course, I am not an authority.” - -Robin was not asleep though she had long been in bed. Because she kept -her eyes shut Andrews had been deceived into carrying on a conversation -with her sister Anne, who had come to see her. Robin had been lying -listening to it. She had begun to listen because they had been talking -about the day she had spoiled her rose-coloured smock and they had -ended by being very frank about other things. - -“As sure as you saw her speak to the boy’s mother the day before, just -so sure she whisked him back to Scotland the next morning,” said -Andrews. “She’s one of the kind that’s particular. Lord Coombe’s the -reason. She does not want her boy to see or speak to him, if it can be -helped. She won’t have it—and when she found out—” - -“Is Lord Coombe as bad as they say?” put in Anne with bated breath. “He -must be pretty bad if a boy that’s eight years old has to be kept out -of sight and sound of him.” - -So it was Lord Coombe who had somehow done it. He had made Donal’s -mother take him away. It was Lord Coombe. Who was Lord Coombe? It was -because he was wicked that Donal’s mother would not let him play with -her—because he was wicked. All at once there came to her a memory of -having heard his name before. She had heard it several times in the -basement Servants’ Hall and, though she had not understood what was -said about him, she had felt the atmosphere of cynical disapproval of -something. They had said “him” and “her” as if he somehow belonged to -the house. On one occasion he had been “high” in the manner of some -reproof to Jennings, who, being enraged, freely expressed his opinions -of his lordship’s character and general reputation. The impression made -on Robin then had been that he was a person to be condemned severely. -That the condemnation was the mere outcome of the temper of an impudent -young footman had not conveyed itself to her, and it was the impression -which came back to her now with a new significance. He was the -cause—not Donal, not Donal’s Mother—but this man who was so bad that -servants were angry because he was somehow connected with the house. - -“As to his badness,” she heard Andrews answer, “there’s some that can’t -say enough against him. Badness is smart these days. He’s bad enough -for the boy’s mother to take him away from. It’s what he is in this -house that does it. She won’t have her boy playing with a child like -Robin.” - -Then—even as there flashed upon her bewilderment this strange -revelation of her own unfitness for association with boys whose mothers -took care of them—Jennings, the young footman, came to the door. - -“Is she awake, Miss Andrews?” he said, looking greatly edified by -Andrews’ astonished countenance. - -“What on earth—?” began Andrews. - -“If she is,” Jennings winked humorously, “she’s to be dressed up and -taken down to the drawing-room to be shown off. I don’t know whether -it’s Coombe’s idea or not. He’s there.” - -Robin’s eyes flew wide open. She forgot to keep them shut. She was to -go downstairs! Who wanted her—who? - -Andrews had quite gasped. - -“Here’s a new break out!” she exclaimed. “I never heard such a thing in -my life. She’s been in bed over two hours. I’d like to know—” - -She paused here because her glance at the bed met the dark liquidity of -eyes wide open. She got up and walked across the room. - -“You are awake!” she said. “You look as if you hadn’t been asleep at -all. You’re to get up and have your frock put on. The Lady Downstairs -wants you in the drawing-room.” - -Two months earlier such a piece of information would have awakened in -the child a delirium of delight. But now her vitality was lowered -because her previously unawakened little soul had soared so high and -been so dashed down to cruel earth again. The brilliancy of the Lady -Downstairs had been dimmed as a candle is dimmed by the light of the -sun. - -She felt only a vague wonder as she did as Andrews told her—wonder at -the strangeness of getting up to be dressed, as it seemed to her, in -the middle of the night. - -“It’s just the kind of thing that would happen in a house like this,” -grumbled Andrews, as she put on her frock. “Just anything that comes -into their heads they think they’ve a right to do. I suppose they have, -too. If you’re rich and aristocratic enough to have your own way, why -not take it? I would myself.” - -The big silk curls, all in a heap, fell almost to the child’s hips. The -frock Andrews chose for her was a fairy thing. - -“She _is_ a bit thin, to be sure,” said the girl Anne. “But it points -her little face and makes her eyes look bigger.” - -“If her mother’s got a Marquis, I wonder what she’ll get,” said -Andrews. “She’s got a lot before her: this one!” - -When the child entered the drawing-room, Andrews made her go in alone, -while she held herself, properly, a few paces back like a lady in -waiting. The room was brilliantly lighted and seemed full of colour and -people who were laughing. There were pretty things crowding each other -everywhere, and there were flowers on all sides. The Lady Downstairs, -in a sheathlike sparkling dress, and only a glittering strap seeming to -hold it on over her fair undressed shoulders, was talking to a tall -thin man standing before the fireplace with a gold cup of coffee in his -hand. - -As the little thing strayed in, with her rather rigid attendant behind -her, suddenly the laughing ceased and everybody involuntarily drew a -half startled breath—everybody but the tall thin man, who quietly -turned and set his coffee cup down on the mantel piece behind him. - -“Is _this_ what you have been keeping up your sleeve!” said Harrowby, -settling his _pince nez_. - -“I told you!” said the Starling. - -“You couldn’t tell us,” Vesey’s veiled voice dropped in softly. “It -must be seen to be believed. But still—” aside to Feather, “I don’t -believe it.” - -“Enter, my only child!” said Feather. “Come here, Robin. Come to your -mother.” - -Now was the time! Robin went to her and took hold of a very small piece -of her sparkling dress. - -“_Are_ you my Mother?” she said. And then everybody burst into a peal -of laughter, Feather with the rest. - -“She calls me the Lady Downstairs,” she said. “I really believe she -doesn’t know. She’s rather a stupid little thing.” - -“Amazing lack of filial affection,” said Lord Coombe. - -He was not laughing like the rest and he was looking down at Robin. She -thought him ugly and wicked looking. Vesey and Harrowby were beautiful -by contrast. Before she knew who he was, she disliked him. She looked -at him askance under her eyelashes, and he saw her do it before her -mother spoke his name, taking her by the tips of her fingers and -leading her to him. - -“Come and let Lord Coombe look at you,” she said. So it revealed itself -to her that it was he—this ugly one—who had done it, and hatred surged -up in her soul. It was actually in the eyes she raised to his face, and -Coombe saw it as he had seen the sidelong glance and he wondered what -it meant. - -“Shake hands with Lord Coombe,” Feather instructed. - -“If you can make a curtsey, make one.” She turned her head over her -shoulders, “Have you taught her to curtsey, Andrews?” - -But Andrews had not and secretly lost temper at finding herself made to -figure as a nurse who had been capable of omission. Outwardly she -preserved rigid calm. - -“I’m afraid not, ma’am. I will at once, if you wish it.” - -Coombe was watching the inner abhorrence in the little face. Robin had -put her hand behind her back—she who had never disobeyed since she was -born! She had crossed a line of development when she had seen glimpses -of the new world through Donal’s eyes. - -“What are you doing, you silly little thing,” Feather reproved her. -“Shake hands with Lord Coombe.” - -Robin shook her head fiercely. - -“No! No! No! No!” she protested. - -Feather was disgusted. This was not the kind of child to display. - -“Rude little thing! Andrews, come and make her do it—or take her -upstairs,” she said. - -Coombe took his gold coffee cup from the mantel. - -“She regards me with marked antipathy, as she did when she first saw -me,” he summed the matter up. “Children and animals don’t hate one -without reason. It is some remote iniquity in my character which the -rest of us have not yet detected.” To Robin he said, “I do not want to -shake hands with you if you object. I prefer to drink my coffee out of -this beautiful cup.” - -But Andrews was seething. Having no conscience whatever, she had -instead the pride of a female devil in her perfection in her -professional duties. That the child she was responsible for should -stamp her with ignominious fourth-ratedness by conducting herself with -as small grace as an infant costermonger was more than her special -order of flesh and blood could bear—and yet she must outwardly control -the flesh and blood. - -In obedience to her mistress’ command, she crossed the room and bent -down and whispered to Robin. She intended that her countenance should -remain non-committal, but, when she lifted her head, she met Coombe’s -eyes and realized that perhaps it had not. She added to her whisper -nursery instructions in a voice of sugar. - -“Be pretty mannered, Miss Robin, my dear, and shake hands with his -lordship.” - -Each person in the little drawing-room saw the queer flame in the -child-face—Coombe himself was fantastically struck by the sudden -thought that its expression might have been that of an obstinate young -martyr staring at the stake. Robin shrilled out her words: - -“Andrews will pinch me—Andrews will pinch me! But—No!—No!” and she kept -her hand behind her back. - -“Oh, Miss Robin, you naughty child!” cried Andrews, with pathos. “Your -poor Andrews that takes such care of you!” - -“Horrid little thing!” Feather pettishly exclaimed. “Take her upstairs, -Andrews. She shall not come down again.” - -Harrowby, settling his _pince nez_ a little excitedly in the spurred -novelty of his interest, murmured, - -“If she doesn’t want to go, she will begin to shriek. This looks as if -she were a little termagant.” - -But she did not shriek when Andrews led her towards the door. The ugly -one with the wicked face was the one who had done it. He filled her -with horror. To have touched him would have been like touching some -wild beast of prey. That was all. She went with Andrews quite quietly. - -“Will you shake hands with me?” said the Starling, goodnaturedly, as -she passed, “I hope she won’t snub me,” she dropped aside to Harrowby. - -Robin put out her hand prettily. - -“Shake mine,” suggested Harrowby, and she obeyed him. - -“And mine?” smiled Vesey, with his best allure. She gave him her hand, -and, as a result of the allure probably, a tiny smile flickered about -the corners of her mouth. He did not look wicked. - -“I remain an outcast,” remarked Coombe, as the door closed behind the -little figure. - -“I detest an ill-mannered child,” said Feather. “She ought to be -slapped. We used to be slapped if we were rude.” - -“She said Andrews would pinch her. Is pinching the customary -discipline?” - -“It ought to be. She deserves it.” Feather was quite out of temper. -“But Andrews is too good to her. She is a perfect creature and conducts -herself like a clock. There has never been the slightest trouble in the -Nursery. You see how the child looks—though her face _isn’t_ quite as -round as it was.” She laughed disagreeably and shrugged her white -undressed shoulders. “I think it’s a little horrid, myself—a child of -that age fretting herself thin about a boy.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -But though she had made no protest on being taken out of the -drawing-room, Robin had known that what Andrews’ soft-sounding whisper -had promised would take place when she reached the Nursery. She was too -young to feel more than terror which had no defense whatever. She had -no more defense against Andrews than she had had against the man who -had robbed her of Donal. They were both big and powerful, and she was -nothing. But, out of the wonders she had begun to know, there had risen -in her before almost inert little being a certain stirring. For a brief -period she had learned happiness and love and woe, and, this evening, -inchoate rebellion against an enemy. Andrews led by the hand up the -narrow, top-story staircase something she had never led before. She was -quite unaware of this and, as she mounted each step, her temper mounted -also, and it was the temper of an incensed personal vanity abnormally -strong in this particular woman. When they were inside the Nursery and -the door was shut, she led Robin to the middle of the small and gloomy -room and released her hand. - -“Now, my lady,” she said. “I’m going to pay you out for disgracing me -before everybody in the drawing-room.” She had taken the child below -stairs for a few minutes before bringing her up for the night. She had -stopped in the kitchen for something she wanted for herself. She laid -her belongings on a chest of drawers and turned about. - -“I’m going to teach you a lesson you won’t forget,” she said. - -What happened next turned the woman quite sick with the shock of -amazement. The child had, in the past, been a soft puppet. She had been -automatic obedience and gentleness. Privately Andrews had somewhat -looked down on her lack of spirit, though it had been her own best -asset. The outbreak downstairs had been an abnormality. - -And now she stood before her with hands clenched, her little face wild -with defiant rage. - -“I’ll scream! I’ll scream! I’ll _scream!_” she shrieked. Andrews -actually heard herself gulp; but she sprang up and forward. - -“You’ll _scream!_” she could scarcely believe her own feelings—not to -mention the evidence of her ears, “_you’ll_ scream!” - -The next instant was more astonishing still. Robin threw herself on her -knees and scrambled like a cat. She was under the bed and in the -remotest corner against the wall. She was actually unreachable, and she -lay on her back kicking madly, hammering her heels against the floor -and uttering piercing shrieks. As something had seemed to let itself go -when she writhed under the bushes in the Gardens, so did something let -go now. In her overstrung little mind there ruled for this moment the -feeling that if she was to be pinched, she would be pinched for a -reason. - -Andrews knelt by the side of the bed. She had a long, strong, thin arm -and it darted beneath and clutched. But it was not long enough to -attain the corner where the kicking and screaming was going on. Her -temper became fury before her impotence and her hideous realization of -being made ridiculous by this baby of six. Two floors below the -afterglow of the little dinner was going on. Suppose even far echoes of -the screams should be heard and make her more ridiculous still. She -knew how they would laugh and her mistress would make some silly joke -about Robin’s being too much for her. Her fury rose so high that she -had barely sense to realize that she must not let herself go too far -when she got hold of the child. Get hold of her she would and pay her -out—My word! She would pay her out! - -“You little devil!” she said between her teeth, “Wait till I get hold -of you.” And Robin shrieked and hammered more insanely still. - -The bed was rather a low one and it was difficult for any one larger -than a child to find room beneath it. The correct and naturally rigid -Andrews lay flat upon her stomach and wriggled herself partly under the -edge. Just far enough for her long and strong arm, and equally long and -strong clutching fingers to do their work. In her present state of -mind, Andrews would have broken her back rather than not have reached -the creature who so defied her. The strong fingers clenched a flying -petticoat and dragged at it fiercely—the next moment they clutched a -frantic foot, with a power which could not be broken away from. A jerk -and a remorseless dragging over the carpet and Robin was out of the -protecting darkness and in the gas light again, lying tumbled and in an -untidy, torn little heap on the nursery floor. Andrews was panting, but -she did not loose her hold as she scrambled, without a rag of -professional dignity, to her feet. - -“My word!” she breathlessly gave forth. “I’ve got you now! I’ve got you -now.” - -She so looked that to Robin she seemed—like the ugly man downstairs—a -sort of wicked wild beast, whose mere touch would have been horror even -if it did not hurt. And the child knew what was coming. She felt -herself dragged up from the floor and also dragged between Andrew’s -knees, which felt bony and hard as iron. There was no getting away from -them. Andrews had seated herself firmly on a chair. - -Holding her between the iron knees, she put her large hand over her -mouth. It was a hand large enough to cover more than her mouth. Only -the panic-stricken eyes seemed to flare wide and lustrous above it. - -“_You’ll_ scream!” she said, “_you’ll_ hammer on the floor with your -heels! _You’ll_ behave like a wildcat—you that’s been like a kitten! -You’ve never done it before and you’ll never do it again! If it takes -me three days, I’ll make you remember!” - -And then her hand dropped—and her jaw dropped, and she sat staring with -a furious, sick, white face at the open door—which she had shut as she -came in. The top floor had always been so safe. The Nursery had been -her own autocratic domain. There had been no human creature to whom it -would have occurred to interfere. That was it. She had been actually -_safe_. - -Unheard in the midst of the struggle, the door had been opened without -a knock. There on the threshold, as stiff as a ramrod, and with his -hateful eyes uncovering their gleam, Lord Coombe was standing—no other -than Lord Coombe. - -Having a sharp working knowledge of her world, Andrews knew that it was -all up. He had come upstairs deliberately. She knew what he had come -for. He was as clever as he was bad, and he had seen something when he -glanced at her in the drawing-room. Now he had heard and seen her as -she dragged Robin from under the bed. He’d come up for that—for some -queer evil reason of his own. The promptings of a remote gutter -training made her feel a desire to use language such as she still had -wisdom enough to restrain. - -“You are a very great fool, young woman,” he said. “You have nothing -but your character as a nurse to live on. A scene in a police court -would ruin you. There is a Society which interferes with nursery -torture.” - -Robin, freed from the iron grasp, had slunk behind a chair. He was -there again. - -Andrews’ body, automatically responsive to rule and habit, rose from -its seat and stood before this member of a class which required an -upright position. She knew better than to attempt to excuse or explain. -She had heard about the Society and she knew publicity would spell ruin -and starvation. She had got herself into an appalling mess. Being -caught—there you were. But that this evil-reputationed swell should -actually have been awakened by some whim to notice and follow her up -was “past her,” as she would have put it. - -“You were going to pinch her—by instalments, I suppose,” he said. “You -inferred that it might last three days. When she said you would—in the -drawing-room—it occurred to me to look into it. What are your wages?” - -“Thirty pounds a year, my lord.” - -“Go tomorrow morning to Benby, who engaged you for Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. -He will be at his office by nine and will pay you what is owed to -you—and a month’s wages in lieu of notice.” - -“The mistress—” began Andrews. - -“I have spoken to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” It was a lie, serenely told. -Feather was doing a new skirt dance in the drawing-room. “She is -engaged. Pack your box. Jennings will call a cab.” - -It was the utter idiotic hopelessness of saying anything to him which -finished her. You might as well talk to a front door or a street lamp. -Any silly thing you might try wouldn’t even reach his ears. He had no -ears for you. You didn’t matter enough. - -“Shall I leave her here—as she is?” she said, denoting Robin. - -“Undress her and put her to bed before you pack your box,” absolutely -certain, fine cold modulations in the voice, which stood for his -special plane of breeding, had their effect on her grovelling though -raging soul. He was so exactly what he was and what she was not and -could never attain. “I will stay here while you do it. Then go.” - -No vocabulary of the Servants’ Hall could have encompassed the fine -phrase _grand seigneur_, but, when Mrs. Blayne and the rest talked of -him in their least resentful and more amiable moods, they unconsciously -made efforts to express the quality in him which these two words -convey. He had ways of his own. Men that paid a pretty woman’s bills -and kept her going in luxury, Jennings and Mrs. Blayne and the others -knew something about. They sometimes began well enough but, as time -went on, they forgot themselves and got into the way of being familiar -and showing they realized that they paid for things and had their -rights. Most of them began to be almost like husbands—speak slighting -and sharp and be a bit stiff about accounts—even before servants. They -ran in and out or—after a while—began to stay away and not show up for -weeks. “He” was different—so different that it was queer. Queer it -certainly was that he really came to the place very seldom. Wherever -they met, it didn’t noticeably often happen in the slice of a house. He -came as if he were a visitor. He took no liberties. Everything was -punctiliously referred to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. Mr. Benby, who did -everything, conducted himself outwardly as if he were a sort of man of -business in Mrs. Gareth-Lawlesss’ employ. It was open to the lenient to -believe that she depended on some mysterious private income. There were -people who preferred to try to believe this, but there were those who, -in some occult way, knew exactly where her income came from. There -were, in fact, hypercritical persons who did not know or notice her, -but she had quite an entertaining, smart circle which neither -suspicions nor beliefs prevented from placing her in their visiting -lists. Coombe _did_ keep it up in the most perfect manner, some of them -said admiringly among themselves. He showed extraordinarily perfect -taste. Many fashionable open secrets, accepted by a brilliant world, -were not half so fastidiously managed. Andrews knew he had unswervingly -lied when he said he had “spoken to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” But he never -failed to place her in the position of authority. That he should have -presented himself on the nursery floor was amazingly abnormal enough to -mean some state of mind unregulated by all natural rules. “Him,” -Andrews thought, “that never steps out of a visitor’s place in the -drawing-room turning up on the third floor without a word!” One thing -she knew, and that came first. Behind all the polite show he was the -head of everything. And he was one that you’d better not give back a -sound to if you knew what was good for yourself. Whatever people said -against his character, he was one of the grand and high ones. A word -from him—ever so quiet—and you’d be done for. - -She was shaking with fear inwardly, but she undressed Robin and put her -in bed, laying everything away and making things tidy for the night. - -“This is the Night Nursery, I suppose,” Coombe had said when she began. -He put up his glasses and looked the uninviting little room over. He -scrutinized it and she wondered what his opinion of it might be. - -“Yes, my lord. The Day Nursery is through that door.” He walked through -the door in question and she could see that he moved slowly about it, -examining the few pieces of furniture curiously, still with his glass -in his eye. She had finished undressing Robin and had put her in her -bed before he came back into the sleeping apartment. By that time, -exhausted by the unknown tempest she had passed through, the child had -dropped asleep in spite of herself. She was too tired to remember that -her enemy was in the next room. - -“I have seen the child with you several times when you have not been -aware of it,” Coombe said to her before he went downstairs. “She has -evidently been well taken care of as far as her body is concerned. If -you were not venomous—if you had merely struck her, when you lost your -temper, you might have had another trial. I know nothing about -children, but I know something about the devil, and if ever the devil -was in a woman’s face and voice the devil was in yours when you dragged -the little creature from under the bed. If you had dared, you would -have killed her. Look after that temper, young woman. Benby shall keep -an eye on you if you take another place as nurse, and I shall know -where you are.” - -“My lord!” Andrews gasped. “You wouldn’t overlook a woman and take her -living from her and send her to starvation!” - -“I would take her living from her and send her to starvation without a -shadow of compunction,” was the reply made in the fine gentleman’s -cultivated voice, “—if she were capable of what you were capable of -tonight. You are, I judge, about forty, and, though you are lean, you -are a powerful woman; the child is, I believe, barely six.” And then, -looking down at her through his glass, he added—to her quite shuddering -astonishment—in a tone whose very softness made it really awful to her, -“Damn you! Damn you!” - -“I’ll—I swear I’ll never let myself go again, my lord!” the woman broke -out devoutly. - -“I don’t think you will. It would cost you too much,” he said. - -Then he went down the steep, crooked little staircase quite soundlessly -and Andrews, rather white and breathless, went and packed her trunk. -Robin—tired baby as she was—slept warm and deeply. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -It was no custom of his to outstay other people; in fact, he usually -went away comparatively early. Feather could not imagine what his -reason could be, but she was sure there was a reason. She was often -disturbed by his reasons, and found it difficult to adjust herself to -them. How—even if one had a logically brilliant mind—could one -calculate on a male being, who seemed not exactly to belong to the race -of men. - -As a result of the skirt dancing, the furniture of the empty -drawing-room was a little scattered and untidy, but Feather had found a -suitable corner among cushions on a sofa, after everyone had gone -leaving Coombe alone with her. She wished he would sit down, but he -preferred to stand in his still, uncomfortable way. - -“I know you are going to tell me something,” she broke the silence. - -“I am. When I went out of the room, I did not drive round to my club as -I said I found myself obliged to. I went upstairs to the third floor—to -the Nursery.” - -Feather sat quite upright. - -“_You_ went up to the Nursery!” If this was the reason for his staying, -what on earth had he come upon in the region of the third floor, and -how ridiculously unlike him to allow himself to interfere. Could it be -Andrews and Jennings? Surely Andrews was too old.—This passed across -her mind in a flash. - -“You called Andrews to use her authority with the child when she would -not shake hands with me. The little creature, for some reason of her -own, evidently feels an antipathy to me. That interested me and I -watched her as Andrews whispered in her ear. The woman’s vanity was -stung. I realized that she whispered a threat. A hint of actual -ferocity showed in her eyes in spite of herself. Robin turned pale.” - -“Andrews was quite right. Children must be punished when they are -rude.” Feather felt this at once silly and boring. What did he know -about such matters? - -“The child said, ‘Andrews will pinch me!’ and I caught Andrews’ eye and -knew it was true—also that she had done it before. I looked at the -woman’s long, thin, strong fingers. They were cruel fingers. I do not -take liberties, as a rule, but I took a liberty. I excused myself and -climbed three flights of stairs.” - -Never had Feather been so surprised in her life. She looked like a -bewildered child. - -“But—what _could_ it matter to _you?_” she said in soft amaze. - -“I don’t know,” his answer came after a moment’s pause. “I have -caprices of mood. Certain mental images made my temperature rise. -Momentarily it did matter. One is like that at times. Andrews’ feline -face and her muscular fingers—and the child’s extraordinarily exquisite -flesh—gave me a second’s furious shudder.” - -Feather quite broke in upon him. - -“Are you—are you _fond_ of children?” - -“No,” he was really abrupt. “I never thought of such a thing in my -life—as being _fond_ of things.” - -“That was what—I mean I thought so.” Feather faltered, as if in polite -acquiescence with a quite natural fact. - -Coombe proceeded: - -“As I went up the stairs I heard screams and I thought that the -pinching had begun. I got up quickly and opened the door and found the -woman lying flat on the floor by the bed, dragging out the child who -had hidden under it. The woman’s face was devilish, and so was her -voice. I heard her threats. She got on her feet and dragged the child -up and held her between her knees. She clapped her hand over mouth to -stifle her shrieks. There I stopped her. She had a fright at sight of -me which taught her something.” He ended rather slowly. “I took the -great liberty of ordering her to pack her box and leave the -house—course,” with a slight bow, “using you as my authority.” - -“Andrews!” cried Feather, aghast. “Has she—gone?” - -“Would you have kept her?” he inquired. - -“It’s true that—that _pinching_” Feather’s voice almost held tears, -“—really _hard_ pinching is—is not proper. But Andrews has been -invaluable. Everyone says Robin is better dressed and better kept than -other children. And she is never allowed to make the least noise—” - -“One wouldn’t if one were pinched by those devilish, sinewy fingers -every time one raised one’s voice. Yes. She has gone. I ordered her to -put her charge to bed before she packed. I did not leave her alone with -Robin. In fact, I walked about the two nurseries and looked them over.” - -He had walked about the Night Nursery and the Day Nursery! He—the Head -of the House of Coombe, whose finely acrid summing up of things, they -were all secretly afraid of, if the truth were known. “They” stood for -her smart, feverishly pleasure-chasing set. In their way, they half -unconsciously tried to propitiate something in him, always without -producing the least effect. Her mental vision presented to her his -image as he had walked about the horrid little rooms, his somewhat -stiffly held head not much below the low ceilings. He had taken in -shabby carpets, furniture, faded walls, general dim dinginess. - -“It’s an unholy den for anything to spend its days in—that third -floor,” he made the statement detachedly, in a way. “If she’s six, she -has lived six years there—and known nothing else.” - -“All London top floors are like it,” said Feather, “and they are all -nurseries and school rooms—where there are children.” - -His faintly smiling glance took in her girl-child slimness in its -glittering sheath—the zephyr scarf floating from the snow of her bared -loveliness—her delicate soft chin deliciously lifted as she looked up -at him. - -“How would _you_ like it?” he asked. - -“But I am not a child,” in pretty protest. “Children are—are -different!” - -“You look like a child,” he suddenly said, queerly—as if the aspect of -her caught him for an instant and made him absent-minded. “Sometimes—a -woman does. Not often.” - -She bloomed into a kind of delighted radiance. - -“You don’t often pay me compliments,” she said. “That is a beautiful -one. Robin—makes it more beautiful.” - -“It isn’t a compliment,” he answered, still watching her in the -slightly absent manner. “It is—a tragic truth.” - -He passed his hand lightly across his eyes as if he swept something -away, and then both looked and spoke exactly as before. - -“I have decided to buy the long lease of this house. It is for sale,” -he said, casually. “I shall buy it for the child.” - -“For Robin!” said Feather, helplessly. - -“Yes, for Robin.” - -“It—it would be an income—whatever happened. It is in the very heart of -Mayfair,” she said, because, in her astonishment—almost -consternation—she could think of nothing else. He would not buy it for -her. He thought her too silly to trust. But, if it were Robin’s—it -would be hers also. A girl couldn’t turn her own mother into the -street. Amid the folds of her narrow being hid just one spark of -shrewdness which came to life where she herself was concerned. - -“Two or three rooms—not large ones—can be added at the back,” he went -on. “I glanced out of a window to see if it could be done.” - -Incomprehensible as he was, one might always be sure of a certain -princeliness in his inexplicable methods. He never was personal or -mean. An addition to the slice of a house! That really _was_ generous! -Entrancement filled her. - -“That really is kind of you,” she murmured, gratefully. “It seems too -much to ask!” - -“You did not ask it,” was his answer. - -“But I shall benefit by it. Nothing _could be_ nicer. These rooms are -so much too small,” glancing about her in flushed rapture, “And my -bedroom is dreadful. I’m obliged to use Rob’s for a dressing-room.” - -“The new rooms will be for Robin,” he said. An excellent method he had -discovered, of entirely detaching himself from the excitements and -emotions of other persons, removed the usual difficulties in the way of -disappointing—speaking truths to—or embarrassing people who deserved -it. It was this method which had utterly cast down the defences of -Andrews. Feather was so wholly left out of the situation that she was -actually almost saved from its awkwardness. “When one is six,” he -explained, “one will soon be seven—nine—twelve. Then the teens begin to -loom up and one cannot be concealed in cupboards on a top floor. Even -before that time a governess is necessary, and, even from the abyss of -my ignorance, I see that no respectable woman would stand either the -Night or the Day Nursery. Your daughter—” - -“Oh, don’t call her _that!_” cried Feather. “My daughter! It sounds as -if she were eighteen!” She felt as if she had a sudden hideous little -shock. Six years _had_ passed since Bob died! A daughter! A school girl -with long hair and long legs to keep out of the way. A grown-up girl to -drag about with one. Never would she do it! - -“Three sixes are eighteen,” Coombe continued, “as was impressed upon -one in early years by the multiplication table.” - -“I never saw you so interested in anything before,” Feather faltered. -“Climbing steep, narrow, horrid stairs to her nursery! Dismissing her -nurse!” She paused a second, because a very ugly little idea had -clutched at her. It arose from and was complicated with many fantastic, -half formed, secret resentments of the past. It made her laugh a shade -hysterical. - -“Are you going to see that she is properly brought up and educated, so -that if—anyone important falls in love with her she can make a good -match?” - -Hers was quite a hideous little mind, he was telling himself—fearful in -its latter day casting aside of all such small matters as taste and -feeling. People stripped the garments from things in these days. He -laughed inwardly at himself and his unwitting “these days.” Senile -severity mouthed just such phrases. Were they not his own days and the -outcome of a past which had considered itself so much more decorous? -Had not boldly questionable attitudes been held in those other days? -How long was it since the Prince Regent himself had flourished? It was -only that these days brought it all close against one’s eyes. But this -exquisite creature had a hideous little mind of her own whatsoever her -day. - -Later, he confessed to himself that he was unprepared to see her spring -to her feet and stand before him absurdly, fantastically near being -impassioned. - -“You think I as too silly to _see_ anything,” she broke forth. “But I -do see—a long way sometimes. I can’t bear it but I do—I do! I shall -have a grown-up daughter. She will be the kind of girl everyone will -look at—and someone—important—may want to marry her. But, Oh!—” He was -reminded of the day when she had fallen at his feet, and clasped his -rigid and reluctant knees. This was something of the same feeble -desperation of mood. “Oh, _why_ couldn’t someone like that have wanted -to marry _me!_ See!” she was like a pathetic fairy as she spread her -nymphlike arms, “how _pretty_ I am!” - -His gaze held her a moment in the singular fashion with which she had -become actually familiar, because—at long intervals—she kept seeing it -again. He quite gently took her fingers and returned her to her sofa. - -“Please sit down again,” he requested. “It will be better.” - -She sat down without another imbecile word to say. As for him, he -changed the subject. - -“With your permission, Benby will undertake the business of the lease -and the building,” he explained. “The plans will be brought to you. We -will go over them together, if you wish. There will be decent rooms for -Robin and her governess. The two nurseries can be made fit for human -beings to live in and used for other purposes. The house will be -greatly improved.” - -It was nearly three o’clock when Feather went upstairs to her dozing -maid, because, after he had left her, she sat some time in the empty, -untidy little drawing-room and gazed straight before her at a painted -screen on which shepherdesses and swains were dancing in a Watteau -glade infested by flocks of little Loves. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -When, from Robin’s embarrassed young consciousness, there had welled up -the hesitating confession, “She—doesn’t like me,” she could not, of -course, have found words in which to make the reasons for her knowledge -clear, but they had for herself no obscurity. The fair being who, at -rare intervals, fluttered on the threshold of her world had a way of -looking at her with a shade of aloof distaste in her always transient -gaze. - -The unadorned fact was that Feather did _not_ like her. She had been -outraged by her advent. A baby was absurdly “out of the picture.” So -far as her mind encompassed a future, she saw herself flitting from -flower to flower of “smart” pleasures and successes, somehow, with more -money and more exalted invitations—“something” vaguely—having happened -to the entire Lawdor progeny, and she, therefore, occupying a position -in which it was herself who could gracefully condescend to others. -There was nothing so “stodgy” as children in the vision. When the worst -came to the worst, she had been consoled by the thought that she had -really managed the whole thing very cleverly. It was easier, of course, -to so arrange such things in modern days and in town. The Day Nursery -and the Night Nursery on the third floor, a smart-looking young woman -who knew her business, who even knew what to buy for a child and where -to buy it, without troubling any one simplified the situation. Andrews -had been quite wonderful. Nobody can bother one about a healthy, -handsome child who is seen meticulously cared for and beautifully -dressed, being pushed or led or carried out in the open air every day. - -But there had arrived the special morning when she had seen a child who -so stood out among a dozen children that she had been startled when she -recognized that it was Robin. Andrews had taken her charge to Hyde Park -that day and Feather was driving through the Row on her way to a -Knightsbridge shop. First her glance had been caught by the hair -hanging to the little hips—extraordinary hair in which Andrews herself -had a pride. Then she had seen the slender, exquisitely modeled legs, -and the dancing sway of the small body. A wonderfully cut, stitched, -and fagotted smock and hat she had, of course, taken in at a flash. -When the child suddenly turned to look at some little girls in a pony -cart, the amazing damask of her colour, and form and depth of eye had -given her another slight shock. She realized that what she had thrust -lightly away in a corner of her third floor produced an unmistakable -effect when turned out into the light of a gay world. The creature was -tall too—for six years old. Was she really six? It seemed incredible. -Ten more years and she would be sixteen. - -Mrs. Heppel-Bevill had a girl of fifteen, who was a perfect -catastrophe. She read things and had begun to talk about her “right to -be a woman.” Emily Heppel-Bevill was only thirty-seven—three years from -forty. Feather had reached the stage of softening in her disdain of the -women in their thirties. She had found herself admitting that—in these -days—there were women of forty who had not wholly passed beyond the -pale into that outer darkness where there was weeping and wailing and -gnashing of teeth. But there was no denying that this six year old -baby, with the dancing step, gave one—almost hysterically—“to think.” -Her imagination could not—never had and never would she have allowed it -to—grasp any belief that she herself could change. A Feather, No! But a -creature of sixteen, eighteen—with eyes that shape—with lashes an inch -long—with yards of hair—standing by one’s side in ten years! It was -ghastly! - -Coombe, in his cold perfunctory way, climbing the crooked, narrow -stairs, dismissing Andrews—looking over the rooms—dismissing them, so -to speak, and then remaining after the rest had gone to reveal to her a -new abnormal mood—that, in itself alone, was actually horrible. It was -abnormal and yet he had always been more or less like that in all -things. Despite everything—everything—he had never been in love with -her at all. At first she had believed he was—then she had tried to make -him care for her. He had never failed her, he had done everything in -his _grand seigneur_ fashion. Nobody dare make gross comment upon her, -but, while he saw her loveliness as only such a man could—she had -gradually realized that she had never had even a chance with him. She -could not even think that if she had not been so silly and frightened -that awful day six years ago, and had not lost her head, he might have -admired her more and more and in the end asked her to marry him. He had -said there must be no mistakes, and she had not been allowed to fall -into making one. The fact that she had not, had, finally, made her feel -the power of a certain fascination in him. She thought it was a result -of his special type of looks, his breeding, the wonderful clothes he -wore—but it was, in truth, his varieties of inaccessibility. - -“A girl might like him,” she had said to herself that night—she sat up -late after he left her. “A girl who—who had up-to-date sense might. -Modern people don’t grow old as they used to. At fifty-five he won’t be -fat, or bald and he won’t have lost his teeth. People have found out -they needn’t. He will be as thin and straight as he is today—and -nothing can alter his nose. He will be ten years cleverer than he is -now. Buying the house for a child of that age—building additional rooms -for her!” - -In the fevered, rapid, deep-dipping whirl of the life which was the -only one she knew, she had often seen rather trying things -happen—almost unnatural changes in situations. People had overcome the -folly of being afraid to alter their minds and their views about what -they had temporarily believed were permanent bonds and emotions. Bonds -had become old fogeyish. Marriages went to pieces, the parties in love -affairs engaged in a sort of “dance down the middle” and turn other -people’s partners. The rearrangement of figures sometimes made for -great witticism. Occasionally people laughed at themselves as at each -other. The admirers of engaging matrons had been known to renew their -youth at the coming-out balls of lovely daughters in their early teens, -and to end by assuming the flowery chains of a new allegiance. Time -had, of course, been when such a _volte face_ would have aroused -condemnation and indignant discussion, but a humorous leniency spent -but little time in selecting terms of severity. Feather had known of -several such _contretemps_ ending in quite brilliant matches. The -enchanting mothers usually consoled themselves with great ease, and, if -the party of each part was occasionally wittily pungent in her comments -on the other, everybody laughed and nobody had time to criticize. A man -who had had much to bestow and who preferred in youth to bestow it upon -himself was not infrequently more in the mood for the sharing of -marriage when years had revealed to him the distressing fact that he -was not, and had never been, the centre of the universe, which -distressing fact is one so unfairly concealed from youth in bloom. - -It was, of course, but as a vaguely outlined vision that these -recognitions floated through what could only be alleged to be Feather’s -mind because there was no other name for it. The dark little staircase, -the rejected and despised third floor, and Coombe detachedly announcing -his plans for the house, had set the—so to speak—rather malarious mist -flowing around her. A trying thing was that it did not really dispel -itself altogether, but continued to hang about the atmosphere -surrounding other and more cheerful things. Almost impalpably it added -to the familiar feeling—or lack of feeling—with regard to Robin. She -had not at all hated the little thing; it had merely been quite true -that, in an inactive way, she had not _liked_ her. In the folds of the -vague mist quietly floated the truth that she now liked her less. - -Benby came to see and talk to her on the business of the structural -changes to be made. He conducted himself precisely as though her views -on the matter were of value and could not, in fact, be dispensed with. -He brought the architect’s plans with him and explained them with care. -They were clever plans which made the most of a limited area. He did -not even faintly smile when it revealed itself to him, as it -unconsciously did, that Mrs. Gareth-Lawless regarded their adroit -arrangement as a singular misuse of space which could have been much -better employed for necessities of her own. She was much depressed by -the ground floor addition which might have enlarged her dining-room, -but which was made into a sitting-room for Robin and her future -governess. - -“And that is in _addition_ to her schoolroom which might have been -thrown into the drawing-room—besides the new bedrooms which I needed so -much,” she said. - -“The new nurse, who is a highly respectable person,” explained Benby, -“could not have been secured if she had not known that improvements -were being made. The reconstruction of the third floor will provide -suitable accommodations.” - -The special forte of Dowson, the new nurse, was a sublimated -respectability far superior to smartness. She had been mystically -produced by Benby and her bonnets and jackets alone would have revealed -her selection from almost occult treasures. She wore bonnets and -“jackets,” not hats and coats. - -“In the calm days of Her Majesty, nurses dressed as she does. I do not -mean in the riotous later years of her reign—but earlier—when England -dreamed in terms of Crystal Palaces and Great Exhibitions. She can only -be the result of excavation,” Coombe said of her. - -She was as proud of her respectability as Andrews had been of her -smartness. This had, in fact, proved an almost insuperable obstacle to -her engagement. The slice of a house, with its flocking in and out of -chattering, smart people in marvellous clothes was not the place for -her, nor was Mrs. Gareth-Lawless the mistress of her dreams. But her -husband had met with an accident and must be kept in a hospital, and an -invalid daughter must live by the seaside—and suddenly, when things -were at their worst with her, had come Benby with a firm determination -to secure her with wages such as no other place would offer. Besides -which she had observed as she had lived. - -“Things have changed,” she reflected soberly. “You’ve got to resign -yourself and not be too particular.” - -She accepted the third floor, as Benby had said, because it was to be -rearranged and the Night and Day Nurseries, being thrown into one, -repainted and papered would make a decent place to live in. At the -beautiful little girl given into her charge she often looked in a -puzzled way, because she knew a good deal about children, and about -this one there was something odd. Her examination of opened drawers and -closets revealed piles of exquisite garments of all varieties, all -perfectly kept. In these dingy holes, which called themselves -nurseries, she found evidence that money had been spent like water so -that the child, when she was seen, might look like a small princess. -But she found no plaything—no dolls or toys, and only one picture book, -and that had “Donal” written on the fly leaf and evidently belonged to -someone else. - -What exactly she would have done when she had had time to think the -matter over, she never knew, because, a few days after her arrival, a -tall, thin gentleman, coming up the front steps as she was going out -with Robin, stopped and spoke to her as if he knew who she was. - -“You know the kind of things children like to play with, nurse?” he -said. - -She respectfully replied that she had had long experience with young -desires. She did not know as yet who he was, but there was that about -him which made her feel that, while there was no knowing what height -his particular exaltation in the matter of rank might reach, one would -be safe in setting it high. - -“Please go to one of the toy shops and choose for the child what she -will like best. Dolls—games—you will know what to select. Send the bill -to me at Coombe House. I am Lord Coombe.” - -“Thank you, my lord,” Dowson answered, with a sketch of a curtsey, -“Miss Robin, you must hold out your little hand and say ‘thank you’ to -his lordship for being so kind. He’s told Dowson to buy you some -beautiful dolls and picture books as a present.” - -Robin’s eyelashes curled against her under brows in her wide, still -glance upward at him. Here was “the one” again! She shut her hand -tightly into a fist behind her back. - -Lord Coombe smiled a little—not much. - -“She does not like me,” he said. “It is not necessary that she should -give me her hand. I prefer that she shouldn’t, if she doesn’t want to. -Good morning, Dowson.” - -To the well-regulated mind of Dowson, this seemed treating too lightly -a matter as serious as juvenile incivility. She remonstrated gravely -and at length with Robin. - -“Little girls must behave prettily to kind gentlemen who are friends of -their mammas. It is dreadful to be rude and not say ‘thank you’,” she -said. - -But as she talked she was vaguely aware that her words passed by the -child’s ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a bit of -temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At the same time, -there _was_ something queer about the little thing. She had a listless -way of sitting staring out of the window and seeming to have no desire -to amuse herself. She was too young to be listless and she did not care -for her food. Dowson asked permission to send for the doctor and, when -he came, he ordered sea air. - -“Of course, you can take her away for a few weeks,” Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -said. Here she smiled satirically and added, “But I can tell you what -it is all about. The little minx actually fell in love with a small boy -she met in the Square Gardens and, when his mother took him from -London, she began to mope like a tiresome girl in her teens. It’s -ridiculous, but is the real trouble.” - -“Oh!” said Dowson, the low and respectful interjection expressing a -shade of disapproval, “Children do have fancies, ma’am. She’ll get over -it if we give her something else to think of.” - -The good woman went to one of the large toy shops and bought a -beautiful doll, a doll’s house, and some picture books. When they were -brought up to the Day Nursery, Robin was asleep after a rather long -walk, which Dowson had decided would be good for her. When she came -later into the room, after the things had been unpacked, she regarded -them with an expression of actual dislike. - -“Isn’t that a beautiful doll?” said Dowson, good-humouredly. “And did -you ever see such a lovely house? It was kind Lord Coombe who gave them -to you. Just you look at the picture books.” - -Robin put her hands behind her back and would not touch them. Dowson, -who was a motherly creature with a great deal of commonsense, was set -thinking. She began to make guesses, though she was not yet -sufficiently familiar with the household to guess from any firm -foundation of knowledge of small things. - -“Come here, dear,” she said, and drew the small thing to her knee. “Is -it because you don’t love Lord Coombe?” she asked. - -“Yes,” she answered. - -“But why?” said Dowson. “When he is such a kind gentleman?” - -But Robin would not tell her why and never did. She never told any one, -until years had passed, how this had been the beginning of a hatred. -The toys were left behind when she was taken to the seaside. Dowson -tried to persuade her to play with them several times, but she would -not touch them, so they were put away. Feeling that she was dealing -with something unusual, and, being a kindly person, Dowson bought her -some playthings on her own account. They were simple things, but Robin -was ready enough to like them. - -“Did _you_ give them to me?” she asked. - -“Yes, I did, Miss Robin.” - -The child drew near her after a full minute of hesitation. - -“I will _kiss_ you!” she said solemnly, and performed the rite as -whole-souledly as Donal had done. - -“Dear little mite!” exclaimed the surprised Dowson. “Dear me!” And -there was actual moisture in her eyes as she squeezed the small body in -her arms. - -“She’s the strangest mite I ever nursed,” was her comment to Mrs. -Blayne below stairs. “It was so sudden, and she did it as if she’d -never done it before. I’d actually been thinking she hadn’t any feeling -at all.” - -“No reason why she should have. She’s been taken care of by the clock -and dressed like a puppet, but she’s not been treated human!” broke -forth Mrs. Blayne. - -Then the whole story was told—the “upstairs” story with much vivid -description, and the mentioning of many names and the dotting of many -“i’s”. Dowson had heard certain things only through vague rumour, but -now she knew and began to see her way. She had not heard names before, -and the definite inclusion of Lord Coombe’s suggested something to her. - -“Do you think the child could be _jealous_ of his lordship?” she -suggested. - -“She might if she knew anything about him—but she never saw him until -the night she was taken down into the drawing-room. She’s lived -upstairs like a little dog in its kennel.” - -“Well,” Dowson reflected aloud, “it sounds almost silly to talk of a -child’s hating any one, but that bit of a thing’s eyes had fair hate in -them when she looked up at him where he stood. That was what puzzled -me.” - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -Before Robin had been taken to the seaside to be helped by the bracing -air of the Norfolk coast to recover her lost appetite and forget her -small tragedy, she had observed that unaccustomed things were taking -place in the house. Workmen came in and out through the mews at the -back and brought ladders with them and tools in queer bags. She heard -hammerings which began very early in the morning and went on all day. -As Andrews had trained her not to ask tiresome questions, she only -crept now and then to a back window and peeped out. But in a few days -Dowson took her away. - -When she came back to London, she was not taken up the steep dark -stairs to the third floor. Dowson led her into some rooms she had never -seen before. They were light and airy and had pretty walls and -furniture. A sitting-room on the ground floor had even a round window -with plants in it and a canary bird singing in a cage. - -“May we stay here?” she asked Dowson in a whisper. - -“We are going to live here,” was the answer. - -And so they did. - -At first Feather occasionally took her intimates to see the additional -apartments. - -“In perfect splendour is the creature put up, and I with a bedroom like -a coalhole and such drawing-rooms as you see each time you enter the -house!” she broke forth spitefully one day when she forgot herself. - -She said it to the Starling and Harrowby, who had been simply gazing -about them in fevered mystification, because the new development was a -thing which must invoke some more or less interesting explanation. At -her outbreak, all they could do was to gaze at her with impartial eyes, -which suggested question, and Feather shrugged pettish shoulders. - -“You knew _I_ didn’t do it. How could I?” she said. “It is a queer whim -of Coombe’s. Of course, it is not the least like him. I call it -morbid.” - -After which people knew about the matter and found it a subject for -edifying and quite stimulating discussion. There was something -fantastic in the situation. Coombe was the last man on earth to have -taken the slightest notice of the child’s existence! It was believed -that he had never seen her—except in long clothes—until she had glared -at him and put her hand behind her back the night she was brought into -the drawing-room. She had been adroitly kept tucked away in an attic -somewhere. And now behold an addition of several wonderful, small rooms -built, furnished and decorated for her alone, where she was to live as -in a miniature palace attended by servitors! Coombe, as a purveyor of -nursery appurtenances, was regarded with humour, the general opinion -being that the eruption of a volcano beneath his feet alone could have -awakened his somewhat chill self-absorption to the recognition of any -child’s existence. - -“To be exact we none of us really know anything in particular about his -mental processes.” Harrowby pondered aloud. “He’s capable of any number -of things we might not understand, if he condescended to tell us about -them—which he would never attempt. He has a remote, brilliantly stored, -cynical mind. He owns that he is of an inhuman selfishness. I haven’t a -suggestion to make, but it sets one searching through the purlieus of -one’s mind for an approximately reasonable explanation.” - -“Why ‘purlieus’?” was the Starling’s inquiry. Harrowby shrugged his -shoulders ever so lightly. - -“Well, one isn’t searching for reasons founded on copy-book axioms,” he -shook his head. “Coombe? No.” - -There was a silence given to occult thought. - -“Feather is really in a rage and is too Feathery to be able to conceal -it,” said Starling. - -“Feather would be—inevitably,” Harrowby lifted his near-sighted eyes to -her curiously. “Can you see Feather in the future—when Robin is ten -years older?” - -“I can,” the Starling answered. - -The years which followed were changing years—growing years. Life and -entertainment went on fast and furiously in all parts of London, and in -no part more rapidly than in the slice of a house whose front always -presented an air of having been freshly decorated, in spite of summer -rain and winter soot and fog. The plants in the window boxes seemed -always in bloom, being magically replaced in the early morning hours -when they dared to hint at flagging. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was said, -must be renewed in some such mysterious morning way, as she merely grew -prettier as she neared thirty and passed it. Women did in these days! -Which last phrase had always been a useful one, probably from the time -of the Flood. Old fogeys, male and female, had used it in the past as a -means of scathingly unfavourable comparison, growing flushed and almost -gobbling like turkey cocks in their indignation. Now, as a phrase, it -was a support and a mollifier. “In these days” one knew better how to -amuse oneself, was more free to snatch at agreeable opportunity, less -in bondage to old fancies which had called themselves beliefs; -everything whirled faster and more lightly—danced, two-stepped, instead -of marching. - -Robin vaguely connected certain changes in her existence with the -changes which took place in the fashion of sleeves and skirts which -appeared to produce radical effects in the world she caught glimpses -of. Sometimes sleeves were closely fitted to people’s arms, then puffs -sprang from them and grew until they were enormous and required -delicate manipulation when coats were put on; then their lavishness of -material fell from the shoulder to the wrists and hung there swaying -until some sudden development of skirt seemed to distract their -attention from themselves and they shrank into unimportance and skirts -changed instead. Afterwards, sometimes figures were slim and encased in -sheathlike draperies, sometimes folds rippled about feet, “fullness” -crept here or there or disappeared altogether, trains grew longer or -shorter or wider or narrower, cashmeres, grosgrain silks and heavy -satins were suddenly gone and chiffon wreathed itself about the world -and took possession of it. Bonnets ceased to exist and hats were -immense or tiny, tall or flat, tilted at the back, at the side, at the -front, worn over the face or dashingly rolled back from it; feathers -drooped or stood upright at heights which rose and fell and changed -position with the changing seasons. No garment or individual wore the -same aspect for more than a month’s time. It was necessary to change -all things with a rapidity matching the change of moods and fancies -which altered at the rate of the automobiles which dashed here and -there and everywhere, through country roads, through town, through -remote places with an unsparing swiftness which set a new pace for the -world. - -“I cannot hark back regretfully to stage coaches,” said Lord Coombe. -“Even I was not born early enough for that. But in the days of my youth -and innocence express trains seemed almost supernatural. One could -drive a pair of horses twenty miles to make a country visit, but one -could not drive back the same day. One’s circle had its limitations and -degrees of intimacy. Now it is possible motor fifty miles to lunch and -home to dine with guests from the remotest corners of the earth. Oceans -are crossed in six days, and the eager flit from continent to -continent. Engagements can be made by cable and the truly enterprising -can accept an invitation to dine in America on a fortnight’s notice. -Telephones communicate in a few seconds and no one is secure from -social intercourse for fifteen minutes. Acquaintances and -correspondence have no limitations because all the inhabitants of the -globe can reach one by motor or electricity. In moments of fatigue I -revert to the days of Queen Anne with pleasure.” - -While these changes went on, Robin lived in her own world in her own -quarters at the rear of the slice of a house. During the early years -spent with Dowson, she learned gradually that life was a better thing -than she had known in the dreary gloom of the third floor Day and Night -Nurseries. She was no longer left to spend hours alone, nor was she -taken below stairs to listen blankly to servants talking to each other -of mysterious things with which she herself and the Lady Downstairs and -“him” were somehow connected, her discovery of this fact being based on -the dropping of voices and sidelong glances at her and sudden warning -sounds from Andrews. She realized that Dowson would never pinch her, -and the rooms she lived in were pretty and bright. - -Gradually playthings and picture books appeared in them, which she -gathered Dowson presented her with. She gathered this from Dowson -herself. - -She had never played with the doll, and, by chance a day arriving when -Lord Coombe encountered Dowson in the street without her charge, he -stopped her again and spoke as before. - -“Is the little girl well and happy, Nurse?” he asked. - -“Quite well, my lord, and much happier than she used to be.” - -“Did she,” he hesitated slightly, “like the playthings you bought her?” - -Dowson hesitated more than slightly but, being a sensible woman and at -the same time curious about the matter, she spoke the truth. - -“She wouldn’t play with them at all, my lord. I couldn’t persuade her -to. What her child’s fancy was I don’t know.” - -“Neither do I—except that it is founded on a distinct dislike,” said -Coombe. There was a brief pause. “Are you fond of toys yourself, -Dowson?” he inquired coldly. - -“I am that—and I know how to choose them, your lordship,” replied -Dowson, with a large, shrewd intelligence. - -“Then oblige me by throwing away the doll and its accompaniments and -buying some toys for yourself, at my expense. You can present them to -Miss Robin as a personal gift. She will accept them from you.” - -He passed on his way and Dowson looked after him interestedly. - -“If she was his,” she thought, “I shouldn’t be puzzled. But she’s -not—that I’ve ever heard of. He’s got some fancy of his own the same as -Robin has, though you wouldn’t think it to look at him. I’d like to -know what it is.” - -It was a fancy—an old, old fancy—it harked back nearly thirty years—to -the dark days of youth and passion and unending tragedy whose anguish, -as it then seemed, could never pass—but which, nevertheless, had faded -with the years as they flowed by. And yet left him as he was and had -been. He was not sentimental about it, he smiled at himself -drearily—though never at the memory—when it rose again and, through its -vague power, led him to do strange things curiously verging on the -emotional and eccentric. But even the child—who quite loathed him for -some fantastic infant reason of her own—even the child had her part in -it. His soul oddly withdrew itself into a far remoteness as he walked -away and Piccadilly became a shadow and a dream. - -Dowson went home and began to pack neatly in a box the neglected doll -and the toys which had accompanied her. Robin seeing her doing it, -asked a question. - -“Are they going back to the shop?” - -“No. Lord Coombe is letting me give them to a little girl who is very -poor and has to lie in bed because her back hurts her. His lordship is -so kind he does not want you to be troubled with them. He is not angry. -He is too good to be angry.” - -That was not true, thought Robin. He had done _that thing_ she -remembered! Goodness could not have done it. Only badness. - -When Dowson brought in a new doll and other wonderful things, a little -hand enclosed her wrist quite tightly as she was unpacking the boxes. -It was Robin’s and the small creature looked at her with a questioning, -half appealing, half fierce. - -“Did he send them, Dowson?” - -“They are a present from me,” Dowson answered comfortably, and Robin -said again, - -“I want to kiss you. I like to kiss you. I do.” - -To those given to psychical interests and speculations, it might have -suggested itself that, on the night when the creature who had seemed to -Andrews a soft tissued puppet had suddenly burst forth into defiance -and fearless shrillness, some cerebral change had taken place in her. -From that hour her softness had become a thing of the past. Dowson had -not found a baby, but a brooding, little, passionate being. She was -neither insubordinate nor irritable, but Dowson was conscious of a -certain intensity of temperament in her. She knew that she was always -thinking of things of which she said almost nothing. Only a sensible -motherly curiosity, such as Dowson’s could have made discoveries, but a -rare question put by the child at long intervals sometimes threw a -faint light. There were questions chiefly concerning mothers and their -habits and customs. They were such as, in their very unconsciousness, -revealed a strange past history. Lights were most unconsciously thrown -by Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself. Her quite amiable detachment from all -shadow of responsibility, her brilliantly unending occupations, her -goings in and out, the flocks of light, almost noisy, intimates who -came in and out with her revealed much to a respectable person who had -soberly watched the world. - -“The Lady Downstairs is my mother, isn’t she?” Robin inquired gravely -once. - -“Yes, my dear,” was Dowson’s answer. - -A pause for consideration of the matter and then from Robin: - -“All mothers are not alike, Dowson, are they?” - -“No, my dear,” with wisdom. - -Though she was not yet seven, life had so changed for her that it was a -far cry back to the Spring days in the Square Gardens. She went back, -however, back into that remote ecstatic past. - -“The Lady Downstairs is not—alike,” she said at last, “Donal’s mother -loved him. She let him sit in the same chair with her and read in -picture books. She kissed him when he was in bed.” - -Jennings, the young footman who was a humourist, had, of course, heard -witty references to Robin’s love affair while in attendance, and he had -equally, of course, repeated them below stairs. Therefore, - -Dowson had heard vague rumours but had tactfully refrained from -mentioning the subject to her charge. - -“Who was Donal?” she said now, but quite quietly. Robin did not know -that a confidante would have made her first agony easier to bear. She -was not really being confidential now, but, realizing Dowson’s -comfortable kindliness, she knew that it would be safe to speak to her. - -“He was a big boy,” she answered keeping her eyes on Dowson’s face. “He -laughed and ran and jumped. His eyes—” she stopped there because she -could not explain what she had wanted to say about these joyous young -eyes, which were the first friendly human ones she had known. - -“He lives in Scotland,” she began again. “His mother loved him. He -kissed me. He went away. Lord Coombe sent him.” - -Dawson could not help her start. - -“Lord Coombe!” she exclaimed. - -Robin came close to her and ground her little fist into her knee, until -its plumpness felt almost bruised. - -“He is bad—bad—bad!” and she looked like a little demon. - -Being a wise woman, Dowson knew at once that she had come upon a hidden -child volcano, and it would be well to let it seethe into silence. She -was not a clever person, but long experience had taught her that there -were occasions when it was well to leave a child alone. This one would -not answer if she were questioned. She would only become stubborn and -furious, and no child should be goaded into fury. Dowson had, of -course, learned that the boy was a relative of his lordship’s and had a -strict Scottish mother who did not approve of the slice of a house. His -lordship might have been concerned in the matter—or he might not. But -at least Dowson had gained a side light. And how the little thing had -cared! Actually as if she had been a grown girl, Dowson found herself -thinking uneasily. - -She was rendered even a trifle more uneasy a few days later when she -came upon Robin sitting in a corner on a footstool with a picture book -on her knee, and she recognized it as the one she had discovered during -her first exploitation of the resources of the third floor nursery. It -was inscribed “Donal” and Robin was not looking at it alone, but at -something she held in her hand—something folded in a crumpled, untidy -bit of paper. - -Making a reason for nearing her corner, Dowson saw what the paper held. -The contents looked like the broken fragments of some dried leaves. The -child was gazing at them with a piteous, bewildered face—so piteous -that Dowson was sorry. - -“Do you want to keep those?” she asked. - -“Yes,” with a caught breath. “Yes.” - -“I will make you a little silk bag to hold them in,” Dowson said, -actually feeling rather piteous herself. The poor, little lamb with her -picture book and her bits of broken dry leaves—almost like senna. - -She sat down near her and Robin left her footstool and came to her. She -laid the picture book on her lap and the senna like fragments of leaves -on its open page. - -“Donal brought it to show me,” she quavered. “He made pretty things on -the leaves—with his dirk.” She recalled too much—too much all at once. -Her eyes grew rounder and larger with inescapable woe; “Donal did! -Donal!” And suddenly she hid her face deep in Dowson’s skirts and the -tempest broke. She was so small a thing—so inarticulate—and these were -her dead! Dowson could only catch her in her arms, drag her up on her -knee, and rock her to and fro. - -“Good Lord! Good Lord!” was her inward ejaculation. “And she not seven! -What’ll she do when she’s seventeen! She’s one of them there’s no help -for!” - -It was the beginning of an affection. After this, when Dowson tucked -Robin in bed each night, she kissed her. She told her stories and -taught her to sew and to know her letters. Using some discretion she -found certain little playmates for her in the Gardens. But there were -occasions when all did not go well, and some pretty, friendly child, -who had played with Robin for a few days, suddenly seemed to be kept -strictly by her nurse’s side. Once, when she was about ten years old, a -newcomer, a dramatic and too richly dressed little person, after a day -of wonderful imaginative playing appeared in the Gardens the morning -following to turn an ostentatious cold shoulder. - -“What is the matter?” asked Robin. - -“Oh, we can’t play with you any more,” with quite a flounce -superiority. - -“Why not?” said Robin, becoming haughty herself. - -“We can’t. It’s because of Lord Coombe.” The little person had really -no definite knowledge of how Lord Coombe was concerned, but certain -servants’ whisperings of names and mysterious phrases had conveyed -quite an enjoyable effect of unknown iniquity connected with his -lordship. - -Robin said nothing to Dowson, but walked up and down the paths -reflecting and building a slow fire which would continue to burn in her -young heart. She had by then passed the round, soft baby period and had -entered into that phase when bodies and legs grow long and slender and -small faces lose their first curves and begin to show sharper modeling. - -Accepting the situation in its entirety, Dowson had seen that it was -well to first reach Lord Coombe with any need of the child’s. -Afterwards, the form of presenting it to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless must be -gone through, but if she were first spoken to any suggestion might be -forgotten or intentionally ignored. - -Dowson became clever in her calculations as to when his lordship might -be encountered and where—as if by chance, and therefore, quite -respectfully. Sometimes she remotely wondered if he himself did not -make such encounters easy for her. But his manner never altered in its -somewhat stiff, expressionless chill of indifference. He never was -kindly in his manner to the child if he met her. Dowson felt him at -once casual and “lofty.” Robin might have been a bit of unconsidered -rubbish, the sight of which slightly bored him. Yet the singular fact -remained that it was to him one must carefully appeal. - -One afternoon Feather swept him, with one or two others, into the -sitting-room with the round window in which flowers grew. Robin was -sitting at a low table making pothooks with a lead pencil on a piece of -paper Dowson had given her. Dowson had, in fact, set her at the task, -having heard from Jennings that his lordship and the other afternoon -tea drinkers were to be brought into the “Palace” as Feather ironically -chose to call it. Jennings rather liked Dowson, and often told her -little things she wanted to know. It was because Lord Coombe would -probably come in with the rest that Dowson had set the low, white table -in the round windows and suggested the pothooks. - -In course of time there was a fluttering and a chatter in the corridor. -Feather was bringing some new guests, who had not seen the place -before. - -“This is where my daughter lives. She is much grander than I am,” she -said. - -“Stand up, Miss Robin, and make your curtsey,” whispered Dowson. Robin -did as she was told, and Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ pretty brows ran up. - -“Look at her legs,” she said. “She’s growing like Jack and the Bean -Stalk—though, I suppose, it was only the Bean Stalk that grew. She’ll -stick through the top of the house soon. Look at her legs, I ask you.” - -She always spoke as if the child were an inanimate object and she had, -by this time and by this means, managed to sweep from Robin’s mind all -the old, babyish worship of her loveliness and had planted in its place -another feeling. At this moment the other feeling surged and burned. - -“They are beautiful legs,” remarked a laughing young man jocularly, -“but perhaps she does not particularly want us to look at them. Wait -until she begins skirt dancing.” And everybody laughed at once and the -child stood rigid—the object of their light ridicule—not herself -knowing that her whole little being was cursing them aloud. - -Coombe stepped to the little table and bestowed a casual glance on the -pencil marks. - -“What is she doing?” he asked as casually of Dowson. - -“She is learning to make pothooks, my lord,” Dowson answered. “She’s a -child that wants to be learning things. I’ve taught her her letters and -to spell little words. She’s quick—and old enough, your lordship.” - -“Learning to read and write!” exclaimed Feather. - -“Presumption, I call it. I don’t know how to read and write—least I -don’t know how to spell. Do you know how to spell, Collie?” to the -young man, whose name was Colin. “Do you, Genevieve? Do you, Artie?” - -“You can’t betray me into vulgar boasting,” said Collie. “Who does in -these days? Nobody but clerks at Peter Robinson’s.” - -“Lord Coombe does—but that’s his tiresome superior way,” said Feather. - -“He’s nearly forty years older than most of you. That is the reason,” -Coombe commented. “Don’t deplore your youth and innocence.” - -They swept through the rooms and examined everything in them. The truth -was that the—by this time well known—fact that the unexplainable Coombe -had built them made them a curiosity, and a sort of secret source of -jokes. The party even mounted to the upper story to go through the -bedrooms, and, it was while they were doing this, that Coombe chose to -linger behind with Dowson. - -He remained entirely expressionless for a few moments. Dowson did not -in the least gather whether he meant to speak to her or not. But he -did. - -“You meant,” he scarcely glanced at her, “that she was old enough for a -governess.” - -“Yes, my lord,” rather breathless in her hurry to speak before she -heard the high heels tapping on the staircase again. “And one that’s a -good woman as well as clever, if I may take the liberty. A good one -if—” - -“If a good one would take the place?” - -Dowson did not attempt refutation or apology. She knew better. - -He said no more, but sauntered out of the room. - -As he did so, Robin stood up and made the little “charity bob” of a -curtsey which had been part of her nursery education. She was too old -now to have refused him her hand, but he never made any advances to -her. He acknowledged her curtsey with the briefest nod. - -Not three minutes later the high heels came tapping down the staircase -and the small gust of visitors swept away also. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -The interview which took place between Feather and Lord Coombe a few -days later had its own special character. - -“A governess will come here tomorrow at eleven o’clock,” he said. “She -is a Mademoiselle Vallé. She is accustomed to the educating of young -children. She will present herself for your approval. Benby has done -all the rest.” - -Feather flushed to her fine-spun ash-gold hair. - -“What on earth can it matter!” she cried. - -“It does not matter to you,” he answered; “it chances—for the time -being—to matter to _me_.” - -“Chances!” she flamed forth—it was really a queer little flame of -feeling. “That’s it. You don’t really care! It’s a caprice—just because -you see she is going to be pretty.” - -“I’ll own,” he admitted, “that has a great deal to do with it.” - -“It has everything to do with it,” she threw out. “If she had a snub -nose and thick legs you wouldn’t care for her at all.” - -“I don’t say that I do care for her,” without emotion. “The situation -interests me. Here is an extraordinary little being thrown into the -world. She belongs to nobody. She will have to fight for her own hand. -And she will have to _fight_, by God! With that dewy lure in her eyes -and her curved pomegranate mouth! She will not know, but she will draw -disaster!” - -“Then she had better not be taught anything at all,” said Feather. “It -would be an amusing thing to let her grow up without learning to read -or write at all. I know numbers of men who would like the novelty of -it. Girls who know so much are a bore.” - -“There are a few minor chances she ought to have,” said Coombe. “A -governess is one. Mademoiselle Vallé will be here at eleven.” - -“I can’t see that she promises to be such a beauty,” fretted Feather. -“She’s the kind of good looking child who might grow up into a fat girl -with staring black eyes like a barmaid.” - -“Occasionally pretty women do abhor their growing up daughters,” -commented Coombe letting his eyes rest on her interestedly. - -“I don’t abhor her,” with pathos touched with venom. “But a big, -lumping girl hanging about ogling and wanting to be ogled when she is -passing through that silly age! And sometimes you speak to me as a man -speaks to his wife when he is tired of her.” - -“I beg your pardon,” Coombe said. “You make me feel like a person who -lives over a shop at Knightsbridge, or in bijou mansion off Regent’s -Park.” - -But he was deeply aware that, as an outcome of the anomalous position -he occupied, he not infrequently felt exactly this. - -That a governess chosen by Coombe—though he would seem not to appear in -the matter—would preside over the new rooms, Feather knew without a -shadow of doubt. - -A certain almost silent and always high-bred dominance over her -existence she accepted as the inevitable, even while she fretted -helplessly. Without him, she would be tossed, a broken butterfly, into -the gutter. She knew her London. No one would pick her up unless to -break her into smaller atoms and toss her away again. The freedom he -allowed her after all was wonderful. It was because he disdained -interference. - -But there was a line not to be crossed—there must not even be an -attempt at crossing it. Why he cared about that she did not know. - -“You must be like Cæsar’s wife,” he said rather grimly, after an -interview in which he had given her a certain unsparing warning. - -“And I am nobody’s wife. What did Cæsar’s wife do?” she asked. - -“Nothing.” And he told her the story and, when she had heard him tell -it, she understood certain things clearly. - -Mademoiselle Vallé was an intelligent, mature Frenchwoman. She -presented herself to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless for inspection and, in ten -minutes, realized that the power to inspect and sum up existed only on -her own side. This pretty woman neither knew what inquiries to make nor -cared for such replies as were given. Being swift to reason and -practical in deduction, Mademoiselle Vallé did not make the blunder of -deciding that this light presence argued that she would be under no -supervision more serious. The excellent Benby, one was made aware, -acted and the excellent Benby, one was made aware, acted under clearly -defined orders. Milord Coombe—among other things the best dressed and -perhaps the least comprehended man in London—was concerned in this, -though on what grounds practical persons could not explain to -themselves. His connection with the narrow house on the right side of -the right street was entirely comprehensible. The lenient felt nothing -blatant or objectionable about it. Mademoiselle Vallé herself was not -disturbed by mere rumour. The education, manner and morals of the -little girl she could account for. These alone were to be her affair, -and she was competent to undertake their superintendence. - -Therefore, she sat and listened with respectful intelligence to the -birdlike chatter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. (What a pretty woman! The -silhouette of a _jeune fille!_) - -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless felt that, on her part, she had done all that was -required of her. - -“I’m afraid she’s rather a dull child, Mademoiselle,” she said in -farewell. “You know children’s ways and you’ll understand what I mean. -She has a trick of staring and saying nothing. I confess I wish she -wasn’t dull.” - -“It is impossible, madame, that she should be dull,” said Mademoiselle, -with an agreeably implicating smile. “Oh, but quite impossible! We -shall see.” - -Not many days had passed before she had seen much. At the outset, she -recognized the effect of the little girl with the slender legs and feet -and the dozen or so of points which go to make a beauty. The intense -eyes first and the deeps of them. They gave one furiously to think -before making up one’s mind. Then she noted the perfection of the rooms -added to the smartly inconvenient little house. Where had the child -lived before the addition had been built? Thought and actual -architectural genius only could have done this. Light and even as much -sunshine as London will vouchsafe, had been arranged for. Comfort, -convenience, luxury, had been provided. Perfect colour and excellent -texture had evoked actual charm. Its utter unlikeness to the quarters -London usually gives to children, even of the fortunate class, struck -Mademoiselle Vallé at once. Madame Gareth-Lawless had not done this. -Who then, had? - -The good Dowson she at once affiliated with. She knew the excellence of -her type as it had revealed itself to her in the best peasant class. -Trustworthy, simple, but of kindly, shrewd good sense and with the -power to observe. Dowson was not a chatterer or given to gossip, but, -as a silent observer, she would know many things and, in time, when -they had become friendly enough to be fully aware that each might trust -the other, gentle and careful talk would end in unconscious revelation -being made by Dowson. - -That the little girl was almost singularly attached to her nurse, she -had marked early. There was something unusual in her manifestations of -her feeling. The intense eyes followed the woman often, as if making -sure of her presence and reality. The first day of Mademoiselle’s -residence in the place she saw the little thing suddenly stop playing -with her doll and look at Dowson earnestly for several moments. Then -she left her seat and went to the kind creature’s side. - -“I want to _kiss_ you, Dowie,” she said. - -“To be sure, my lamb,” answered Dowson, and, laying down her mending, -she gave her a motherly hug. After which Robin went back contentedly to -her play. - -The Frenchwoman thought it a pretty bit of childish affectionateness. -But it happened more than once during the day, and at night -Mademoiselle commented upon it. - -“She has an affectionate heart, the little one,” she remarked. “Madame, -her mother, is so pretty and full of gaieties and pleasures that I -should not have imagined she had much time for caresses and the -nursery.” - -Even by this time Dowson had realized that with Mademoiselle she was -upon safe ground and was in no danger of betraying herself to a gossip. -She quietly laid down her sewing and looked at her companion with grave -eyes. - -“Her mother has never kissed her in her life that I am aware of,” she -said. - -“Has never—!” Mademoiselle ejaculated. “Never!” - -“Just as you see her, she is, Mademoiselle,” Dowson said. “Any sensible -woman would know, when she heard her talk about her child. I found it -all out bit by bit when first I came here. I’m going to talk plain and -have done with it. Her first six years she spent in a sort of dog -kennel on the top floor of this house. No sun, no real fresh air. Two -little holes that were dingy and gloomy to dull a child’s senses. Not a -toy or a bit of colour or a picture, but clothes fine enough for -Buckingham Palace children—and enough for six. Fed and washed and taken -out every day to be shown off. And a bad nurse, Miss—a bad one that -kept her quiet by pinching her black and blue.” - -“_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_ That little angel!” cried Mademoiselle, covering -her eyes. - -Dowson hastily wiped her own eyes. She had shed many a motherly tear -over the child. It was a relief to her to open her heart to a -sympathizer. - -“Black and blue!” she repeated. “And laughing and dancing and all sorts -of fast fun going on in the drawing-rooms.” She put out her hand and -touched Mademoiselle’s arm quite fiercely. “The little thing didn’t -know she _had_ a mother! She didn’t know what the word meant. I found -that out by her innocent talk. She used to call _her_ ‘The Lady -Downstairs’.” - -“_Mon Dieu!_” cried the Frenchwoman again. “What a woman!” - -“She first heard of mothers from a little boy she met in the Square -Gardens. He was the first child she had been allowed to play with. He -was a nice child and he had a good mother. I only got it bit by bit -when she didn’t know how much she was telling me. He told her about -mothers and he kissed her—for the first time in her life. She didn’t -understand but it warmed her little heart. She’s never forgotten.” - -Mademoiselle even started slightly in her chair. Being a clever -Frenchwoman she felt drama and all its subtle accompaniments. - -“Is that why——” she began. - -“It is,” answered Dowson, stoutly. “A kiss isn’t an ordinary thing to -her. It means something wonderful. She’s got into the way of loving me, -bless her, and every now and then, it’s my opinion, she suddenly -remembers her lonely days when she didn’t know what love was. And it -just wells up in her little heart and she wants to kiss me. She always -says it that way, ‘Dowie, I want to _kiss_ you,’ as if it was something -strange and, so to say, _sacred_. She doesn’t know it means almost -nothing to most people. That’s why I always lay down my work and hug -her close.” - -“You have a good heart—a _good_ one!” said Mademoiselle with strong -feeling. - -Then she put a question: - -“Who was the little boy?” - -“He was a relation of—his lordship’s.” - -“His lordship’s?” cautiously. - -“The Marquis. Lord Coombe.” - -There was a few minutes’ silence. Both women were thinking of a number -of things and each was asking herself how much it would be wise to say. - -It was Dowson who made her decision first, and this time, as before, -she laid down her work. What she had to convey was the thing which, -above all others, the Frenchwoman must understand if she was to be able -to use her power to its best effect. - -“A woman in my place hears enough talk,” was her beginning. “Servants -are given to it. The Servants’ Hall is their theatre. It doesn’t matter -whether tales are true or not, so that they’re spicy. But it’s been my -way to credit just as much as I see and know and to say little about -that. If a woman takes a place in a house, let her go or stay as suits -her best, but don’t let her stay and either complain or gossip. My -business here is Miss Robin, and I’ve found out for myself that there’s -just one person that, in a queer, unfeeling way of his own, has a fancy -for looking after her. I say ‘unfeeling’ because he never shows any -human signs of caring for the child himself. But if there’s a thing -that ought to be done for her and a body can contrive to let him know -it’s needed, it’ll be done. Downstairs’ talk that I’ve seemed to pay no -attention to has let out that it was him that walked quietly upstairs -to the Nursery, where he’d never set foot before, and opened the door -on Andrews pinching the child. She packed her box and left that night. -He inspected the nurseries and, in a few days, an architect was -planning these rooms,—for Miss Robin and for no one else, though there -was others wanted them. It was him that told me to order her books and -playthings—and not let her know it because she hates him. It was him I -told she needed a governess. And he found you.” - -Mademoiselle Vallé had listened with profound attention. Here she -spoke. - -“You say continually ‘he’ or ‘him’. He is—?” - -“Lord Coombe. I’m not saying I’ve seen much of him. Considering—” -Dowson paused—“it’s queer how seldom he comes here. He goes abroad a -good deal. He’s mixed up with the highest and it’s said he’s in favour -because he’s satirical and clever. He’s one that’s gossiped about and -he cares nothing for what’s said. What business of mine is it whether -or not he has all sorts of dens on the Continent where he goes to -racket. He might be a bishop for all I see. And he’s the only creature -in this world of the Almighty’s that remembers that child’s a human -being. Just him—Lord Coombe. There, Mademoiselle,—I’ve said a good -deal.” - -More and more interestedly had the Frenchwoman listened and with an -increasing hint of curiosity in her intelligent eyes. She pressed -Dowson’s needle-roughened fingers warmly. - -“You have not said too much. It is well that I should know this of this -gentleman. As you say, he is a man who is much discussed. I myself have -heard much of him—but of things connected with another part of his -character. It is true that he is in favour with great personages. It is -because they are aware that he has observed much for many years. He is -light and ironic, but he tells truths which sometimes startle those who -hear them.” - -“Jennings tells below stairs that he says things it’s queer for a lord -to say. Jennings is a sharp young snip and likes to pick up things to -repeat. He believes that his lordship’s idea is that there’s a time -coming when the high ones will lose their places and thrones and kings -will be done away with. I wouldn’t like to go that far myself,” said -Dowson, gravely, “but I must say that there’s not that serious respect -paid to Royalty that there was in my young days. My word! When Queen -Victoria was in her prime, with all her young family around her,—their -little Royal Highnesses that were princes in their Highland kilts and -the princesses in their crinolines and hats with drooping ostrich -feathers and broad satin streamers—the people just went wild when she -went to a place to unveil anything!” - -“When the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial appeared, it was the -same thing,” said Mademoiselle, a trifle sadly. “One recalls it now as -a dream passed away—the Champs Élysées in the afternoon sunlight—the -imperial carriage and the glittering escort trotting gaily—the -beautiful woman with the always beautiful costumes—her charming -smile—the Emperor, with his waxed moustache and saturnine face! It -meant so much and it went so quickly. One moment,” she made a little -gesture, “and it is gone—forever! An Empire and all the splendour of -it! Two centuries ago it could not have disappeared so quickly. But now -the world is older. It does not need toys so much. A Republic is the -people—and there are more people than kings.” - -“It’s things like that his lordship says, according to Jennings,” said -Dowson. “Jennings is never quite sure he’s in earnest. He has a -satirical way—And the company always laugh.” - -Mademoiselle had spoken thoughtfully and as if half to her inner self -instead of to Dowson. She added something even more thoughtfully now. - -“The same kind of people laughed before the French Revolution,” she -murmured. - -“I’m not scholar enough to know much about that—that was a long time -ago, wasn’t it?” Dowson remarked. - -“A long time ago,” said Mademoiselle. - -Dowson’s reply was quite free from tragic reminiscence. - -“Well, I must say, I like a respectable Royal Family myself,” she -observed. “There’s something solid and comfortable about it—besides the -coronations and weddings and procession with all the pictures in the -_Illustrated London News_. Give me a nice, well-behaved Royal Family.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -“A nice, well-behaved Royal Family.” There had been several of them in -Europe for some time. An appreciable number of them had prided -themselves, even a shade ostentatiously, upon their domesticity. The -moral views of a few had been believed to border upon the high -principles inscribed in copy books. Some, however, had not. A more -important power or so had veered from the exact following of these -commendable axioms—had high-handedly behaved according to their royal -will and tastes. But what would you? With a nation making proper -obeisance before one from infancy; with trumpets blaring forth joyous -strains upon one’s mere appearance on any scene; with the proudest -necks bowed and the most superb curtseys swept on one’s mere passing -by, with all the splendour of the Opera on gala night rising to its -feet to salute one’s mere entry into the royal or imperial box, while -the national anthem bursts forth with adulatory and triumphant strains, -only a keen and subtle sense of humour, surely, could curb errors of -judgment arising from naturally mistaken views of one’s own importance -and value to the entire Universe. Still there remained the fact that a -number of them _were_ well-behaved and could not be complained of as -bearing any likeness to the bloodthirsty tyrants and oppressors of past -centuries. - -The Head of the House of Coombe had attended the Court Functions and -been received at the palaces and castles of most of them. For in that -aspect of his character of which Mademoiselle Vallé had heard more than -Dowson, he was intimate with well-known and much-observed personages -and places. A man born among those whose daily life builds, as it -passes, at least a part of that which makes history and so records -itself, must needs find companions, acquaintances, enemies, friends of -varied character, and if he be, by chance, a keen observer of passing -panoramas, can lack no material for private reflection and the -accumulation of important facts. - -That part of his existence which connected itself with the slice of a -house on the right side of the Mayfair street was but a small one. A -feature of the untranslatableness of his character was that he was seen -there but seldom. His early habit of crossing the Channel frequently -had gradually reestablished itself as years passed. Among his -acquaintances his “Saturday to Monday visits” to continental cities -remote or unremote were discussed with humour. Possibly, upon these -discussions, were finally founded the rumours of which Dowson had heard -but which she had impartially declined to “credit”. Lively conjecture -inevitably figured largely in their arguments and, when persons of -unrestrained wit devote their attention to airy persiflage, much may be -included in their points of view. - -Of these conjectural discussions no one was more clearly aware than -Coombe himself, and the finished facility—even felicity—of his evasion -of any attempt at delicately valued cross examination was felt to be -inhumanly exasperating. - -In one of the older Squares which still remained stately, through the -splendour of modern fashion had waned in its neighbourhood, there was -among the gloomy, though imposing, houses one in particular upon whose -broad doorsteps—years before the Gareth-Lawlesses had appeared in -London—Lord Coombe stood oftener than upon any other. At times his -brougham waited before it for hours, and, at others, he appeared on -foot and lifted the heavy knocker with a special accustomed knock -recognized at once by any footman in waiting in the hall, who, hearing -it, knew that his mistress—the old Dowager Duchess of Darte—would -receive this visitor, if no other. - -The interior of the house was of the type which, having from the first -been massive and richly sombre, had mellowed into a darker sombreness -and richness as it had stood unmoved amid London years and fogs. The -grandeur of decoration and furnishing had been too solid to depreciate -through decay, and its owner had been of no fickle mind led to waver in -taste by whims of fashion. The rooms were huge and lofty, the halls and -stairways spacious, the fireplaces furnished with immense grates of -glittering steel, which held in winter beds of scarlet glowing coal, -kept scarlet glowing by a special footman whose being, so to speak, -depended on his fidelity to his task. - -There were many rooms whose doors were kept closed because they were -apparently never used; there were others as little used but thrown -open, warmed and brightened with flowers each day, because the Duchess -chose to catch glimpses of their cheerfulness as she passed them on her -way up or downstairs. The house was her own property, and, after her -widowhood, when it was emptied of her children by their admirable -marriages, and she herself became Dowager and, later, a confirmed -rheumatic invalid, it became doubly her home and was governed by her -slightest whim. She was not indeed an old woman of caprices, but her -tastes, not being those of the later day in which she now lived, were -regarded as a shade eccentric being firmly defined. - -“I will not have my house glaring with electricity as if it were a -shop. In my own rooms I will be lighted by wax candles. Large ones—as -many as you please,” she said. “I will not be ‘rung up’ by telephone. -My servants may if they like. It is not my affair to deprive them of -the modern inconveniences, if they find them convenient. My senility -does not take the form of insisting that the world shall cease to -revolve upon its axis. It formed that habit without my assistance, and -it is to be feared that it would continue it in the face of my -protests.” - -It was, in fact, solely that portion of the world affecting herself -alone which she preferred to retain as it had been in the brilliant -early years of her life. She had been a great beauty and also a wit in -the Court over which Queen Victoria had reigned. She had possessed the -delicate high nose, the soft full eyes, the “polished forehead,” the -sloping white shoulders from which scarves floated or India shawls -gracefully drooped in the Books of Beauty of the day. Her carriage had -been noble, her bloom perfect, and, when she had driven through the -streets “in attendance” on her Royal Mistress, the populace had always -chosen her as “the pick of ’em all”. Young as she had then been, -elderly statesmen had found her worth talking to, not as a mere beauty -in her teens, but as a creature of singular brilliance and clarity of -outlook upon a world which might have dazzled her youth. The most -renowned among them had said of her, before she was twenty, that she -would live to be one of the cleverest women in Europe, and that she had -already the logical outlook of a just man of fifty. - -She married early and was widowed in middle life. In her later years -rheumatic fever so far disabled her as to confine her to her chair -almost entirely. Her sons and daughter had homes and families of their -own to engage them. She would not allow them to sacrifice themselves to -her because her life had altered its aspect. - -“I have money, friends, good servants and a house I particularly like,” -she summed the matter up; “I may be condemned to sit by the fire, but I -am not condemned to be a bore to my inoffensive family. I can still -talk and read, and I shall train myself to become a professional -listener. This will attract. I shall not only read myself, but I will -be read to. A strong young man with a nice voice shall bring magazines -and books to me every day, and shall read the best things aloud. -Delightful people will drop in to see me and will be amazed by my fund -of information.” - -It was during the first years of her enforced seclusion that Coombe’s -intimacy with her began. He had known her during certain black days of -his youth, and she had comprehended things he did not tell her. She had -not spoken of them to him but she had silently given him of something -which vaguely drew him to her side when darkness seemed to overwhelm -him. The occupations of her life left her in those earlier days little -leisure for close intimacies, but, when she began to sit by her fire -letting the busy world pass by, he gradually became one of those who -“dropped in”. - -In one of the huge rooms she had chosen for her own daily use, by the -well-tended fire in its shining grate, she had created an agreeable -corner where she sat in a chair marvellous for ease and comfort, -enclosed from draughts by a fire screen of antique Chinese lacquer, a -table by her side and all she required within her reach. Upon the table -stood a silver bell and, at its sound, her companion, her reader, her -maid or her personally trained footman, came and went quietly and -promptly as if summoned by magic. Her life itself was simple, but a -certain almost royal dignity surrounded her loneliness. Her companion, -Miss Brent, an intelligent, mature woman who had known a hard and -pinched life, found at once comfort and savour in it. - -“It is not I who am expensive,”—this in one of her talks with Coombe, -“but to live in a house of this size, well kept by excellent servants -who are satisfied with their lot, is not a frugal thing. A cap of tea -for those of my friends who run in to warm themselves by my fire in the -afternoon; a dinner or so when I am well enough to sit at the head of -my table, represent almost all I now do for the world. Naturally, I -must see that my tea is good and that my dinners cannot be objected to. -Nevertheless, I sit here in my chair and save money—for what?” - -Among those who “warmed themselves by her fire” this man had singularly -become her friend and intimate. When they had time to explore each -other’s minds, they came upon curious discoveries of hidden sympathies -and mutual comprehensions which were rich treasures. They talked of -absorbing things with frankness. He came to sit with her when others -were not admitted because she was in pain or fatigued. He added to -neither her fatigue nor her pain, but rather helped her to forget them. - -“For what?” he answered on this day. “Why not for your grandchildren?” - -“They will have too much money. There are only four of them. They will -make great marriages as their parents did,” she said. She paused a -second before she added, “Unless our World Revolution has broken into -flame by that time—And there are no longer any great marriages to -make.” - -For among the many things they dwelt on in their talks along, was the -Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, over which he had watched for -many years certain hands hover in tentative experimenting as to the -possibilities of the removal of the pieces from one square to another. -She, too, from her youth had watched the game with an interest which -had not waned in her maturity, and which, in her days of sitting by the -fire, had increased with every move the hovering hands made. She had -been familiar with political parties and their leaders, she had met -heroes and statesmen; she had seen an unimportant prince become an -emperor, who, from his green and boastful youth, aspired to rule the -world and whose theatrical obsession had been the sly jest of unwary -nations, too carelessly sure of the advance of civilization and too -indifferently self-indulgent to realize that a monomaniac, even if -treated as a source of humour, is a perilous thing to leave unwatched. -She had known France in all the glitter of its showy Empire, and had -seen its imperial glories dispersed as mist. Russia she had watched -with curiosity and dread. On the day when the ruler, who had bestowed -freedom on millions of his people, met his reward in the shattering -bomb which tore him to fragments, she had been in St. Petersburg. A -king, who had been assassinated, she had known well and had well liked; -an empress, whom a frenzied madman had stabbed to the heart, had been -her friend. - -Her years had been richly full of varied events, giving a strong and -far-seeing mind reason for much unspoken thought of the kind which -leaps in advance of its day’s experience and exact knowledge. She had -learned when to speak and when to be silent, and she oftener chose -silence. But she had never ceased gazing on the world with keen eyes, -and reflecting upon its virtues and vagaries, its depths and its -shallows, with the help of a clear and temperate brain. - -By her fire she sat, an attracting presence, though only fine, strong -lines remained of beauty ravaged by illness and years. The “polished -forehead” was furrowed by the chisel of suffering; the delicate high -nose springing from her waxen, sunken face seemed somewhat eaglelike, -but the face was still brilliant in its intensity of meaning and the -carriage of her head was still noble. Not able to walk except with the -assistance of a cane, her once exquisite hands stiffened almost to -uselessness, she held her court from her throne of mere power and -strong charm. On the afternoons when people “ran in to warm themselves” -by her fire, the talk was never dull and was often wonderful. There -were those who came quietly into the room fresh from important scenes -where subjects of weight to nations were being argued closely—perhaps -almost fiercely. Sometimes the argument was continued over cups of -perfect tea near the chair of the Duchess, and, howsoever far it led, -she was able brilliantly to follow. With the aid of books and pamphlets -and magazines, and the strong young man with the nice voice, who was -her reader, she kept pace with each step of the march of the world. - -It was, however, the modern note in her recollections of her world’s -march in days long past, in which Coombe found mental food and fine -flavour. The phrase, “in these days” expressed in her utterance neither -disparagement nor regret. She who sat in state in a drawing-room -lighted by wax candles did so as an affair of personal preference, and -denied no claim of higher brilliance to electric illumination. Driving -slowly through Hyde Park on sunny days when she was able to go out, her -high-swung barouche hinted at no lofty disdain of petrol and motor -power. At the close of her youth’s century, she looked forward with -thrilled curiosity to the dawning wonders of the next. - -“If the past had not held so much, one might not have learned to expect -more,” was her summing up on a certain afternoon, when he came to -report himself after one of his absences from England. “The most -important discovery of the last fifty years has been the revelation -that no man may any longer assume to speak the last word on any -subject. The next man—almost any next man—may evolve more. Before that -period all elderly persons were final in their dictum. They said to -each other—and particularly to the young—‘It has not been done in my -time—it was not done in my grandfather’s time. It has never been done. -It never can be done’.” - -“The note of today is ‘Since it has never been done, it will surely be -done soon’,” said Coombe. - -“Ah! we who began life in the most assured and respectable of reigns -and centuries,” she answered him, “have seen much. But these others -will see more. Crinolines, mushroom hats and large families seemed to -promise a decorum peaceful to dullness; but there have been battles, -murders and sudden deaths; there have been almost supernatural -inventions and discoveries—there have been marvels of new doubts and -faiths. When one sits and counts upon one’s fingers the amazements the -19th century has provided, one gasps and gazes with wide eyes into the -future. I, for one, feel rather as though I had seen a calm milch cow -sauntering—at first slowly—along a path, gradually evolve into a -tiger—a genie with a hundred heads containing all the marvels of the -world—a flying dragon with a thousand eyes! Oh, we have gone fast and -far!” - -“And we shall go faster and farther,” Coombe added. - -“That is it,” she answered. “Are we going too fast?” - -“At least so fast that we forget things it would be well for us to -remember.” He had come in that day with a certain preoccupied grimness -of expression which was not unknown to her. It was generally after one -of his absences that he looked a shade grim. - -“Such as—?” she inquired. - -“Such as catastrophes in the history of the world, which forethought -and wisdom might have prevented. The French Revolution is the obvious -type of figure which lies close at hand so one picks it up. The French -Revolution—its Reign of Terror—the orgies of carnage—the cataclysms of -agony—need not have been, but they _were_. To put it in words of one -syllable.” - -“What!” was her involuntary exclamation. “You are seeking such similes -as the French Revolution!” - -“Who knows how far a madness may reach and what Reign of Terror may -take form?” He sat down and drew an atlas towards him. It always lay -upon the table on which all the Duchess desired was within reach. It -was fat, convenient of form, and agreeable to look at in its cover of -dull, green leather. Coombe’s gesture of drawing it towards him was a -familiar one. It was frequently used as reference. - -“The atlas again?” she said. - -“Yes. Just now I can think of little else. I have realized too much.” - -The continental journey had lasted a month. He had visited more -countries than one in his pursuit of a study he was making of the way -in which the wind was blowing particular straws. For long he had found -much to give thought to in the trend of movement in one special portion -of the Chessboard. It was that portion of it dominated by the ruler of -whose obsession too careless nations made sly jest. This man he had -known from his arrogant and unendearing youth. He had looked on with -unbiassed curiosity at his development into arrogance so much greater -than its proportions touched the grotesque. The rest of the world had -looked on also, but apparently, merely in the casual way which -good-naturedly smiles and leaves to every man—even an emperor—the -privilege of his own eccentricities. Coombe had looked on with a -difference, so also had his friend by her fireside. This man’s square -of the Chessboard had long been the subject of their private talks and -a cause for the drawing towards them of the green atlas. The moves he -made, the methods of his ruling, the significance of these methods were -the evidence they collected in their frequent arguments. Coombe had -early begun to see the whole thing as a process—a life-long labour -which was a means to a monstrous end. - -There was a certain thing he believed of which they often spoke as -“It”. He spoke of it now. - -“Through three weeks I have been marking how It grows,” he said; “a -whole nation with the entire power of its commerce, its education, its -science, its religion, guided towards one aim is a curious study. The -very babes are born and bred and taught only that one thought may -become an integral part of their being. The most innocent and blue eyed -of them knows, without a shadow of doubt, that the world has but one -reason for existence—that it may be conquered and ravaged by the -country that gave them birth.” - -“I have both heard and seen it,” she said. “One has smiled in spite of -oneself, in listening to their simple, everyday talk.” - -“In little schools—in large ones—in little churches, and in imposing -ones, their Faith is taught and preached,” Coombe answered. “Sometimes -one cannot believe one’s hearing. It is all so ingenuously and frankly -unashamed—the mouthing, boasting, and threats of their piety. There -exists for them no God who is not the modest henchman of their emperor, -and whose attention is not rivetted on their prowess with admiration -and awe. Apparently, they are His business, and He is well paid by -being allowed to retain their confidence.” - -“A lack of any sense of humour is a disastrous thing,” commented the -Duchess. “The people of other nations may be fools—doubtless we all -are—but there is no other which proclaims the fact abroad with such -guileless outbursts of raucous exultation.” - -“And even we—you and I who have thought more than others” he said, -restlessly, “even we forget and half smile. There has been too much -smiling.” - -She picked up an illustrated paper and opened it at a page filled by an -ornate picture. - -“See!” she said. “It is because he himself has made it so easy, with -his amazing portraits of his big boots, and swords, and eruption of -dangling orders. How can one help but smile when one finds him glaring -at one from a newspaper in his superwarlike attitude, defying the -Universe, with his comic moustachios and their ferocious waxed and -bristling ends. No! One can scarcely believe that a man can be stupid -enough not to realize that he looks as if he had deliberately made -himself up to represent a sort of terrific military bogey intimating -that, at he may pounce and say ‘Boo?” - -“There lies the peril. His pretensions seem too grotesque to be treated -seriously. And, while he should be watched as a madman is watched, he -is given a lifetime to we attack on a world that has ceased to believe -in the sole thing which is real to himself.” - -“You are fresh from observation.” There was new alertness in her eyes, -though she had listened before. - -“I tell you it _grows!_” he gave back and lightly struck the table in -emphasis. “Do you remember Carlyle—?” - -“The French Revolution again?” - -“Yes. Do you recall this? ‘Do not fires, fevers, seeds, chemical -mixtures, _go on growing_. Observe, too, that _each grows_ with a -rapidity proportioned to the madness and unhealthiness there is in it.’ -A ruler who, in an unaggressive age such as this, can concentrate his -life and his people’s on the one ambition of plunging the world in an -ocean of blood, in which his own monomania can bathe in triumph—Good -God! there is madness and unhealthiness to flourish in!” - -“The world!” she said. “Yes—it will be the world.” - -“See,” he said, with a curve of the finger which included most of the -Map of Europe. “Here are countries engaged—like the Bandarlog—in their -own affairs. Quarrelling, snatching things from each other, blustering -or amusing themselves with transitory pomps and displays of power. Here -is a huge empire whose immense, half-savage population has seethed for -centuries in its hidden, boiling cauldron of rebellion. Oh! it has -seethed! And only cruelties have repressed it. Now and then it has -boiled over in assassination in high places, and one has wondered how -long its autocratic splendour could hold its own. Here are small, -fierce, helpless nations overrun and outraged into a chronic state of -secret ever-ready hatred. Here are innocent, small countries, -defenceless through their position and size. Here is France rich, -careless, super-modern and cynic. Here is England comfortable to -stolidity, prosperous and secure to dullness in her own half belief in -a world civilization, which no longer argues in terms of blood and -steel. And here—in a well-entrenched position in the midst of it -all—within but a few hundreds of miles of weakness, complicity, -disastrous unreadiness and panic-stricken uncertainty of purpose, sits -this Man of One Dream—who believes God Himself his vassal. Here he -sits.” - -“Yes his One Dream. He has had no other.” The Duchess was poring over -the map also. They were as people pondering over a strange and terrible -game. - -“It is his monomania. It possessed him when he was a boy. What Napoleon -hoped to accomplish he has BELIEVED he could attain by concentrating -all the power of people upon preparation for it—and by not flinching -from pouring forth their blood as if it were the refuse water of his -gutters.” - -“Yes—the blood—the blood!” the Duchess shuddered. “He would pour it -forth without a qualm.” - -Coombe touched the map first at one point and then at another. - -“See!” he said again, and this time savagely. “This empire flattered -and entangled by cunning, this country irritated, this deceived, this -drawn into argument, this and this and this treated with professed -friendship, these tricked and juggled with—And then, when his plans are -ripe and he is made drunk with belief in himself—just one sodden insult -or monstrous breach of faith, which all humanity must leap to -resent—And there is our World Revolution.” - -The Duchess sat upright in her chair. - -“Why did you let your youth pass?” she said. “If you had begun early -enough, you could hare made the country listen to you. Why did you do -it?” - -“For the same reason that all selfish grief and pleasure and -indifference let the world go by. And I am not sure they would have -listened. I speak freely enough now in some quarters. They listen, but -they do nothing. There is a warning in the fact that, as he has seen -his youth leave him without giving him his opportunity, he has been a -disappointed man inflamed and made desperate. At the outset, he felt -that he must provide the world with some fiction of excuse. As his -obsession and arrogance have swollen, he sees himself and his ambition -as reason enough. No excuse is needed. Deutschland uber alles—is -sufficient.” - -He pushed the map away and his fire died down. He spoke almost in his -usual manner. - -“The conquest of the world,” he said. “He is a great fool. What would -he _do_ with his continents if he got them?” - -“What, indeed,” pondered her grace. “Continents—even kingdoms are not -like kittens in a basket, or puppies to be trained to come to heel.” - -“It is part of his monomania that he can persuade himself that they are -little more.” Coombe’s eye-glasses had been slowly swaying from the -ribbon in his fingers. He let them continue to sway a moment and then -closed them with a snap. - -“He is a great fool,” he said. “But we,—oh, my friend—and by ‘we’ I -mean the rest of the Map of Europe—we are much greater fools. A mad dog -loose among us and we sit—and smile.” - -And this was in the days before the house with the cream-coloured front -had put forth its first geraniums and lobelias in Feather’s window -boxes. Robin was not born. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -In the added suite of rooms at the back of the house, Robin grew -through the years in which It was growing also. On the occasion when -her mother saw her, she realized that she was not at least going to -look like a barmaid. At no period of her least refulgent moment did she -verge upon this type. Dowie took care of her and Mademoiselle Vallé -educated her with the assistance of certain masters who came to give -lessons in German and Italian. - -“Why only German and Italian and French,” said Feather, “why not Latin -and Greek, as well, if she is to be so accomplished?” - -“It is modern languages one needs at this period. They ought to be -taught in the Board Schools,” Coombe replied. “They are not -accomplishments but workman’s tools. Nationalities are not separated as -they once were. To be familiar with the language of one’s friends—and -one’s enemies—is a protective measure.” - -“What country need one protect oneself against? When all the kings and -queens are either married to each other’s daughters or cousins or take -tea with each other every year or so. Just think of the friendliness of -Germany for instance——” - -“I do,” said Coombe, “very often. That is one of the reasons I choose -German rather than Latin and Greek. Julius Cæsar and Nero are no longer -reasons for alarm.” - -“Is the Kaiser with his seventeen children and his respectable Frau?” -giggled Feather. “All that he cares about is that women shall be made -to remember that they are born for nothing but to cook and go to church -and have babies. One doesn’t wonder at the clothes they wear.” - -It was not a month after this, however, when Lord Coombe, again warming -himself at his old friend’s fire, gave her a piece of information. - -“The German teacher, Herr Wiese, has hastily returned to his own -country,” he said. - -She lifted her eyebrows inquiringly. - -“He found himself suspected of being a spy,” was his answer. “With most -excellent reason. Some first-rate sketches of fortifications were found -in a box he left behind him in his haste. The country—all countries—are -sown with those like him. Mild spectacled students and clerks in -warehouses and manufactories are weighing and measuring resources; -round-faced, middle-aged governesses are making notes of conversation -and of any other thing which may be useful. In time of war—if they were -caught at what are now their simple daily occupations—they would be -placed against a wall and shot. As it is, they are allowed to play -about among us and slip away when some fellow worker’s hint suggests it -is time.” - -“German young men are much given to spending a year or so here in -business positions,” the Duchess wore a thoughtful air. “That has been -going on for a decade or so. One recognizes their Teuton type in shops -and in the streets. They say they come to learn the language and -commercial methods.” - -“Not long ago a pompous person, who is the owner of a big shop, pointed -out to me three of them among his salesmen,” Coombe said. “He plumed -himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they worked for low -wages and cared for very little else but finding out how things were -done in England. It wasn’t only business knowledge they were after, he -said; they went about everywhere—into factories and dock yards, and -public buildings, and made funny little notes and sketches of things -they didn’t understand—so that they could explain them in Germany. In -his fatuous, insular way, it pleased him to regard them rather as a -species of aborigines benefiting by English civilization. The English -Ass and the German Ass are touchingly alike. The shade of difference is -that the English Ass’s sublime self-satisfaction is in the German Ass -self-glorification. The English Ass smirks and plumes himself; the -German Ass blusters and bullies and defies.” - -“Do you think of engaging another German Master for the little girl?” -the Duchess asked the question casually. - -“I have heard of a quiet young woman who has shown herself thorough and -well-behaved in a certain family for three years. Perhaps she also will -disappear some day, but, for the present, she will serve the purpose.” - -As he had not put into words to others any explanation of the story of -the small, smart establishment in the Mayfair street, so he had put -into words no explanation to her. That she was aware of its existence -he knew, but what she thought of it, or imagined he himself thought of -it, he had not at any period inquired. Whatsoever her point of view -might be, he knew it would be unbiassed, clear minded and wholly just. -She had asked no question and made no comment. The rapid, whirligig -existence of the well-known fashionable groups, including in their -circles varieties of the Mrs. Gareth-Lawless type, were to be seen at -smart functions and to be read of in newspapers and fashion reports, if -one’s taste lay in the direction of a desire to follow their movements. -The time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by -severities of opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown -their dice daringly to gain. The worldly old axiom, “Be virtuous and -you will be happy,” had been ironically paraphrased too often. “Please -yourself and you will be much happier than if you were virtuous,” was a -practical reading. - -But for a certain secret which she alone knew and which no one would in -the least have believed, if she had proclaimed it from the housetops, -Feather would really have been entirely happy. And, after all, the fly -in her ointment was merely an odd sting a fantastic Fate had inflicted -on her vanity and did not in any degree affect her pleasures. So many -people lived in glass houses that the habit of throwing stones had -fallen out of fashion as an exercise. There were those, too, whose -houses of glass, adroitly given the air of being respectable -conservatories, engendered in the dwellers therein a leniency towards -other vitreous constructions. As a result of this last circumstance, -there were times when quite stately equipages drew up before Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless’ door and visiting cards bearing the names of -acquaintances much to be desired were left upon the salver presented by -Jennings. Again, as a result of this circumstance, Feather employed -some laudable effort in her desire to give her own glass house the -conservatory aspect. Her little parties became less noisy, if they -still remained lively. She gave an “afternoon” now and then to which -literary people and artists, and persons who “did things” were invited. -She was pretty enough to allure an occasional musician to “do -something”, some new poet to read or recite. Fashionable people were -asked to come and hear and talk to them, and, in this way, she threw -out delicate fishing lines here and there, and again and again drew up -a desirable fish of substantial size. Sometimes the vague rumour -connected with the name of the Head of the House of Coombe was quite -forgotten and she was referred to amiably as “That beautiful creature, -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. She was left a widow when she was nothing but a -girl. If she hadn’t had a little money of her own, and if her husband’s -relatives hadn’t taken care of her, she would have had a hard time of -it. She is amazingly clever at managing her, small income,” they added. -“Her tiny house is one of the jolliest little places in London—always -full of good looking people and amusing things.” - -But, before Robin was fourteen, she had found out that the house she -lived in was built of glass and that any chance stone would break its -panes, even if cast without particular skill in aiming. She found it -out in various ways, but the seed from which all things sprang to the -fruition of actual knowledge was the child tragedy through which she -had learned that Donal had been taken from her—because his mother would -not let him love and play with a little girl whose mother let Lord -Coombe come to her house—because Lord Coombe was so bad that even -servants whispered secrets about him. Her first interpretation of this -had been that of a mere baby, but it had filled her being with -detestation of him, and curious doubts of her mother. Donal’s mother, -who was good and beautiful, would not let him come to see her and kept -Donal away from him. If the Lady Downstairs was good, too, then why did -she laugh and talk to him and seem to like him? She had thought this -over for hours—sometimes wakening in the night to lie and puzzle over -it feverishly. Then, as time went by, she had begun to remember that -she had never played with any of the children in the Square Gardens. It -had seemed as though this had been because Andrews would not let her. -But, if she was not fit to play with Donal, perhaps the nurses and -governesses and mothers of the other children knew about it and would -not trust their little girls and boys to her damaging society. She did -not know what she could have done to harm them—and Oh! how _could_ she -have harmed Donal!—but there must be something dreadful about a child -whose mother knew bad people—something which other children could -“catch” like scarlet fever. From this seed other thoughts had grown. -She did not remain a baby long. A fervid little brain worked for her, -picked up hints and developed suggestions, set her to singularly alert -reasoning which quickly became too mature for her age. The quite horrid -little girl, who flouncingly announced that she could not be played -with any more “because of Lord Coombe” set a spark to a train. After -that time she used to ask occasional carefully considered questions of -Dowson and Mademoiselle Vallé, which puzzled them by their vagueness. -The two women were mutually troubled by a moody habit she developed of -sitting absorbed in her own thoughts, and with a concentrated little -frown drawing her brows together. They did not know that she was -silently planning a subtle cross examination of them both, whose form -would be such that neither of them could suspect it of being anything -but innocent. She felt that she was growing cunning and deceitful, but -she did not care very much. She possessed a clever and determined, -though very young brain. She loved both Dowson and Mademoiselle, but -she must find out about things for herself, and she was not going to -harm or trouble them. They would never know she had found out: -Whatsoever she discovered, she would keep to herself. - -But one does not remain a baby long, and one is a little girl only a -few years, and, even during the few years, one is growing and hearing -and seeing all the time. After that, one is beginning to be a rather -big girl and one has seen books and newspapers, and overheard scraps of -things from servants. If one is brought up in a convent and allowed to -read nothing but literature selected by nuns, a degree of aloofness -from knowledge may be counted upon—though even convent schools, it is -said, encounter their difficulties in perfect discipline. - -Robin, in her small “Palace” was well taken care of but her library was -not selected by nuns. It was chosen with thought, but it was the -library of modern youth. Mademoiselle Vallé’s theories of a girl’s -education were not founded on a belief that, until marriage, she should -be led about by a string blindfolded, and with ears stopped with wax. - -“That results in a bleating lamb’s being turned out of its fold to make -its way through a jungle full of wild creatures and pitfalls it has -never heard of,” she said in discussing the point with Dowson. She had -learned that Lord Coombe agreed with her. He, as well as she, chose the -books and his taste was admirable. Its inclusion of an unobtrusive care -for girlhood did not preclude the exercise of the intellect. An early -developed passion for reading led the child far and wide. Fiction, -history, poetry, biography, opened up vistas to a naturally quick and -eager mind. Mademoiselle found her a clever pupil and an -affection-inspiring little being even from the first. - -She always felt, however, that in the depths of her something held -itself hidden—something she did not speak of. It was some thought which -perhaps bewildered her, but which something prevented her making clear -to herself by the asking of questions. Mademoiselle Vallé finally -became convinced that she never would ask the questions. - -Arrived a day when Feather swept into the Palace with some visitors. -They were two fair and handsome little girls of thirteen and fourteen, -whose mother, having taken them shopping, found it would suit her -extremely well to drop then somewhere for an hour while she went to her -dressmaker. Feather was quite willing that they should be left with -Robin and Mademoiselle until their own governess called for them. - -“Here are Eileen and Winifred Erwyn, Robin,” she said, bringing them -in. “Talk to them and show them your books and things until the -governess comes. Dowson, give them some cakes and tea.” - -Mrs. Erwyn was one of the most treasured of Feather’s circle. Her -little girls’ governess was a young Frenchwoman, entirely unlike -Mademoiselle Vallé. Eileen and Winifred saw Life from their schoolroom -windows as an open book. Why not, since their governess and their -mother’s French maid conversed freely, and had rather penetrating -voices even when they were under the impression that they lowered them -out of deference to blameless youth. Eileen and Winifred liked to -remain awake to listen as long as they could after they went to bed. -They themselves had large curious eyes and were given to whispering and -giggling. - -They talked a good deal to Robin and assumed fashionable little grown -up airs. They felt themselves mature creatures as compared to her, -since she was not yet thirteen. They were so familiar with personages -and functions that Robin felt that they must have committed to memory -every morning the column in the _Daily Telegraph_ known as “London Day -by Day.” She sometimes read it herself, because it was amusing to her -to read about parties and weddings and engagements. But it did not seem -easy to remember. Winifred and Eileen were delighted to display -themselves in the character of instructresses. They entertained Robin -for a short time, but, after that, she began to dislike the shared -giggles which so often broke out after their introduction of a name or -an incident. It seemed to hint that they were full of amusing -information which they held back. Then they were curious and made -remarks and asked questions. She began to think them rather horrid. - -“We saw Lord Coombe yesterday,” said Winifred at last, and the -unnecessary giggle followed. - -“We think he wears the most beautiful clothes we ever saw! You remember -his overcoat, Winnie?” said Eileen. “He _matches_ so—and yet you don’t -know exactly how he matches,” and she giggled also. - -“He is the best dressed man in London,” Winifred stated quite grandly. -“I think he is handsome. So do Mademoiselle and Florine.” - -Robin said nothing at all. What Dowson privately called “her secret -look” made her face very still. Winifred saw the look and, not -understanding it or her, became curious. - -“Don’t you?” she said. - -“No,” Robin answered. “He has a wicked face. And he’s old, too.” - -“You think he’s old because you’re only about twelve,” inserted Eileen. -“Children think everybody who is grown-up must be old. I used to. But -now people don’t talk and think about age as they used to. Mademoiselle -says that when a man has distinction he is always young—and nicer than -boys.” - -Winifred, who was persistent, broke in. - -“As to his looking wicked, I daresay he _is_ wicked in a sort of -interesting way. Of course, people say all sorts of things about him. -When he was quite young, he was in love with a beautiful little royal -Princess—or she was in love with him—and her husband either killed her -or she died of a broken heart—I don’t know which.” - -Mademoiselle Vallé had left them for a short time feeling that they -were safe with their tea and cakes and would feel more at ease relieved -of her presence. She was not long absent, but Eileen and Winifred, -being avid of gossip and generally eliminated subjects, “got in their -work” with quite fevered haste. They liked the idea of astonishing -Robin. - -Eileen bent forward and lowered her voice. - -“They do say that once Captain Thorpe was fearfully jealous of him and -people wonder that he wasn’t among the co-respondents.” The word -“co-respondent” filled her with self-gratulation even though she only -whispered it. - -“Co-respondents?” said Robin. - -They both began to whisper at once—quite shrilly in their haste. They -knew Mademoiselle might return at any moment. - -“The great divorce case, you know! The Thorpe divorce case the papers -are so full of. We get the under housemaid to bring it to us after -Mademoiselle has done with it. It’s so exciting! Haven’t you been -reading it? Oh!” - -“No, I haven’t,” answered Robin. “And I don’t know about -co-respondents, but, if they are anything horrid, I daresay he _was_ -one of them.” - -And at that instant Mademoiselle returned and Dowson brought in fresh -cakes. The governess, who was to call for her charges, presented -herself not long afterwards and the two enterprising little persons -were taken away. - -“I believe she’s _jealous_ of Lord Coombe,” Eileen whispered to -Winifred, after they reached home. - -“So do I,” said Winifred wisely. “She can’t help but know how he -_adores_ Mrs. Gareth-Lawless because she’s so lovely. He pays for all -her pretty clothes. It’s silly of her to be jealous—like a baby.” - -Robin sometimes read newspapers, though she liked books better. -Newspapers were not forbidden her. She been reading an enthralling book -and had not seen a paper for some days. She at once searched for one -and, finding it, sat down and found also the Thorpe Divorce Case. It -was not difficult of discovery, as it filled the principal pages with -dramatic evidence and amazing revelations. - -Dowson saw her bending over the spread sheets, hot-eyed and intense in -her concentration. - -“What are you reading, my love?” she asked. - -The little flaming face lifted itself. It was unhappy, obstinate, -resenting. It wore no accustomed child look and Dowson felt rather -startled. - -“I’m reading the Thorpe Divorce Case, Dowie,” she answered deliberately -and distinctly. - -Dowie came close to her. - -“It’s an ugly thing to read, my lamb,” she faltered. “Don’t you read -it. Such things oughtn’t to be allowed in newspapers. And you’re a -little girl, my own dear.” Robin’s elbow rested firmly on the table and -her chin firmly in her hand. Her eyes were not like a bird’s. - -“I’m nearly thirteen,” she said. “I’m growing up. Nobody can stop -themselves when they begin to grow up. It makes them begin to find out -things. I want to ask you something, Dowie.” - -“Now, lovey—!” Dowie began with tremor. Both she and Mademoiselle had -been watching the innocent “growing up” and fearing a time would come -when the widening gaze would see too much. Had it come as soon as this? - -Robin suddenly caught the kind woman’s wrists in her hands and held -them while she fixed her eyes on her. The childish passion of dread and -shyness in them broke Dowson’s heart because it was so ignorant and -young. - -“I’m growing up. There’s something—I _must_ know something! I never -knew how to ask about it before.” It was so plain to Dowson that she -did not know how to ask about it now. “Someone said that Lord Coombe -might have been a co-respondent in the Thorpe case——” - -“These wicked children!” gasped Dowie. “They’re not children at all!” - -“Everybody’s horrid but you and Mademoiselle,” cried Robin, brokenly. -She held the wrists harder and ended in a sort of outburst. “If my -father were alive—could he bring a divorce suit——And would Lord -Coombe——” - -Dowson burst into open tears. And then, so did Robin. She dropped -Dowson’s wrists and threw her arms around her waist, clinging to it in -piteous repentance. - -“No, I won’t!” she cried out. “I oughtn’t to try to make you tell me. -You can’t. I’m wicked to you. Poor Dowie—darling Dowie! I want to -_kiss_ you, Dowie! Let me—let me!” - -She sobbed childishly on the comfortable breast and Dowie hugged her -close and murmured in a choked voice, - -“My lamb! My pet lamb!” - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -Mademoiselle Vallé and Dowson together realized that after this the -growing up process was more rapid. It always seems incredibly rapid to -lookers on, after thirteen. But these two watchers felt that, in -Robin’s case, it seemed unusually so. Robin had always been interested -in her studies and clever at them, but, suddenly, she developed a new -concentration and it was of an order which her governess felt denoted -the secret holding of some object in view. She devoted herself to her -lessons with a quality of determination which was new. She had -previously been absorbed, but not determined. She made amazing strides -and seemed to aspire to a thoroughness and perfection girls did not -commonly aim at—especially at the frequently rather preoccupied hour of -blossoming. Mademoiselle encountered in her an eagerness that she—who -knew girls—would have felt it optimistic to expect in most cases. She -wanted to work over hours; she would have read too much if she had not -been watched and gently coerced. - -She was not distracted by the society of young people of her own age. -She, indeed, showed a definite desire to avoid such companionship. What -she said to Mademoiselle Vallé one afternoon during a long walk they -took together, held its own revelation for the older woman. - -They had come upon the two Erwyns walking with their attendant in -Kensington Gardens, and, seeing them at some distance, Robin asked her -companion to turn into another walk. - -“I don’t want to meet them,” she said, hurriedly. “I don’t think I like -girls. Perhaps it’s horrid of me—but I don’t. I don’t like those two.” -A few minutes later, after they had walked in an opposite direction, -she said thoughtfully. - -“Perhaps the kind of girls I should like to know would not like to know -me.” - -From the earliest days of her knowledge of Lord Coombe, Mademoiselle -Vallé had seen that she had no cause to fear lack of comprehension on -his part. With a perfection of method, they searched each other’s -intelligence. It had become understood that on such occasions as there -was anything she wished to communicate or inquire concerning, Mr. -Benby, in his private room, was at Mademoiselle’s service, and there -his lordship could also be met personally by appointment. - -“There have been no explanations,” Mademoiselle Vallé said to Dowson. -“He does not ask to know why I turn to him and I do not ask to know why -he cares about this particular child. It is taken for granted that is -his affair and not mine. I am paid well to take care of Robin, and he -knows that all I say and do is part of my taking care of her.” - -After the visit of the Erwyn children, she had a brief interview with -Coombe, in which she made for him a clear sketch. It was a sketch of -unpleasant little minds, avid and curious on somewhat exotic subjects, -little minds, awake to rather common claptrap and gossipy pinchbeck -interests. - -“Yes—unpleasant, luckless, little persons. I quite understand. They -never appeared before. They will not appear again. Thank you, -Mademoiselle,” he said. - -The little girls did not appear again; neither did any others of their -type, and the fact that Feather knew little of other types was a -sufficient reason for Robin’s growing up without companions of her own -age. - -“She’s a lonely child, after all,” Mademoiselle said. - -“She always was,” answered Dowie. “But she’s fond of us, bless her -heart, and it isn’t loneliness like it was before we came.” - -“She is not unhappy. She is too blooming and full of life,” -Mademoiselle reflected. “We adore her and she has many interests. It is -only that she does not know the companionship most young people enjoy. -Perhaps, as she has never known it, she does not miss it.” - -The truth was that if the absence of intercourse with youth produced -its subtle effect on her, she was not aware of any lack, and a certain -uncompanioned habit of mind, which gave her much time for dreams and -thought, was accepted by her as a natural condition as simply as her -babyhood had accepted the limitations of the Day and Night Nurseries. - -She was not a self-conscious creature, but the time came when she -became rather disturbed by the fact that people looked at her very -often, as she walked in the streets. Sometimes they turned their heads -to look after her; occasionally one person walking with another would -say something quietly to his or her companion, and they even paused a -moment to turn quite round and look. The first few times she noticed -this she flushed prettily and said nothing to Mademoiselle Vallé who -was generally with her. But, after her attention had been attracted by -the same thing on several different days, she said uneasily: - -“Am I quite tidy, Mademoiselle?” - -“Quite,” Mademoiselle answered—just a shade uneasy herself. - -“I began to think that perhaps something had come undone or my hat was -crooked,” she explained. “Those two women stared so. Then two men in a -hansom leaned forward and one said something to the other, and they -both laughed a little, Mademoiselle!” hurriedly, “Now, there are three -young men!” quite indignantly. “Don’t let them see you notice them—but -I think it _rude!_” - -They were carelessly joyous and not strictly well-bred youths, who were -taking a holiday together, and their rudeness was quite unintentional -and without guile. They merely stared and obviously muttered comments -to each other as they passed, each giving the hasty, unconscious touch -to his young moustache, which is the automatic sign of pleasurable -observation in the human male. - -“If she had had companions of her own age she would have known all -about it long ago,” Mademoiselle was thinking. - -Her intelligent view of such circumstances was that the simple fact -they arose from could—with perfect taste—only be treated simply. It was -a mere fact; therefore, why be prudish and affected about it. - -“They did not intend any rudeness,” she said, after they had gone by. -“They are not much more than boys and not perfectly behaved. People -often stare when they see a very pretty girl. I am afraid I do it -myself. You are very pretty,” quite calmly, and as one speaking without -prejudice. - -Robin turned and looked at her, and the colour, which was like a -Jacqueminot rose, flooded her face. She was at the flushing age. Her -gaze was interested, speculative, and a shade startled—merely a shade. - -“Oh,” she said briefly—not in exclamation exactly, but in a sort of -acceptance. Then she looked straight before her and went on walking, -with the lovely, slightly swaying, buoyant step which in itself drew -attracted eyes after her. - -“If I were a model governess, such as one read of long before you were -born,” Mademoiselle Vallé continued, “I should feel it my duty to tell -you that beauty counts for nothing. But that is nonsense. It counts a -great deal—with some women it counts for everything. Such women are not -lucky. One should thank Heaven for it and make the best of it, without -exaggerated anxiety. Both Dowie and I, who love you, are _grateful_ to -_le bon Dieu_ that you are pretty.” - -“I have sometimes thought I was pretty, when I saw myself in the -glass,” said Robin, with unexcited interest. “It seemed to me that I -_looked_ pretty. But, at the same time, I couldn’t help knowing that -everything is a matter of taste and that it might be because I was -conceited.” - -“You are not conceited,” answered the Frenchwoman. - -“I don’t want to be,” said Robin. “I want to be—a serious person -with—with a strong character.” - -Mademoiselle’s smile was touched with affectionate doubt. It had not -occurred to her to view this lovely thing in the light of a “strong” -character. Though, after all, what exactly was strength? She was a -warm, intensely loving, love compelling, tender being. Having seen much -of the world, and of humanity and inhumanity, Mademoiselle Vallé had -had moments of being afraid for her—particularly when, by chance, she -recalled the story Dowson had told her of the bits of crushed and -broken leaves. - -“A serious person,” she said, “and strong?” - -“Because I must earn my own living,” said Robin. “I must be strong -enough to take care of myself. I am going to be a governess—or -something.” - -Here, it was revealed to Mademoiselle as in a flash, was the reason why -she had applied herself with determination to her studies. This had -been the object in view. For reasons of her own, she intended to earn -her living. With touched interest, Mademoiselle Vallé waited, wondering -if she would be frank about the reason. She merely said aloud: - -“A governess?” - -“Perhaps there may be something else I can do. I might be a secretary -or something like that. Girls and women are beginning to do so many new -things,” her charge explained herself. “I do not want to be—supported -and given money. I mean I do not want—other people—to buy my clothes -and food—and things. The newspapers are full of advertisements. I could -teach children. I could translate business letters. Very soon I shall -be old enough to begin. Girls in their teens do it.” - -She had laid some of her cards on the table, but not all, poor child. -She was not going into the matter of her really impelling reasons. But -Mademoiselle Vallé was not dull, and her affection added keenness to -her mental observations. Also she had naturally heard the story of the -Thorpe lawsuit from Dowson. Inevitably several points suggested -themselves to her. - -“Mrs. Gareth-Lawless——” she began, reasonably. - -But Robin stopped her by turning her face full upon her once more, and -this time her eyes were full of clear significance. - -“She will let me go,” she said. “You _know_ she will let me go, -Mademoiselle, darling. You _know_ she will.” There was a frank -comprehension and finality in the words which made a full revelation of -facts Mademoiselle herself had disliked even to allow to form -themselves into thoughts. The child knew all sorts of things and felt -all sorts of things. She would probably never go into details, but she -was extraordinarily, harrowingly, _aware_. She had been learning to be -aware for years. This had been the secret she had always kept to -herself. - -“If you are planning this,” Mademoiselle said, as reasonably as before, -“we must work very seriously for the next few years.” - -“How long do you think it will take?” asked Robin. She was nearing -sixteen—bursting into glowing blossom—a radiant, touching thing whom -one only could visualize in flowering gardens, in charming, enclosing -rooms, figuratively embraced by every mature and kind arm within reach -of her. This presented itself before Mademoiselle Vallé with such -vividness that it was necessary for her to control a sigh. - -“When I feel that you are ready, I will tell you,” she answered. “And I -will do all I can to help you—before I leave you.” - -“Oh!” Robin gasped, in an involuntarily childish way, “I—hadn’t thought -of that! How could I _live_ without you—and Dowie?” - -“I know you had not thought of it,” said Mademoiselle, affectionately. -“You are only a dear child yet. But that will be part of it, you know. -A governess or a secretary, or a young lady in an office translating -letters cannot take her governess and maid with her.” - -“Oh!” said Robin again, and her eyes became suddenly so dewy that the -person who passed her at the moment thought he had never seen such -wonderful eyes in his life. So much of her was still child that the -shock of this sudden practical realization thrust the mature and -determined part of her being momentarily into the background, and she -could scarcely bear her alarmed pain. It was true that she had been too -young to face her plan as she must. - -But, after the long walk was over and she found herself in her bedroom -again, she was conscious of a sense of being relieved of a burden. She -had been wondering when she could tell Mademoiselle and Dowie of her -determination. She had not liked to keep it a secret from them as if -she did not love them, but it had been difficult to think of a way in -which to begin without seeming as if she thought she was quite grown -up—which would have been silly. She had not thought of speaking today, -but it had all come about quite naturally, as a result of -Mademoiselle’s having told her that she was really very pretty—so -pretty that it made people turn to look at her in the street. She had -heard of girls and women who were like that, but she had never thought -it possible that she——! She had, of course, been looked at when she was -very little, but she had heard Andrews say that people looked because -she had so much hair and it was like curled silk. - -She went to the dressing table and looked at herself in the glass, -leaning forward that she might see herself closely. The face which drew -nearer and nearer had the effect of some tropic flower, because it was -so alive with colour which seemed to palpitate instead of standing -still. Her soft mouth was warm and brilliant with it, and the darkness -of her eyes was—as it had always been—like dew. Her brow were a slender -black velvet line, and her lashes made a thick, softening shadow. She -saw they were becoming. She cupped her round chin in her hands and -studied herself with a desire to be sure of the truth without prejudice -or self conceit. The whole effect of her was glowing, and she felt the -glow as others did. She put up a finger to touch the velvet petal -texture of her skin, and she saw how prettily pointed and slim her hand -was. Yes, that was pretty—and her hair—the way it grew about her -forehead and ears and the back of her neck. She gazed at her young -curve and colour and flame of life’s first beauty with deep curiosity, -singularly impersonal for her years. - -She liked it; she began to be grateful as Mademoiselle had said she and -Dowie were. Yes, if other people liked it, there was no use in -pretending it would not count. - -“If I am going to earn my living,” she thought, with entire gravity, -“it may be good for me. If I am a governess, it will be useful because -children like pretty people. And if I am a secretary and work in an -office, I daresay men like one to be pretty because it is more -cheerful.” - -She mentioned this to Mademoiselle Vallé, who was very kind about it, -though she looked thoughtful afterwards. When, a few days later, -Mademoiselle had an interview with Coombe in Benby’s comfortable room, -he appeared thoughtful also as he listened to her recital of the -incidents of the long walk during which her charge had revealed her -future plans. - -“She is a nice child,” he said. “I wish she did not dislike me so much. -I understand her, villain as she thinks me. I am not a genuine -villain,” he added, with his cold smile. But he was saying it to -himself, not to Mademoiselle. - -This, she saw, but—singularly, perhaps—she spoke as if in reply. - -“Of that I am aware.” - -He turned his head slightly, with a quick, unprepared movement. - -“Yes?” he said. - -“Would your lordship pardon me if I should say that otherwise I should -not ask your advice concerning a very young girl?” - -He slightly waved his hand. - -“I should have known that—if I had thought of it. I do know it.” - -Mademoiselle Vallé bowed. - -“The fact,” she said, “that she seriously thinks that perhaps beauty -may be an advantage to a young person who applies for work in the -office of a man of business because it may seem bright and cheerful to -him when he is tired and out of spirits—that gives one furiously to -think. Yes, to me she said it, milord—with the eyes of a little dove -brooding over her young. I could see her—lifting them like an angel to -some elderly _vaurien_, who would merely think her a born _cocotte_.” - -Here Coombe’s rigid face showed thought indeed. - -“Good God!” he muttered, quite to himself, “Good God!” in a low, -breathless voice. Villain or saint, he knew not one world but many. - -“We must take care of her,” he said next. “She is not an insubordinate -child. She will do nothing yet?” - -“I have told her she is not yet ready,” Mademoiselle Vallé answered. “I -have also promised to tell her when she is—And to help her.” - -“God help her if we do not!” he said. “She is, on the whole, as -ignorant as a little sheep—and butchers are on the lookout for such as -she is. They suit them even better than the little things whose -tendencies are perverse from birth. An old man with an evil character -may be able to watch over her from a distance.” - -Mademoiselle regarded him with grave eyes, which took in his tall, thin -erectness of figure, his bearing, the perfection of his attire with its -unfailing freshness, which was not newness. - -“Do you call yourself an old man, milord?” she asked. - -“I am not decrepit—years need not bring that,” was his answer. “But I -believe I became an old man before I was thirty. I have grown no -older—in that which is really age—since then.” - -In the moment’s silence which followed, his glance met Mademoiselle -Vallé’s and fixed itself. - -“I am not old enough—or young enough—to be enamoured of Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless’ little daughter,” he said. “_You_ need not be told -that. But you have heard that there are those who amuse themselves by -choosing to believe that I am.” - -“A few light and not too clean-minded fools,” she admitted without -flinching. - -“No man can do worse for himself than to explain and deny,” he -responded with a smile at once hard and fine. “Let them continue to -believe it.” - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -Sixteen passed by with many other things much more disturbing and -important to the world than a girl’s birthday; seventeen was gone, with -passing events more complicated still and increasingly significant, but -even the owners of the hands hovering over the Chessboard, which was -the Map of Europe, did not keep a watch on all of them as close as -might have been kept with advantage. Girls in their teens are seldom -interested in political and diplomatic conditions, and Robin was not -fond of newspapers. She worked well and steadily under Mademoiselle’s -guidance, and her governess realized that she was not losing sight of -her plans for self support. She was made aware of this by an occasional -word or so, and also by a certain telepathic union between them. Little -as she cared for the papers, the child had a habit of closely examining -the advertisements every day. She read faithfully the columns devoted -to those who “Want” employment or are “Wanted” by employers. - -“I look at all the paragraphs which begin ‘Wanted, a young lady’ or a -‘young woman’ or a ‘young person,’ and those which say that ‘A young -person’ or ‘a young woman’ or ‘a young lady’ desires a position. I want -to find out what is oftenest needed.” - -She had ceased to be disturbed by the eyes which followed her, or -opened a little as she passed. She knew that nothing had come undone or -was crooked and that untidiness had nothing to do with the matter. She -accepted being looked at as a part of everyday life. A certain -friendliness and pleasure in most of the glances she liked and was glad -of. Sometimes men of the flushed, middle-aged or elderly type -displeased her by a sort of boldness of manner and gaze, but she -thought that they were only silly, giddy, old things who ought to go -home to their families and stay with them. Mademoiselle or Dowie was -nearly always with her, but, as she was not a French _jeune fille_, -this was not because it was supposed that she could not be trusted out -alone, but because she enjoyed their affectionate companionship. - -There was one man, however, whom she greatly disliked, as young girls -will occasionally dislike a member of the opposite sex for no special -reason they can wholly explain to themselves. - -He was an occasional visitor of her mother’s—a personable young -Prussian officer of high rank and title. He was blonde and military and -good-looking; he brought his bearing and manner from the Court at -Berlin, and the click of his heels as he brought them smartly together, -when he made his perfect automatic bow, was one of the things Robin -knew she was reasonless in feeling she detested in him. - -“It makes me feel as if he was not merely bowing as a a man who is a -gentleman does,” she confided to Mademoiselle Vallé, “but as if he had -been taught to do it and to call attention to it as if no one had ever -known how to do it properly before. It is so flourishing in its stiff -way that it’s rather vulgar.” - -“That is only personal fancy on your part,” commented Mademoiselle. - -“I know it is,” admitted Robin. “But—” uneasily, “—but that isn’t what -I dislike in him most. It’s his eyes, I suppose they are handsome eyes. -They are blue and full—rather too full. They have a queer, swift -stare—as if they plunged into other people’s eyes and tried to hold -them and say something secret, all in one second. You find yourself -getting red and trying to look away.” - -“I don’t,” said Mademoiselle astutely—because she wanted to hear the -rest, without asking too many questions. - -Robin laughed just a little. - -“You have not seen him do it. I have not seen him do it myself very -often. He comes to call on—Mamma”—she never said “Mother”—“when he is -in London. He has been coming for two or three seasons. The first time -I saw him I was going out with Dowie and he was just going upstairs. -Because the hall is so small, we almost knocked against each other, and -he jumped back and made his bow, and he stared so that I felt silly and -half frightened. I was only fifteen then.” - -“And since then?” Mademoiselle Vallé inquired. - -“When he is here it seems as if I always meet him somewhere. Twice, -when Fräulein Hirsch was with me in the Square Gardens, he came and -spoke to us. I think he must know her. He was very grand and -condescendingly polite to her, as if he did not forget she was only a -German teacher and I was only a little girl whose mamma he knew. But he -kept looking at me until I began to hate him.” - -“You must not dislike people without reason. You dislike Lord Coombe.” - -“They both make me creep. Lord Coombe doesn’t plunge his eyes into -mine, but he makes me creep with his fishy coldness. I feel as if he -were like Satan in his still way.” - -“That is childish prejudice and nonsense.” - -“Perhaps the other is, too,” said Robin. “But they both make me creep, -nevertheless. I would rather _die_ than be obliged to let one of them -touch me. That was why I would never shake hands with Lord Coombe when -I was a little child.” - -“You think Fräulein Hirsch knows the Baron?” Mademoiselle inquired -further. - -“I am sure she does. Several times, when she has gone out to walk with -me, we have met him. Sometimes he only passes us and salutes, but -sometimes he stops and says a few words in a stiff, magnificent way. -But he always bores his eyes into mine, as if he were finding out -things about me which I don’t know myself. He has passed several times -when you have been with me, but you may not remember.” - -Mademoiselle Vallé chanced, however, to recall having observed the -salute of a somewhat haughty, masculine person, whose military bearing -in itself was sufficient to attract attention, so markedly did it -suggest the clanking of spurs and accoutrements, and the high lift of a -breast bearing orders. - -“He is Count von Hillern, and I wish he would stay in Germany,” said -Robin. - -Fräulein Hirsch had not been one of those who returned hastily to her -own country, giving no warning of her intention to her employers. She -had remained in London and given her lessons faithfully. She was a -plain young woman with a large nose and pimpled, colourless face and -shy eyes and manner. Robin had felt sure that she stood in awe of the -rank and military grandeur of her fellow countryman. She looked shyer -than ever when he condescended to halt and address her and her -charge—so shy, indeed, that her glances seemed furtive. Robin guessed -that she admired him but was too humble to be at ease when he was near -her. More than once she had started and turned red and pale when she -saw him approaching, which had caused Robin to wonder if she herself -would feel as timid and overpowered by her superiors, if she became a -governess. Clearly, a man like Count von Hillern would then be counted -among her superiors, and she must conduct herself becomingly, even if -it led to her looking almost stealthy. She had, on several occasions, -asked Fräulein certain questions about governesses. She had inquired as -to the age at which one could apply for a place as instructress to -children or young girls. Fräulein Hirsch had begun her career in -Germany at the age of eighteen. She had lived a serious life, full of -responsibilities at home as one of a large family, and she had perhaps -been rather mature for her age. In England young women who wished for -situations answered advertisements and went to see the people who had -inserted them in the newspapers, she explained. Sometimes, the results -were very satisfactory. Fräulein Hirsch was very amiable in her -readiness to supply information. Robin did not tell her of her -intention to find work of some sort—probably governessing—but the young -German woman was possessed of a mind “made in Germany” and was quite -well aware of innumerable things her charge did not suspect her of -knowing. One of the things she knew best was that the girl was a child. -She was not a child herself, and she was an abjectly bitter and -wretched creature who had no reason for hope. She lived in small -lodgings in a street off Abbey Road, and, in a drawer in her dressing -table, she kept hidden a photograph of a Prussian officer with cropped -blond head, and handsome prominent blue eyes, arrogantly gazing from -beneath heavy lids which drooped. He was of the type the German woman, -young and slim, or mature and stout, privately worships as a god whose -relation to any woman can only be that of a modern Jove stooping to -command service. In his teens he had become accustomed to the female -eye which lifts itself adoringly or casts the furtively excited glance -of admiration or appeal. It was the way of mere nature that it should -be so—the wise provision of a masculine God, whose world was created -for the supply and pleasure of males, especially males of the Prussian -Army, whose fixed intention it was to dominate the world and teach it -obedience. - -To such a man, so thoroughly well trained in the comprehension of the -power of his own rank and values, a young woman such as Fräulein -Hirsch—subservient and without beauty—was an unconsidered object to be -as little regarded as the pavement upon which one walks. The pavement -had its uses, and such women had theirs. They could, at least, obey the -orders of those Heaven had placed above them, and, if they showed -docility and intelligence, might be re warded by a certain degree of -approval. - -A presumption, which would have dared to acknowledge to the existence -of the hidden photograph, could not have been encompassed by the being -of Fräulein Hirsch. She was, in truth, secretly enslaved by a burning, -secret, heart-wringing passion which, sometimes, as she lay on her hard -bed at night, forced from her thin chest hopeless sobs which she -smothered under the bedclothes. - -Figuratively, she would have licked the boots of her conquering god, if -he would have looked at her—just looked—as if she were human. But such -a thing could not have occurred to him. He did not even think of her as -she thought of herself, torturingly—as not young, not in any degree -good-looking, not _geboren_, not even female. He did not think of her -at all, except as one of those born to serve in such manner as their -superiors commanded. She was in England under orders, because she was -unobtrusive looking enough to be a safe person to carry on the work she -had been given to do. She was cleverer than she looked and could -accomplish certain things without attracting any attention whatsoever. - -Von Hillern had given her instructions now and then, which had made it -necessary for him to see and talk to her in various places. The fact -that she had before her the remote chance of seeing him by some chance, -gave her an object in life. It was enough to be allowed to stand or sit -for a short time near enough to have been able to touch his sleeve, if -she had had the mad audacity to do it; to quail before his magnificent -glance, to hear his voice, to _almost_ touch his strong, white hand -when she gave him papers, to see that he deigned, sometimes, to approve -of what she had done, to assure him of her continued obedience, with -servile politeness. - -She was not a nice woman, or a good one, and she had, from her birth, -accepted her place in her world with such finality that her desires -could not, at any time, have been of an elevated nature. If he had -raised a haughty hand and beckoned to her, she would have followed him -like a dog under any conditions he chose to impose. But he did not -raise his hand, and never would, because she had no attractions -whatsoever. And this she knew, so smothered her sobs in her bed at -night or lay awake, fevered with anticipation when there was a vague -chance that he might need her for some reason and command her presence -in some deserted park or country road or cheap hotel, where she could -take rooms for the night as if she were a passing visitor to London. - -One night—she had taken cheap lodgings for a week in a side street, in -obedience to orders—he came in about nine o’clock dressed in a manner -whose object was to dull the effect of his grandeur and cause him to -look as much like an ordinary Englishman as possible. - -But, when the door was closed and he stood alone in the room with her, -she saw, with the blissful pangs of an abjectly adoring woman, that he -automatically resumed his magnificence of bearing. His badly fitting -overcoat removed, he stood erect and drawn to his full height, so -dominating the small place and her idolatrously cringing being that her -heart quaked within her. Oh! to dare to cast her unloveliness at his -feet, if it were only to be trampled upon and die there! No small sense -of humour existed in her brain to save her from her pathetic idiocy. -Romantic humility and touching sacrifice to the worshipped one were the -ideals she had read of in verse and song all her life. Only through -such servitude and sacrifice could woman gain man’s love—and even then -only if she had beauty and the gifts worthy of her idol’s acceptance. - -It was really his unmitigated arrogance she worshipped and crawled upon -her poor, large-jointed knees to adore. Her education, her very -religion itself had taught that it was the sign of his nobility and -martial high breeding. Even the women of his own class believed -something of the same sort—the more romantic and sentimental of them -rather enjoying being mastered by it. To Fräulein Hirsch’s mental -vision, he was a sublimated and more dazzling German Rochester, and she -herself a more worthy, because more submissive, Jane Eyre. Ach Gott! -His high-held, cropped head—his so beautiful white hands—his proud eyes -which deigned to look at her from their drooping lids! His presence -filled the shabby room with the atmosphere of a Palace. - -He asked her a few questions; he required from her certain notes she -had made; without wasting a word or glance he gave her in detail -certain further orders. - -He stood by the table, and it was, therefore, necessary that she should -approach him—should even stand quite near that she might see clearly a -sketch he made hastily—immediately afterwards tearing it into fragments -and burning it with a match. She was obliged to stand so near him that -her skirt brushed his trouser leg. His nearness, and a vague scent of -cigar smoke, mingled with the suggestion of some masculine soap or -essence, were so poignant in their effect that she trembled and water -rose in her eyes. In fact—and despite her terrified effort to control -it, a miserable tear fell on her cheek and stood there because she -dared not wipe it away. - -Because he realized, with annoyance, that she was trembling, he cast a -cold, inquiring glance at her and saw the tear. Then he turned away and -resumed his examination of her notes. He was not here to make inquiries -as to whether a sheep of a woman was crying or had merely a cold in her -head. “Ach!” grovelled poor Hirsch in her secret soul,—his patrician -control of outward expression and his indifference to all small and -paltry things! It was part, not only of his aristocratic breeding, but -of the splendour of his military training. - -It was his usual custom to leave her at once, when the necessary -formula had been gone through. Tonight—she scarcely dared to believe -it—he seemed to have some reason for slight delay. He did not sit down -or ask Fräulein Hirsch to do so—but he did not at once leave the room. -He lighted a quite marvellous cigar—deigning a slight wave of the -admired hand which held it, designating that he asked permission. Oh! -if she dared have darted to him with a match! He stood upon the hearth -and asked a casual-sounding question or so regarding her employer, her -household, her acquaintances, her habits. - -The sole link between them was the asking of questions and the giving -of private information, and, therefore, the matter of taste in such -matters did not count as a factor. He might ask anything and she must -answer. Perhaps it was necessary for her to seek some special knowledge -among the guests Mrs. Gareth-Lawless received. But training, having -developed in her alertness of mind, led her presently to see that it -was not Mrs. Gareth-Lawless he was chiefly interested in—but a member -of her family—the very small family which consisted of herself and her -daughter. - -It was Robin he was enclosing in his network of questions. And she had -seen him look at Robin when he had passed or spoken to them. An -illuminating flash brought back to her that he had cleverly found out -from her when they were to walk together, and where they were to go. -She had not been quick enough to detect this before, but she saw it -now. Girls who looked like that—yes! But it could not be—serious. An -English girl of such family—with such a mother! A momentary caprice, -such as all young men of his class amused themselves with and -forgot—but nothing permanent. It would not, indeed, be approved in -those High Places where obedience was the first commandment of the -Decalogue. - -But he did not go. He even descended a shade from his inaccessible -plane. It was not difficult for him to obtain details of the odd -loneliness of the girl’s position. Fräulein Hirsch was quite ready to -explain that, in spite of the easy morals and leniency of rank and -fashion in England, she was a sort of little outcast from sacred inner -circles. There were points she burned to make clear to him, and she -made them so. She was in secret fiercely desirous that he should -realize to the utmost, that, whatsoever rashness this young flame of -loveliness inspired in him, it was _not_ possible that he could regard -it with any shadow of serious intention. She had always disliked the -girl, and now her weak mildness and humility suddenly transformed -themselves into something else—a sort of maternal wolfishness. It did -not matter what happened to the girl—and whatsoever befell or did not -befall her, she—Mathilde Hirsch—could neither gain nor lose hope -through it. But, if she did not displease him and yet saved him from -final disaster, he would, perhaps, be grateful to her—and perhaps, -speak with approval—or remember it—and his Noble Mother most certainly -would—if she ever knew. But behind and under and through all these -specious reasonings, was the hot choking burn of the mad jealousy only -her type of luckless woman can know—and of whose colour she dare not -show the palest hint. - -“I have found out that, for some reason, she thinks of taking a place -as governess,” she said. - -“Suggest that she go to Berlin. There are good places there,” was his -answer. - -“If she should go, her mother will not feel any anxiety about her,” -returned Fräulein Hirsch. - -“If, then, some young man she meets in the street makes love to her and -they run away together, she will not be pursued by her relatives.” - -Fräulein Hirsch’s flat mouth looked rather malicious. - -“Her mother is too busy to pursue her, and there is no one else—unless -it were Lord Coombe, who is said to want her himself.” - -Von Hillern shrugged his fine shoulders. - -“At his age! After the mother! That is like an Englishman!” - -Upon this, Fräulein Hirsch drew a step nearer and fixed her eyes upon -his, as she had never had the joy of fixing them before in her life. -She dared it now because she had an interesting story to tell him which -he would like to hear. It _was_ like an Englishman. Lord Coombe had the -character of being one of the worst among them, but was too subtle and -clever to openly offend people. It was actually said that he was -educating the girl and keeping her in seclusion and that it was -probably his colossal intention to marry her when she was old enough. -He had no heir of his own—and he must have beauty and innocence. -Innocence and beauty his viciousness would have. - -“Pah!” exclaimed von Hillern. “It is youth which requires such -things—and takes them. That is all imbecile London gossip. No, he would -not run after her if she ran away. He is a proud man and he knows he -would be laughed at. And he could not get her back from a young man—who -was her lover.” - -Her lover! How it thrilled the burning heart her poor, flat chest -panted above. With what triumphant knowledge of such things he said it. - -“No, he could not,” she answered, her eyes still on his. “No one -could.” - -He laughed a little, confidently, but almost with light indifference. - -“If she were missing, no particular search would be made then,” he -said. “She is pretty enough to suit Berlin.” - -He seemed to think pleasantly of something as he stood still for a -moment, his eyes on the floor. When he lifted them, there was in their -blue a hint of ugly exulting, though Mathilde Hirsch did not think it -ugly. He spoke in a low voice. - -“It will be an exciting—a colossal day when we come to London—as we -shall. It will be as if an ocean had collected itself into one huge -mountain of a wave and swept in and overwhelmed everything. There will -be confusion then and the rushing up of untrained soldiers—and -shouts—and yells——” - -“And Zeppelins dropping bombs,” she so far forgot herself as to pant -out, “and buildings crashing and pavements and people smashed! -Westminster and the Palaces rocking, and fat fools running before -bayonets.” - -He interrupted her with a short laugh uglier than the gleam in his -eyes. He was a trifle excited. - -“And all the women running about screaming and trying to hide and being -pulled out. We can take any of their pretty, little, high nosed women -we choose—any of them.” - -“Yes,” she answered, biting her lip. No one would take her, she knew. - -He put on his overcoat and prepared to leave her. As he stood at the -door before opening it, he spoke in his usual tone of mere command. - -“Take her to Kensington Gardens tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “Sit in -one of the seats near the Round Pond and watch the children sailing -their boats. I shall not be there but you will find yourself near a -quiet, elegant woman in mourning who will speak to you. You are to -appear to recognize her as an old acquaintance. Follow her suggestions -in everything.” - -After this he was gone and she sat down to think it over. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -She saw him again during the following week and was obliged to tell him -that she had not been able to take her charge to Kensington Gardens on -the morning that he had appointed but that, as the girl was fond of the -place and took pleasure in watching the children sailing their boats on -the Round Pond, it would be easy to lead her there. He showed her a -photograph of the woman she would find sitting on a particular bench, -and he required she should look at it long enough to commit the face to -memory. It was that of a quietly elegant woman with gentle eyes. - -“She will call herself Lady Etynge,” he said. “You are to remember that -you once taught her little girl in Paris. There must be no haste and no -mistakes. It be well for them to meet—by accident—several times.” - -Later he aid to her: - -“When Lady Etynge invites her to go to her house, you will, of course, -go with her. You will not stay. Lady Etynge will tell you what to do.” - -In words, he did not involve himself by giving any hint of his -intentions. So far as expression went, he might have had none, -whatever. Her secret conclusion was that he knew, if he could see the -girl under propitious circumstances—at the house of a clever and -sympathetic acquaintance, he need have no shadow of a doubt as to the -result of his efforts to please her. He knew she was a lonely, romantic -creature, who had doubtless read sentimental books and been allured by -their heroes. She was, of course, just ripe for young peerings into the -land of love making. His had been no peerings, thought the pale Hirsch -sadly. What girl—or woman—could resist the alluring demand of his -drooping eyes, if he chose to allow warmth to fill them? Thinking of -it, she almost gnashed her teeth. Did she not see how he would look, -bending his high head and murmuring to a woman who shook with joy under -his gaze? Had she not seen it in her own forlorn, hopeless dreams? - -What did it matter if what the world calls disaster befell the girl? -Fräulein Hirsch would not have called it disaster. Any woman would have -been paid a thousand times over. His fancy might last a few months. -Perhaps he would take her to Berlin—or to some lovely secret spot in -the mountains where he could visit her. What heaven—what heaven! She -wept, hiding her face on her hot, dry hands. - -But it would not last long—and he would again think only of the immense -work—the august Machine, of which he was a mechanical part—and he would -be obliged to see and talk to her, Mathilde Hirsch, having forgotten -the rest. She could only hold herself decently in check by telling -herself again and again that it was only natural that such things -should come and go in his magnificent life, and that the sooner it -began the sooner it would end. - -It was a lovely morning when her pupil walked with her in Kensington -Gardens, and, quite naturally, strolled towards the Round Pond. Robin -was happy because there were flutings of birds in the air, gardeners -were stuffing crocuses and hyacinths into the flower beds, there were -little sweet scents floating about and so it was Spring. She pulled a -bare looking branch of a lilac bush towards her and stooped and kissed -the tiny brown buttons upon it, half shyly. - -“I can’t help it when I see the first ones swelling on the twigs. They -are working so hard to break out into green,” she said. “One loves -everything at this time—everything! Look at the children round the -pond. That fat, little boy in a reefer and brown leather leggings is -bursting with joy. Let us go and praise his boat, Fräulein.” - -They went and Robin praised the boat until its owner was breathless -with rapture. Fräulein Hirsch, standing near her, looked furtively at -all the benches round the circle, giving no incautiously interested -glance to any one of them in particular. Presently, however, she said: - -“I think that is Lady Etynge sitting on the third bench from here. I -said to you that I had heard she was in London. I wonder if her -daughter is still in the Convent at Tours?” - -When Robin returned, she saw a quiet woman in perfect mourning -recognize Fräulein Hirsch with a a bow and smile which seemed to -require nearer approach. - -“We must go and speak to her.” Fräulein Hirsch said. “I know she wil -wish me to present you. She is fond of young girls—because of Hélène.” - -Robin went forward prettily. The woman was gentle looking and -attracting. She had a sweet manner and was very kind to Fräulein -Hirsch. She seemed to know her well and to like her. Her daughter, -Hélène, was still in the Convent at Tours but was expected home very -shortly. She would be glad to find that Fräulein Hirsch was in London. - -“I have turned the entire top story of my big house into a pretty suite -for her. She has a fancy for living high above the street,” smiled Lady -Etynge, indulgently. Perhaps she was a “Mother” person, Robin thought. - -Both her looks and talk were kind, and she was very nice in her -sympathetic interest in the boats and the children’s efforts to sail -them. - -“I often bring my book here and forget to read, because I find I am -watching them,” she said. “They are so eager and so triumphant when a -boat gets across the Pond.” - -She went away very soon and Robin watched her out of sight with -interest. - -They saw her again a few days later and talked a little more. She was -not always near the Pond when they came, and they naturally did not go -there each time they walked together, though Fräulein Hirsch was fond -of sitting and watching the children. - -She had been to take tea with her former employer, she told Robin one -day, and she was mildly excited by the preparations for Hélène, who had -been educated entirely in a French convent and was not like an English -girl at all. She had always been very delicate and the nuns seemed to -know how to take care of her and calm her nerves with their quiet ways. - -“Her mother is rather anxious about her coming to London. She has, of -course, no young friends here and she is so used to the quiet of -convent life,” the Fräulein explained. “That is why the rooms at the -top of the house have been arranged for her. She will hear so little -sound. I confess I am anxious about her myself. Lady Etynge is -wondering if she can find a suitable young companion to live in the -house with her. She must be a young lady and perfectly educated—and -with brightness and charm. Not a person like myself, but one who can be -treated as an equal and a friend—almost a playmate.” - -“It would be an agreeable position,” commented Robin, thoughtfully. - -“Extremely so,” answered Fräulein Hirsch. “Hélène is a most lovable and -affectionate girl. And Lady Etynge is rich enough to pay a large -salary. Hélène is her idol. The suite of rooms is perfect. In Germany, -girls are not spoiled in that way. It is not considered good for them.” - -It was quite natural, since she felt an interest in Hélène, that, on -their next meeting, Robin should find pleasure in sitting on the green -bench near the girl’s mother and hear her speak of her daughter. She -was not diffuse or intimate in her manner. Hélène first appeared in the -talk as a result of a polite inquiry made by Fräulein Hirsch. Robin -gathered, as she listened, that this particular girl was a tenderly -loved and cared for creature and was herself gentle and intelligent and -loving. She sounded like the kind of a girl one would be glad to have -for a friend. Robin wondered and wondered—if she would “do.” Perhaps, -out of tactful consideration for the feelings of Fräulein Hirsch who -would not “do”—because she was neither bright, nor pretty, nor a -girl—Lady Etynge touched but lightly on her idea that she might find a -sort of sublimated young companion for her daughter. - -“It would be difficult to advertise for what one wants,” she said. - -“Yes. To state that a girl must be clever and pretty and graceful, and -attractive, would make it difficult for a modest young lady to write a -suitable reply,” said Fräulein Hirsch grimly, and both Lady Etynge and -Robin smiled. - -“Among your own friends,” Lady Etynge said to Robin, a little -pathetically in her yearning, “do you know of anyone—who might know of -anyone who would fit in? Sometimes there are poor little cousins, you -know?” - -“Or girls who have an independent spirit and would like to support -themselves,” said the Fräulein. “There are such girls in these advanced -times.” - -“I am afraid I don’t know anyone,” answered Robin. Modesty also -prevented her from saying that she thought she did. She herself was -well educated, she was good tempered and well bred, and she had known -for some time that she was pretty. - -“Perhaps Fräulein Hirsch may bring you in to have tea with me some -afternoon when you are out,” Lady Etynge said kindly before she left -them. “I think you would like to see Hélène’s rooms. I should be glad -to hear what another girl thinks of them.” - -Robin was delighted. Perhaps this was a way opening to her. She talked -to Mademoiselle Vallé about it and so glowed with hope that -Mademoiselle’s heart was moved. - -“Do you think I might go?” she said. “Do you think there is any chance -that I might be the right person? _Am_ I nice enough—and well enough -educated, and _are_ my manners good?” - -She did not know exactly where Lady Etynge lived, but believed it was -one of those big houses in a certain dignified “Place” they both knew—a -corner house, she was sure, because—by mere chance—she had one day seen -Lady Etynge go into such a house as if it were her own. She did not -know the number, but they could ask Fräulein. - -Fräulein Hirsch was quite ready with detail concerning her former -patroness and her daughter. She obviously admired them very much. Her -manner held a touch of respectful reverence. She described Hélène’s -disposition and delicate nerves and the perfection of the nuns’ -treatment of her. - -She described the beauty of the interior of the house, its luxury and -convenience, and the charms of the suite of apartments prepared for -Hélène. She thought the number of the house was No. 97 A. Lady Etynge -was the kindest employer she had ever had. She believed that Miss -Gareth-Lawless and Hélène would be delighted with each other, if they -met, and her impression was that Lady Etynge privately hoped they would -become friends. - -Her mild, flat face was so modestly amiable that Mademoiselle Vallé, -who always felt her unattractive femininity pathetic, was a little -moved by her evident pleasure in having been the humble means of -providing Robin with acquaintances of an advantageous kind. - -No special day had been fixed upon for the visit and the cup of tea. -Robin was eager in secret and hoped Lady Etynge would not forget to -remind them of her invitation. - -She did not forget. One afternoon—they had not seen her for several -days and had not really expected to meet her, because they took their -walk later than usual—they found her just rising from her seat to go -home as they appeared. - -“Our little encounters almost assume the air of appointments,” she -said. “This is very nice, but I am just going away, I am sorry to say. -I wonder—” she paused a moment, and then looked at Fräulein Hirsch -pleasantly; “I wonder if, in about an hour, you would bring Miss -Gareth-Lawless to me to have tea and tell me if she thinks Hélène will -like her new rooms. You said you would like to see them,” brightly to -Robin. - -“You are very kind. I should like it so much,” was Robin’s answer. - -Fräulein Hirsch was correctly appreciative of the condescension shown -to her. Her manner was the perfection of the exact shade of unobtrusive -chaperonship. There was no improper suggestion of a mistaken idea that -she was herself a guest, or, indeed, anything, in fact, but a proper -appendage to her charge. Robin had never been fond of Fräulein as she -was fond of Mademoiselle and Dowie, still she was not only an efficient -teacher, but also a good walker and very fond of long tramps, which -Mademoiselle was really not strong enough for, but which Robin’s -slender young legs rejoiced in. - -The two never took cabs or buses, but always walked everywhere. They -walked on this occasion, and, about an hour later, arrived at a large, -corner house in Berford Place. A tall and magnificently built footman -opened the door for them, and they were handed into a drawing room much -grander than the one Robin sometimes glanced into as she passed it, -when she was at home. A quite beautiful tea equipage awaited them on a -small table, but Lady Etynge was not in the room. - -“What a beautiful house to live in,” said Robin, “but, do you know, the -number _isn’t_ 97 A. I looked as we came in, and it is No. 25.” - -“Is it? I ought to have been more careful,” answered Fräulein Hirsch. -“It is wrong to be careless even in small matters.” - -Almost immediately Lady Etynge came in and greeted them, with a sort of -gentle delight. She drew Robin down on to a sofa beside her and took -her hand and gave it a light pat which was a caress. - -“Now you really _are_ here,” she said, “I have been so busy that I have -been afraid I should not have time to show you the rooms before it was -too late to make a change, if you thought anything might be improved.” - -“I am sure nothing can improve them,” said Robin, more dewy-eyed than -usual and even a thought breathless, because this was really a sort of -adventure, and she longed to ask if, by any chance, she would “do.” And -she was so afraid that she might lose this amazingly good opportunity, -merely because she was too young and inexperienced to know how she -ought to broach the subject. She had not thought yet of asking -Mademoiselle Vallé how it should be done. - -She was not aware that she looked at Lady Etynge with a heavenly, -little unconscious appeal, which made her enchanting. Lady Etynge -looked at her quite fixedly for an instant. - -“What a child you are! And what a colour your cheeks and lips are!” she -said. “You are much—much prettier than Hélène, my dear.” - -She got up and brought a picture from a side table to show it to her. - -“I think she is lovely,” she said. “Is it became I am her mother?” - -“Oh, no! Not because you are her mother!” exclaimed Robin. “She is -angelic!” - -She was rather angelic, with her delicate uplifted face and her -communion veil framing it mistily. - -The picture was placed near them and Robin looked at is many times as -they took their tea. To be a companion to a girl with a face like that -would be almost too much to ask of one’s luck. There was actual -yearning in Robin’s heart. Suddenly she realized that she had missed -something all her life, without knowing that she missed it. It was the -friendly nearness of youth like her own. How she hoped that she might -make Lady Etynge like her. After tea was over, Lady Etynge spoke -pleasantly to Fräulein Hirsch. - -“I know that you wanted to register a letter. There is a post-office -just around the corner. Would you like to go and register it while I -take Miss Gareth-Lawless upstairs? You have seen the rooms. You will -only be away a few minutes.” - -Fräulein Hirsch was respectfully appreciative again. The letter really -was important. It contained money which she sent monthly to her -parents. This month she was rather late, and she would be very glad to -be allowed to attend to the matter without losing a post. - -So she went out of the drawing-room and down the stairs, and Robin -heard the front door close behind her with a slight thud. She had -evidently opened and closed it herself without waiting for the footman. - -The upper rooms in London houses—even in the large ones—are usually -given up to servants’ bedrooms, nurseries, and school rooms. Stately -staircases become narrower as they mount, and the climber gets glimpses -of apartments which are frequently bare, whatsoever their use, and, if -not grubby in aspect, are dull and uninteresting. - -But, in Lady Etynge’s house, it was plain that a good deal had been -done. Stairs had been altered and widened, walls had been given fresh -and delicate tints, and one laid one’s hand on cream white balustrades -and trod on soft carpets. A good architect had taken interest in the -problems presented to him, and the result was admirable. Partitions -must have been removed to make rooms larger and of better shape. - -“Nothing could be altered without spoiling it!” exclaimed Robin, -standing in the middle of a sitting room, all freshness and exquisite -colour—the very pictures on the wall being part of the harmony. - -All that a girl would want or love was there. There was nothing left -undone—unremembered. The soft Chesterfield lounge, which was not too -big and was placed near the fire, the writing table, the books, the -piano of satinwood inlaid with garlands; the lamp to sit and read by. - -“How glad she must be to come back to anyone who loves her so,” said -Robin. - -Here was a quilted basket with three Persian kittens purring in it, and -she knelt and stroked their fluffiness, bending her slim neck and -showing how prettily the dark hair grew up from it. It was, perhaps, -that at which Lady Etynge was looking as she stood behind her and -watched her. The girl-nymph slenderness and flexibility of her leaning -body was almost touchingly lovely. - -There were several other rooms and each one was, in its way, more -charming than the other. A library in Dresden blue and white, and with -peculiarly pretty windows struck the last note of cosiness. All the -rooms had pretty windows with rather small square panes enclosed in -white frames. - -It was when she was in this room that Robin took her courage in her -hands. She must not let her chance go by. Lady Etynge was so kind. She -wondered if it would seem _gauche_ and too informal to speak now. - -She stood quite upright and still, though her voice was not quite -steady when she began. - -“Lady Etynge,” she said, “you remember what Fräulein Hirsch said about -girls who wish to support themselves? I—I am one of them. I want very -much to earn my own living. I think I am well educated. I have been -allowed to read a good deal and my teachers, Mademoiselle Vallé and -Fräulein Hirsch, say I speak and write French and German well for an -English girl. If you thought I could be a suitable companion for Miss -Etynge, I—should be very happy.” - -How curiously Lady Etynge watched her as she spoke. She did not look -displeased, but there was something in her face which made Robin afraid -that she was, perhaps, after all, not the girl who was fortunate enough -to quite “do.” - -She felt her hopes raised a degree, however, when Lady Etynge smiled at -her. - -“Do you know, I feel that is very pretty of you!” she said. “It quite -delights me—as I am an idolizing mother—that my mere talk of Hélène -should have made you like her well enough to think you might care to -live with her. And I confess I am modern enough to be pleased with your -wishing to earn your own living.” - -“I must,” said Robin. “I _must!_ I could not bear not to earn it!” She -spoke a little suddenly, and a flag of new colour fluttered in her -cheek. - -“When Hélène comes, you must meet. If you like each other, as I feel -sure you will, and if Mrs. Gareth-Lawless does not object—if it remains -only a matter of being suitable—you are suitable, my dear—you are -suitable.” - -She touched Robin’s hand with the light pat which was a caress, and the -child was radiant. - -“Oh, you are kind to me!” The words broke from her involuntarily. “And -it is such _good_ fortune! Thank you, thank you, Lady Etynge.” - -The flush of her joy and relief had not died out before the footman, -who had opened the door, appeared on the threshold. He was a handsome -young fellow, whose eyes were not as professionally impassive as his -face. A footman had no right to dart a swift side look at one as people -did in the street. He did dart such a glance. Robin saw, and she was -momentarily struck by its being one of those she sometimes objected to. - -Otherwise his manner was without flaw. He had only come to announce to -his mistress the arrival of a caller. - -When Lady Etynge took the card from the salver, her expression changed. -She even looked slightly disturbed. - -“Oh, I am sorry,” she murmured, “I must see her,” lifting her eyes to -Robin. “It is an old friend merely passing through London. How wicked -of me to forget that she wrote to say that she might dash in at any -hour.” - -“Please!” pled Robin, prettily. “I can run away at once. Fräulein -Hirsch must have come back. Please—” - -“The lady asked me particularly to say that she has only a few minutes -to stay, as she is catching a train,” the footman decorously ventured. - -“If that is the case,” Lady Etynge said, even relievedly, “I will leave -you here to look at things until I come back. I really want to talk to -you a little more about yourself and Hélène. I can’t let you go.” She -looked back from the door before she passed through it. “Amuse -yourself, my dear,” and then she added hastily to the man. - -“Have you remembered that there was something wrong with the latch, -William? See if it needs a locksmith.” - -“Very good, my lady.” - -She was gone and Robin stood by the sofa thrilled with happiness and -relief. How wonderful it was that, through mere lucky chance, she had -gone to watch the children sailing their boats! And that Fräulein -Hirsch had seen Lady Etynge! What good luck and how grateful she was! -The thought which passed through her mind was like a little prayer of -thanks. How strange it would be to be really intimate with a girl like -herself—or rather like Hélène. It made her heart beat to think of it. -How wonderful it would be if Hélène actually loved her, and she loved -Hélène. Something sprang out of some depths of her being where past -things were hidden. The something was a deadly little memory. Donal! -Donal! It would be—if she loved Hélène and Hélène loved her—as new a -revelation as Donal. Oh! she remembered. - -She heard the footman doing something to the latch of the door, which -caused it to make a clicking sound. He was obeying orders and examining -it. As she involuntarily glanced at him, he—bending over the door -handle—raised his eyes sideways and glanced at her. It was an -inexcusable glance from a domestic, because it was actually as if he -were taking the liberty of privately summing her up—taking her points -in for his own entertainment. She so resented the unprofessional bad -manners of it, that she turned away and sauntered into the Dresden blue -and white library and sat down with a book. - -She was quite relieved, when, only a few minutes later, he went away -having evidently done what he could. - -The book she had picked up was a new novel and opened with an -attention-arresting agreeableness, which led her on. In fact it led her -on further and, for a longer time than she was aware of. It was her way -to become wholly absorbed in books when they allured her; she forgot -her surroundings and forgot the passing of time. This was a new book by -a strong man with the gift which makes alive people, places, things. -The ones whose lives had taken possession of his being in this story -were throbbing with vital truth. - -She read on and on because, from the first page, she knew them as -actual pulsating human creatures. They looked into her face, they -laughed, she heard their voices, she _cared_ for every trivial thing -that happened to them—to any of them. If one of them picked a flower, -she saw how he or she held it and its scent was in the air. - -Having been so drawn on into a sort of unconsciousness of all else, it -was inevitable that, when she suddenly became aware that she did not -see her page quite clearly, she should withdraw her eyes from her page -and look about her. As she did so, she started from her comfortable -chair in amazement and some alarm. The room had become so much darker -that it must be getting late. How careless and silly she had been. -Where was Fräulein Hirsch? - -“I am only a strange girl and Lady Etynge might so easily have -forgotten me,” passed through her mind. “Her friend may have stayed and -they may have had so much to talk about, that, of coarse, I was -forgotten. But Fräulein Hirsch—how could she!” - -Then, remembering the subservient humility of the Fräulein’s mind, she -wondered if it could have been possible that she had been too timid to -do more than sit waiting—in the hall, perhaps—afraid to allow the -footman to disturb Lady Etynge by asking her where her pupil was. The -poor, meek, silly thing. - -“I must get away without disturbing anyone,” she thought, “I will slip -downstairs and snatch Fräulein Hirsch from her seat and we will go -quietly out. I can write a nice note to Lady Etynge tomorrow, and -explain. I HOPE she won’t mind having forgotten me. I must make her -feel sure that it did not matter in the least. I’ll tell her about the -book.” - -She replaced the book on the shelf from which she had taken it and -passed through into the delightful sitting room. The kittens were -playing together on the hearth, having deserted their basket. One of -them gave a soft, airy pounce after her and caught at her dress with -tiny claws, rolling over and over after his ineffectual snatch. - -She had not heard the footman close the door when he left the room, but -she found he must have done so, as it was now shut. When she turned the -handle it did not seem to work well, because the door did not open as -it ought to have done. She turned it again and gave it a little pull, -but it still remained tightly shut. She turned it again, still with no -result, and then she tried the small latch. Perhaps the man had done -some blundering thing when he had been examining it. She remembered -hearing several clicks. She turned the handle again and again. There -was no key in the keyhole, so he could not have bungled with the key. -She was quite aghast at the embarrassment of the situation. - -“How _can_ I get out without disturbing anyone, if I cannot open the -door!” she said. “How stupid I shall seem to Lady Etynge! She won’t -like it. A girl who could forget where she was—and then not be able to -open a door and be obliged to bang until people come!” - -Suddenly she remembered that there had been a door in the bedroom which -had seemed to lead out into the hall. She ran into the room in such a -hurry that all three kittens ran frisking after her. She saw she had -not been mistaken. There was a door. She went to it and turned the -handle, breathless with excitement and relief. But the handle of that -door also would not open it. Neither would the latch. And there was no -key. - -“Oh!” she gasped. “Oh!” - -Then she remembered the electric bell near the fireplace in the sitting -room. There was one by the fireplace here, also. No, she would ring the -one in the sitting room. She went to it and pressed the button. She -could not hear the ghost of a sound and one could generally hear -_something_ like one. She rang again and waited. The room was getting -darker. Oh, how _could_ Fräulein Hirsch—how could she? - -She waited—she waited. Fifteen minutes by her little watch—twenty -minutes—and, in their passing, she rang again. She rang the bell in the -library and the one in the bedroom—even the one in the bathroom, lest -some might be out of order. She slowly ceased to be embarrassed and -self-reproachful and began to feel afraid, though she did not know -quite what she was afraid of. She went to one of the windows to look at -her watch again in the vanishing light, and saw that she had been -ringing the bells for an hour. She automatically put up a hand and -leaned against the white frame of one of the decorative small panes of -glass. As she touched it, she vaguely realized that it was of such a -solidity that it felt, not like wood but iron. She drew her hand away -quickly, feeling a sweep of unexplainable fear—yes, it was FEAR. And -why should she so suddenly feel it? She went back to the door and tried -again to open it—as ineffectively as before. Then she began to feel a -little cold and sick. She returned to the Chesterfield and sat down on -it helplessly. - -“It seems as if—I had been locked in!” she broke out, in a faint, -bewildered wail of a whisper. “Oh, _why_—did they lock the doors!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -She had known none of the absolute horrors of life which were possible -in that underworld which was not likely to touch her own existence in -any form. - -“Why,” had argued Mademoiselle Vallé, “should one fill a white young -mind with ugly images which would deface with dark marks and smears, -and could only produce unhappiness and, perhaps, morbid broodings? One -does not feel it is wise to give a girl an education in crime. One -would not permit her to read the Newgate Calendar for choice. She will -be protected by those who love her and what she must discover she will -discover. That is Life.” - -Which was why her first discovery that neither door could be opened, -did not at once fill her with horror. Her first arguments were merely -those of a girl who, though her brain was not inactive pulp, had still -a protected girl’s outlook. She had been overwhelmed by a sense of the -awkwardness of her position and by the dread that she would be obliged -to disturb and, almost inevitably, embarrass and annoy Lady Etynge. Of -course, there had been some bungling on the part of the impudent -footman—perhaps actually at the moment when he had given his sidelong -leer at herself instead of properly attending to what he was trying to -do. That the bedroom was locked might be the result of a dozen ordinary -reasons. - -The first hint of an abnormality of conditions came after she had rung -the bells and had waited in vain for response to her summons. There -were servants whose business it was to answer bells at once. If _all_ -the bells were out of order, why were they out of order when Hélène was -to return in a few days and her apartment was supposed to be complete? -Even to the kittens—even to the kittens! - -“It seems as if I had been locked in,” she had whispered to the silence -of the room. “Why did they lock the doors?” - -Then she said, and her heart began to thump and race in her side: - -“It has been done on purpose. They don’t intend to let me out—for some -_horrible_ reason!” - -Perhaps even her own growing panic was not so appalling as a sudden -rushing memory of Lady Etynge, which, at this moment, overthrew her. -Lady Etynge! Lady Etynge! She saw her gentle face and almost -affectionately watching eyes. She heard her voice as she spoke of -Hélène; she felt the light pat which was a caress. - -“No! No!” she gasped it, because her breath had almost left her. “No! -No! She couldn’t! No one could! There is _nothing_ as wicked—as that!” - -Bat, even as she cried out, the overthrow was utter, and she threw -herself forward on the arm of the couch and sobbed—sobbed with the -passion she had only known on the day long ago when she had crawled -into the shrubs and groveled in the earth. It was the same kind of -passion—the shaken and heart-riven woe of a creature who has trusted -and hoped joyously and has been forever betrayed. The face and eyes had -been so kind. The voice so friendly! Oh, how could even the wickedest -girl in the world have doubted their sincerity. Unfortunately—or -fortunately—she knew nothing whatever of the mental processes of the -wicked girls of the world, which was why she lay broken to pieces, -sobbing—sobbing, not at the moment because she was a trapped thing, but -because Lady Etynge had a face in whose gentleness her heart had -trusted and rejoiced. - -When she sat upright again, her own face, as she lifted it, would have -struck a perceptive onlooker as being, as it were, the face of another -girl. It was tear-stained and wild, but this was not the cause of its -change. The soft, bird eyes were different—suddenly, amazingly older -than they had been when she had believed in Hélène. - -She had no experience which could reveal to her in a moment the -monstrousness of her danger, but all she had ever read, or vaguely -gathered, of law breakers and marauders of society, collected itself -into an advancing tidal wave of horror. - -She rose and went to the window and tried to open it, but it was not -intended to open. The decorative panes were of small size and of thick -glass. Her first startled impression that the white framework seemed to -be a painted metal was apparently founded on fact. A strong person -might have bent it with a hammer, but he could not have broken it. She -examined the windows in the other rooms and they were of the same -structure. - -“They are made like that,” she said to herself stonily, “to prevent -people from getting OUT.” - -She stood at the front one and looked down into the broad, stately -“Place.” It was a long way to look down, and, even if the window could -be opened, one’s voice would not be heard. The street lamps were -lighted and a few people were to be seen walking past unhurriedly. - -“In the big house almost opposite they are going to give a party. There -is a red carpet rolled out. Carriages are beginning to drive up. And -here on the top floor, there is a girl locked up—And they don’t know!” - -She said it aloud, and her voice sounded as though it were not her own. -It was a dreadful voice, and, as she heard it, panic seized her. - -Nobody knew—nobody! Her mother never either knew or cared where she -was, but Dowie and Mademoiselle always knew. They would be terrified. -Fräulein Hirsch had, perhaps, been told that her pupil had taken a cab -and gone home and she would return to her lodgings thinking she was -safe. - -Then—only at this moment, and with a suddenness which produced a sense -of shock—she recalled that it was Fräulein Hirsch who had presented her -to Lady Etynge. Fräulein Hirsch herself! It was she who had said she -had been in her employ and had taught Hélène—Hélène! It was she who had -related anecdotes about the Convent at Tours and the nuns who were so -wise and kind! Robin’s hand went up to her forehead with a -panic-stricken gesture. Fräulein Hirsch had made an excuse for leaving -her with Lady Etynge—to be brought up to the top of the house quite -alone—and locked in. Fräulein Hirsch had _known!_ And there came back -to her the memory of the furtive eyes whose sly, adoring sidelooks at -Count Von Hillern had always—though she had tried not to feel it—been, -somehow, glances she had disliked—yes, _disliked!_ - -It was here—by the thread of Fräulein Hirsch—that Count Von Hillern was -drawn into her mind. Once there, it was as if he stood near her—quite -close—looking down under his heavy, drooping lids with stealthy, -plunging eyes. It had always been when Fräulein Hirsch had walked with -her that they had met him—almost as if by arrangement. - -There were only two people in the world who might—because she herself -had so hated them—dislike and choose in some way to punish her. One was -Count Von Hillern. The other was Lord Coombe. Lord Coombe, she knew, -was bad, vicious, did the things people only hinted at without speaking -of them plainly. A sense of instinctive revolt in the strength of her -antipathy to Von Hillern made her feel that he must be of the same -order. - -“If either of them came into this room now and locked the door behind -him, I could not get out.” - -She heard herself say it aloud in the strange girl’s dreadful voice, as -she had heard herself speak of the party in the big house opposite. She -put her soft, slim hand up to her soft, slim throat. - -“I could not get out,” she repeated. - -She ran to the door and began to beat on its panels. By this time, she -knew it would be no use and yet she beat with her hands until they were -bruised and then she snatched up a book and beat with that. She thought -she must have been beating half an hour when she realized that someone -was standing outside in the corridor, and the someone said, in a voice -she recognized as belonging to the leering footman, - -“May as well keep still, Miss. You can’t hammer it down and no one’s -going to bother taking any notice,” and then his footsteps retired down -the stairs. She involuntarily clenched her hurt hands and the -shuddering began again though she stood in the middle of the room with -a rigid body and her head thrown fiercely back. - -“If there are people in the world as hideous—and monstrous as -_this_—let them kill me if they want to. I would rather be killed than -live! They would _have_ to kill me!” and she said it in a frenzy of -defiance of all mad and base things on earth. - -Her peril seemed to force her thought to delve into unknown dark places -in her memory and dig up horrors she had forgotten—newspaper stories of -crime, old melodramas and mystery romances, in which people disappeared -and were long afterwards found buried under floors or in cellars. It -was said that the Berford Place houses, winch were old ones, had -enormous cellars under them. - -“Perhaps other girls have disappeared and now are buried in the -cellars,” she thought. - -And the dreadful young voice added aloud. - -“Because they would _have_ to kill me.” - -One of the Persian kittens curled up in the basket wakened because he -heard it and stretched a sleepy paw and mewed at her. - -Coombe House was one of the old ones, wearing somewhat the aspect of a -stately barrack with a fine entrance. Its court was enclosed at the -front by a stone wall, outside which passing London roared in low -tumult. The court was surrounded by a belt of shrubs strong enough to -defy the rain of soot which fell quietly upon them day and night. - -The streets were already lighted for the evening when Mademoiselle -Vallé presented herself at the massive front door and asked for Lord -Coombe. The expression of her face, and a certain intensity of manner, -caused the serious-looking head servant, who wore no livery, to come -forward instead of leaving her to the footmen. - -“His lordship engaged with—a business person—and must not be -disturbed,” he said. “He is also going out.” - -“He will see me,” replied Mademoiselle Vallé. “If you give him this -card he will see me.” - -She was a plainly dressed woman, but she had a manner which removed her -entirely from the class of those who merely came to importune. There -was absolute certainty in the eyes she fixed with steadiness on the -man’s face. He took her card, though he hesitated. - -“If he does not see me,” she added, “he will be very much displeased.” - -“Will you come in, ma’am, and take a seat for a moment?” he ventured. -“I will inquire.” - -The great hall was one of London’s most celebrated. A magnificent -staircase swept up from it to landings whose walls were hung with -tapestries the world knew. In a gilded chair, like a throne, -Mademoiselle Vallé sat and waited. - -But she did not wait long. The serious-looking man without livery -returned almost immediately. He led Mademoiselle into a room like a -sort of study or apartment given up to business matters. Mademoiselle -Vallé had never seen Lord Coombe’s ceremonial evening effect more -flawless. Tall, thin and finely straight, he waited in the centre of -the room. He was evidently on the point of going out, and the -light-textured satin-lined overcoat he had already thrown on revealed, -through a suggestion of being winged, that he wore in his lapel a -delicately fresh, cream-coloured carnation. - -A respectable, middle-class looking man with a steady, blunt-featured -face, had been talking to him and stepped quietly aside as Mademoiselle -entered. There seemed to be no question of his leaving the room. - -Coombe met his visitor half way: - -“Something has alarmed you very much?” he said. - -“Robin went out with Fräulein Hirsch this afternoon,” she said quickly. -“They went to Kensington Gardens. They have not come back—and it is -nine o’clock. They are always at home by six.” - -“Will you sit down,” he said. The man with the steady face was -listening intently, and she realized he was doing so and that, somehow, -it was well that he should. - -“I do not think there is time for any one to sit down,” she said, -speaking more quickly than before. “It is not only that she has not -come back. Fräulein Hirsch has presented her to one of her old -employers—a Lady Etynge. Robin was delighted with her. She has a -daughter who is in France—,” - -“Marguerite staying with her aunt in Paris,” suddenly put in the voice -of the blunt-featured man from his side of the room. - -“Hélène at a Covent in Tours,” corrected Mademoiselle, turning a paling -countenance towards him and then upon Coombe. “Lady Etynge spoke of -wanting to engage some nice girl as a companion to her daughter, who is -coming home. Robin thought she might have the good fortune to please -her. She was to go to Lady Etynge’s house to tea sine afternoon and be -shown the rooms prepared for Hélène. She thought the mother charming.” - -“Did she mention the address?” Coombe asked at once. - -“The house was in Berford Place—a large house at a corner. She chanced -to see Lady Etynge go into it one day or we should not have known. She -did not notice the number. Fräulein Hirsch thought it was 97A. I have -looked through the Blue Book, Lord Coombe—through the Peerage—through -the Directory! There is no Lady Etynge and there is no 97A in Berford -Place! That is why I came here.” - -The man who had stood aside, stepped forward again. It was as if he -answered some sign, though Lord Coombe at the moment crossed the hearth -and rang the bell. - -“Scotland Yard knows that, ma’am,” said the man. “We’ve had our eyes on -that house for two weeks, and this kind of thing is what we want.” - -“The double brougham,” was Coombe’s order to the servant who answered -his ring. Then he came back to Mademoiselle. - -“Mr. Barkstow is a detective,” he said. “Among the other things he has -done for me, he has, for some time, kept a casual eye on Robin. She is -too lovely a child and too friendless to be quite safe. There are -blackguards who know when a girl has not the usual family protection. -He came here to tell me that she had been seen sitting in Kensington -Gardens with a woman Scotland Yard has reason to suspect.” - -“A black ’un!” said Barkstow savagely. “If she’s the one we think she -is—a black, poisonous, sly one with a face that no girl could suspect.” - -Coombe’s still countenance was so deadly in the slow lividness, which -Mademoiselle saw began to manifest itself, that she caught his sleeve -with a shaking hand. - -“She’s nothing but a baby!” she said. “She doesn’t know what a baby she -is. I can see her eyes frantic with terror! She’d go mad.” - -“Good God!” he said, in a voice so low it scarcely audible. - -He almost dragged her out of the room, though, as they passed through -the hall, the servants only saw that he had given the lady his arm—and -two of the younger footmen exchanged glances with each other which -referred solely to the inimitableness of the cut of his evening -overcoat. - -When they entered the carriage, Barkstow entered with them and -Mademoiselle Vallé leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her -face clutched in her hands. She was trying to shut out from her mental -vision a memory of Robin’s eyes. - -“If—if Fräulein Hirsch is—not true,” she broke out once. “Count von -Hillern is concerned. It has come upon me like a flash. Why did I not -see before?” - -The party at the big house, where the red carpet was rolled across the -pavement, was at full height when they drove into the Place. Their -brougham did not stop at the corner but at the end of the line of -waiting carriages. - -Coombe got out and looked up and down the thoroughfare. - -“It must be done quietly. There must be no scandal,” he said. “The -policeman on the beat is an enormous fellow. You will attend to him, -Barkstow,” and Barkstow nodded and strolled away. - -Coombe walked up the Place and down on the opposite side until he was -within a few yards of the corner house. When he reached this point, he -suddenly quickened his footsteps because he saw that someone else was -approaching it with an air of intention. It was a man, not quite as -tall as himself but of heavier build and with square held shoulders. As -the man set his foot upon the step, Coombe touched him on the arm and -said something in German. - -The man started angrily and then suddenly stood quite still and erect. - -“It will be better for us to walk up the Place together,” Lord Coombe -said, with perfect politeness. - -If he could have been dashed down upon the pavement and his head -hammered in with the handle of a sword, or if he could have been run -through furiously again and again, either or both of these things would -have been done. But neither was possible. It also was not possible to -curse aloud in a fashionable London street. Such curses as one uttered -must be held in one’s foaming mouth between one’s teeth. Count von -Hillern knew this better than most men would have known it. Here was -one of those English swine with whom Germany would deal in her own way -later. - -They walked back together as if they were acquaintances taking a casual -stroll. - -“There is nothing which would so infuriate your—Master—as a disgraceful -scandal,” Lord Coombe’s highbred voice suggested undisturbedly. “The -high honour of a German officer—the knightly bearing of a wearer of the -uniform of the All Highest—that sort of thing you know. All that sort -of thing!” - -Von Hillern ground out some low spoken and quite awful German words. If -he had not been trapped—if he had been in some quiet by-street! - -“The man walking ahead of us is a detective from Scotland Yard. The -particularly heavy and rather martial tread behind us is that of a -policeman much more muscular than either of us. There is a ball going -on in the large house with the red carpet spread across the pavement. I -know the people who are giving it. There are a good many coachmen and -footmen about. Most of them would probably recognize me.” - -It became necessary for Count von Hillern actually to wipe away certain -flecks of foam from his lips, as he ground forth again more varied and -awful sentiments in his native tongue. - -“You are going back to Berlin,” said Coombe, coldly. “If we English -were not such fools, you would not be here. You are, of course, not -going into that house.” - -Von Hillern burst into a derisive laugh. - -“You are going yourself,” he said. “You are a worn-out old _roue_, but -you are mad about her yourself in your senile way.” - -“You should respect my age and decrepitude,” answered Coombe. “A -certain pity for my gray hairs would become your youth. Shall we turn -here or will you return to your hotel by some other way?” He felt as if -the man might a burst a blood vessel if he were obliged to further -restrain himself. - -Von Hillern wheeled at the corner and confronted him. - -“There will come a day—” he almost choked. - -“_Der Tag?_ Naturally,” the chill of Coombe’s voice was a sound to -drive this particular man at this particular, damnably-thwarted moment, -raving mad. And not to be able to go mad! Not to be able! - -“Swine of a doddering Englishman! Who would envy you—trembling on your -lean shanks—whatsoever you can buy for yourself. I spit on you—spit!” - -“Don’t,” said Coombe. “You are sputtering to such an extent that you -really _are_, you know.” - -Von Hillern whirled round the corner. - -Coombe, left alone, stood still a moment. - -“I was in time,” he said to himself, feeling somewhat nauseated. “By -extraordinary luck, I was in time. In earlier days one would have said -something about ‘Provadence’.” And he at once walked back. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -It was not utterly dark in the room, though Robin, after passing her -hands carefully over the walls, had found no electric buttons within -reach nor any signs of candles or matches elsewhere. The night sky was -clear and brilliant with many stars, and this gave her an unshadowed -and lighted space to look at. She went to the window and sat down on -the floor, huddled against the wall with her hands clasped round her -knees, looking up. She did this in the effort to hold in check a rising -tide of frenzy which threatened her. Perhaps, if she could fix her eyes -on the vault full of stars, she could keep herself from going out of -her mind. Though, perhaps, it would be better if she _did_ go out of -her mind, she found herself thinking a few seconds later. - -After her first entire acceptance of the hideous thing which had -happened to her, she had passed through nerve breaking phases of -terror-stricken imaginings. The old story of the drowning man across -whose brain rush all the images of life, came back to her. She did not -know where or when or how she had ever heard or read of the ghastly -incidents which came trooping up to her and staring at her with dead or -mad eyes and awful faces. Perhaps they were old nightmares—perhaps a -kind of delirium had seized her. She tried to stop their coming by -saying over and over again the prayers Dowie had taught her when she -was a child. And then she thought, with a sob which choked her, that -perhaps they were only prayers for a safe little creature kneeling by a -white bed—and did not apply to a girl locked up in a top room, which -nobody knew about. Only when she thought of Mademoiselle Vallé and -Dowie looking for her—with all London spread out before their -helplessness—did she cry. After that, tears seemed impossible. The -images trooped by too close to her. The passion hidden within her -being—which had broken out when she tore the earth under the shrubbery, -and which, with torture staring her in the face, had leaped in the -child’s soul and body and made her defy Andrews with shrieks—leaped up -within her now. She became a young Fury, to whom a mad fight with -monstrous death was nothing. She told herself that she was strong for a -girl—that she could tear with her nails, she could clench her teeth in -a flesh, she could shriek, she could battle like a young madwoman so -that they would be _forced_ to kill her. This was one of the images -which rose up before her again and yet again, A hideous—hideous thing, -which would not remain away. - -She had not had any food since the afternoon cup of tea and she began -to feel the need of it. If she became faint—! She lifted her face -desperately as she said it, and saw the immense blue darkness, powdered -with millions of stars and curving over her—as it curved over the -hideous house and all the rest of the world. How high—how immense—how -fathomlessly still it was—how it seemed as if there could be nothing -else—that nothing else could be real! Her hands were clenched together -hard and fiercely, as she scrambled to her knees and uttered a of -prayer—not a child’s—rather the cry of a young Fury making a demand. - -“Perhaps a girl is Nothing,” she cried, “—a girl locked up in a room! -But, perhaps, she is Something—she may be real too! Save me—save me! -But if you won’t save me, let me be killed!” - -She knelt silent after it for a few minutes and then she sank down and -lay on the floor with her face on her arm. - -How it was possible that even young and worn-out as she was, such peace -as sleep could overcome her at such a time, one cannot say. But in the -midst of her torment she was asleep. - -But it was not for long. She wakened with a start and sprang to her -feet shivering. The carriages were still coming and going with guests -for the big house opposite. It could not be late, though she seemed to -have been in the place for years—long enough to feel that it was the -hideous centre of the whole earth and all sane and honest memories were -a dream. She thought she would begin to walk up and down the room. - -But a sound she heard at this very instant made her stand stock still. -She had known there would be a sound at last—she had waited for it all -the time—she had known, of course, that it would come, but she had not -even tried to guess whether she would hear it early or late. It would -be the sound of the turning of the handle of the locked door. It had -come. There it was! The click of the lock first and then the creak of -the turned handle! - -She went to the window again and stood with her back against it, so -that her body was outlined against the faint light. Would the person -come in the dark, or would he carry a light? Something began to whirl -in her brain. What was the low, pumping thump she seemed to hear and -feel at the same time? It was the awful thumping of her heart. - -The door opened—not stealthily, but quite in the ordinary way. The -person who came in did not move stealthily either. He came in as though -he were making an evening call. How tall and straight his body was, -with a devilish elegance of line against the background of light in the -hall. She thought she saw a white flower on his lapel as his overcoat -fell back. The leering footman had opened the door for him. - -“Turn on the lights.” A voice she knew gave the order, the leering -footman obeyed, touching a spot high on the wall. - -She had vaguely and sickeningly felt almost sure that it would be -either Count von Hillern or Lord Coombe—and it was not Count von -Hillern! The cold wicked face—the ironic eyes which made her creep—the -absurd, elderly perfection of dress—even the flawless flower—made her -flash quake with repulsion. If Satan came into the room, he might look -like that and make one’s revolting being quake so. - -“I thought—it might be you,” the strange girl’s voice said to him -aloud. - -“Robin,” he said. - -He was moving towards her and, as she threw out her madly clenched -little hands, he stopped and drew back. - -“Why did you think I might come?” he asked. - -“Because you are the kind of a man who would do the things only devils -would do. I have hated—hated—hated you since I was a baby. Come and -kill me if you like. Call the footman back to help you, if yon like. I -can’t get away. Kill me—kill me—kill me!” - -She was lost in her frenzy and looked as if she were mad. - -One moment he hesitated, and then he pointed politely to the sofa. - -“Go and sit down, please,” he suggested. It was no more then a -courteous suggestion. “I shall remain here. I have no desire to -approach you—if you’ll pardon my saying so.” - -But she would not leave the window. - -“It is natural that you should be overwrought,” he said. - -“This is a damnable thing. You are too young to know the worst of it.” - -“You are the worst of it!” she cried. “You.” - -“No” as the chill of his even voice struck her, she wondered if he were -really human. “Von Hillern would have been the worst of it. I stopped -him at the front door and knew how to send him away. Now, listen, my -good child. Hate me as ferociously as you like. That is a detail. You -are in the house of a woman whose name stands for shame and infamy and -crime.” - -“What are _you_ doing in it—” she cried again, “—in a place where girls -are trapped—and locked up in top rooms—to be killed?” - -“I came to take you away. I wish to do it quietly. It would be rather -horrible if the public discovered that you have spent some hours here. -If I had not slipped in when they were expecting von Hillern, and if -the servants were not accustomed to the quiet entrance of well dressed -men, I could not have got in without an open row and the calling of the -policemen,—which I wished to avoid. Also, the woman downstairs knows me -and realized that I was not lying when I said the house was surrounded -and she was on the point of being ‘run in’. She is a woman of broad -experience, and at once knew that she might as well keep quiet.” - -Despite his cold eyes and the bad smile she hated, despite his almost -dandified meticulous attire and the festal note of his white flower, -which she hated with the rest—he was, perhaps, not lying to her. -Perhaps for the sake of her mother he had chosen to save her—and, being -the man he was, he had been able to make use of his past experiences. - -She began to creep away from the window, and she felt her legs, all at -once, shaking under her. By the time she reached the Chesterfield sofa -she fell down by it and began to cry. A sort of hysteria seized her, -and she shook from head to foot and clutched at the upholstery with -weak hands which clawed. She was, indeed, an awful, piteous sight. He -was perhaps not lying, but she was afraid of him yet. - -“I told the men who are waiting outside that if I did not bring you out -in half an hour, they were to break into the house. I do not wish them -to break in. We have not any time to spare. What you are doing is quite -natural, but you must try and get up.” He stood by her and said this -looking down at her slender, wrung body and lovely groveling head. - -He took a flask out of his overcoat pocket—and it was a gem of -goldsmith’s art. He poured some wine into its cup and bent forward to -hold it out to her. - -“Drink this and try to stand on your feet,” he said. He knew better -than to try to help her to rise—to touch her in any way. Seeing to what -the past hours had reduced her, he knew better. There was mad fear in -her eyes when she lifted her head and threw out her hand again. - -“No! No!” she cried out. “No, I will drink nothing!” He understood at -once and threw the wine into the grate. - -“I see,” he said. “You might think it might be drugged. You are right. -It might be. I ought to have thought of that.” He returned the flask to -his pocket. “Listen again. You must. The time will soon be up and we -must not let those fellows break in and make a row that will collect a -crowd We must go at once. Mademoiselle Vallé is waiting for you in my -carriage outside. You will not be afraid to drink wine she gives you.” - -“Mademoiselle!” she stammered. - -“Yes. In my carriage, which is not fifty yards from the house. Can you -stand on your feet?” She got up and stood but she was still shuddering -all over. - -“Can you walk downstairs? If you cannot, will you let me carry you? I -am strong enough—in spite of my years.” - -“I can walk,” she whispered. - -“Will you take my arm?” - -She looked at him for a moment with awful, broken-spirited eyes. - -“Yes. I will take your arm.” - -He offered it to her with rigid punctiliousness of manner. He did not -even look at her. He led her out of the room and down the three flights -of stairs. As they passed by the open drawing-room door, the lovely -woman who had called herself Lady Etynge stood near it and watched them -with eyes no longer gentle. - -“I have something to say to you, Madam,” he said; “When I place this -young lady in the hands of her governess, I will come back and say it.” - -“Is her governess Fräulein Hirsch?” asked the woman lightly. - -“No. She is doubtless on her way back to Berlin—and von Hillern will -follow her.” - -There was only the first floor flight of stairs now. Robin could -scarcely see her way. But Lord Coombe held her up firmly and, in a few -moments more, the leering footman, grown pale, opened the large door, -they crossed the pavement to the carriage, and she was helped in and -fell, almost insensible, across Mademoiselle Vallé’s lap, and was -caught in a strong arm which shook as she did. - -“_Ma chèrie_,” she heard, “The Good God! Oh, the good—good God!—And -Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!” - -Coombe had gone back to the house. Four men returned with him, two in -plain clothes and two heavily-built policemen. They remained below, but -Coombe went up the staircase with the swift lightness of a man of -thirty. - -He merely stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room. This was what -he said, and his face was entirely white his eyes appalling. - -“My coming back to speak to you is—superfluous—and the result of pure -fury. I allow it to myself as mere shameless indulgence. More is known -against you than this—things which have gone farther and fared worse. -You are not young and you are facing years of life in prison. Your head -will be shaved—your hands worn and blackened and your nails broken with -the picking of oakum. You will writhe in hopeless degradation until you -are done for. You will have time, in the night blackness if of your -cell, to remember—to see faces—to hear cries. Women such as you should -learn what hell on earth means. You will learn.” - -When he ended, the woman hung with her back to the wall she had -staggered against, her mouth opening and shutting helplessly but -letting forth no sound. - -He took out an exquisitely fresh handkerchief and touched his forehead -because it was damp. His eyes were still appalling, but his voice -suddenly dropped and changed. - -“I have allowed myself to feel like a madman,” he said. “It has been a -rich experience—good for such a soul as I own.” - -He went downstairs and walked home because his carriage had taken Robin -and Mademoiselle back to the slice of a house. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -Von Hillern made no further calls on Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. His return to -Berlin was immediate and Fräulein Hirsch came no more to give lessons -in German. Later, Coombe learned from the man with the steady, -blunt-featured face, that she had crossed the Channel on a night boat -not many hours after Von Hillern had walked away from Berford Place. -The exact truth was that she had been miserably prowling about the -adjacent streets, held in the neighbourhood by some self-torturing -morbidness, half thwarted helpless passion, half triumphing hatred of -the young thing she had betrayed. Up and down the streets she had gone, -round and round, wringing her lean fingers together and tasting on her -lips the salt of tears which rolled down her cheeks—tears of torment -and rage. - -There was the bitterness of death in what, by a mere trick of chance, -came about. As she turned a corner telling herself for the hundredth -time that she must go home, she found herself face to face with a -splendid figure swinging furiously along. She staggered at the sight of -the tigerish rage in the white face she recognized with a gasp. It was -enough merely to behold it. He had met with some disastrous -humiliation! - -As for him, the direct intervention of that Heaven whose special care -he was, had sent him a woman to punish—which, so far, was at least one -thing arranged as it should be. He knew so well how he could punish her -with his mere contempt and displeasure—as he could lash a spaniel -crawling at his feet. He need not deign to tell her what had happened, -and he did not. He merely drew back and stood in stiff magnificence -looking down at her. - -“It is through some folly of yours,” he dropped in a voice of vitriol. -“Women are always foolish. They cannot hold their tongues or think -clearly. Return to Berlin at once. You are not of those whose conduct I -can commend to be trusted in the future.” - -He was gone before she could have spoken even if she had dared. Sobbing -gasps caught her breath as she stood and watched him striding -pitilessly and superbly away with, what seemed to her abject soul, the -swing and tread of a martial god. Her streaming tears tasted salt -indeed. She might never see him again—even from a distance. She would -be disgraced and flung aside as a blundering woman. She had obeyed his -every word and done her straining best, as she had licked the dust at -his feet—but he would never cast a glance at her in the future or utter -to her the remotest word of his high commands. She so reeled as she -went her wretched way that a good-natured policeman said to her as he -passed, - -“Steady on, my girl. Best get home and go to bed.” - -To Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was stated by Coombe that Fräulein Hirsch -had been called back to Germany by family complications. That august -orders should recall Count Von Hillern, was easily understood. Such -magnificent persons never shone upon society for any length of time. - -That Feather had been making a country home visit when her daughter had -faced tragedy was considered by Lord Coombe as a fortunate thing. - -“We will not alarm Mrs. Gareth-Lawless by telling her what has -occurred,” he said to Mademoiselle Vallé. “What we most desire is that -no one shall suspect that the hideous thing took place. A person who -was forgetful or careless might, unintentionally, let some word escape -which—” - -What he meant, and what Mademoiselle Vallé knew he meant—also what he -knew she knew he meant—was that a woman, who was a heartless fool, -without sympathy or perception, would not have the delicacy to feel -that the girl must be shielded, and might actually see a sort of -ghastly joke in a story of Mademoiselle Vallé’s sacrosanct charge -simply walking out of her enshrining arms into such a “galere” as the -most rackety and adventurous of pupils could scarcely have been led -into. Such a point of view would have been quite possible for -Feather—even probable, in the slightly spiteful attitude of her light -mind. - -“She was away from home. Only you and I and Dowie know,” answered -Mademoiselle. - -“Let us remain the only persons who know,” said Coombe. “Robin will say -nothing.” - -They both knew that. She had been feverish and ill for several days and -Dowie had kept her in bed saying that she had caught cold. Neither of -the two women had felt it possible to talk to her. She had lain staring -with a deadly quiet fixedness straight before her, saying next to -nothing. Now and then she shuddered, and once she broke into a mad, -heart-broken fit of crying which she seemed unable to control. - -“Everything is changed,” she said to Dowie and Mademoiselle who sat on -either side of her bed, sometimes pressing her head down onto a kind -shoulder, sometimes holding her hand and patting it. “I shall be afraid -of everybody forever. People who have sweet faces and kind voices will -make me shake all over. Oh! She seemed so kind—so kind!” - -It was Dowie whose warm shoulder her face hidden on this time, and -Dowie was choked with sobs she dared not let loose. She could only -squeeze hard and kiss the “silk curls all in a heap”—poor, tumbled -curls, no longer a child’s! - -“Aye, my lamb!” she managed to say. “Dowie’s poor pet lamb!” - -“It’s the knowing that kind eyes—kind ones—!” she broke off, panting. -“It’s the _knowing!_ I didn’t know before! I knew nothing. Now, it’s -all over. I’m afraid of all the world!” - -“Not all, _chèrie_,” breathed Mademoiselle. - -She sat upright against her pillows. The mirror on a dressing table -reflected her image—her blooming tear-wet youth, framed in the -wonderful hair falling a shadow about her. She stared at the reflection -hard and questioningly. - -“I suppose,” her voice was pathos itself in its helplessness, “it is -because what you once told me about being pretty, is true. A girl who -looks like _that_,” pointing her finger at the glass, “need not think -she can earn her own living. I loathe it,” in fierce resentment at some -bitter injustice. “It is like being a person under a curse!” - -At this Dowie broke down openly and let her tears run fast. “No, no! -You mustn’t say it or think it, my dearie!” she wept. “It might call -down a blight on it. You a young thing like a garden flower! And -someone—somewhere—God bless him—that some day’ll glory in it—and you’ll -glory too. Somewhere he is—somewhere!” - -“Let none of them look at me!” cried Robin. “I loathe them, too. I hate -everything—and everybody—but you two—just you two.” - -Mademoiselle took her in her arms this time when she sobbed again. -Mademoiselle knew how at this hour it seemed to her that all her world -was laid bare forever more. When the worst of the weeping was over and -she lay quiet, but for the deep catching breaths which lifted her -breast in slow, childish shudders at intervals, she held Mademoiselle -Vallé’s hand and looked at her with a faint, wry smile. - -“You were too kind to tell me what a stupid little fool I was when I -talked to you about taking a place in an office!” she said. “I know now -that you would not have allowed me to do the things I was so sure I -could do. It was only my ignorance and conceit. I can’t answer -advertisements. Any bad person can say what they choose in an -advertisement. If that woman had advertised, she would have described -Hélène. And there was no Hélène.” One of the shuddering catches of her -breath broke in here. After it, she said, with a pitiful girlishness of -regret: “I—I could _see_ Hélène. I have known so few people well enough -to love them. No girls at all. I though—perhaps—we should begin to -_love_ each other. I can’t bear to think of that—that she never was -alive at all. It leaves a sort of empty place.” - -When she had sufficiently recovered herself to be up again, -Mademoiselle Vallé said to her that she wished her to express her -gratitude to Lord Coombe. - -“I will if you wish it,” she answered. - -“Don’t you feel that it is proper that you should do it? Do you not -wish it yourself?” inquired Mademoiselle. Robin looked down at the -carpet for some seconds. - -“I know,” she at last admitted, “that it is proper. But I don’t wish to -do it.” - -“No?” said Mademoiselle Vallé. - -Robin raised her eyes from the carpet and fixed them on her. - -“It is because of—reasons,” she said. “It is part of the horror I want -to forget. Even you mayn’t know what it has done to me. Perhaps I am -turning into a girl with a bad mind. Bad thoughts keep swooping down on -me—like great black ravens. Lord Coombe saved me, but I think hideous -things about him. I heard Andrews say he was bad when I was too little -to know what it meant. Now, I _know_, I remember that _he_ knew because -he chose to know—of his own free will. He knew that woman and she knew -him. _How_ did he know her?” She took a forward step which brought her -nearer to Mademoiselle. “I never told you but I will tell you now,” she -confessed, “When the door opened and I saw him standing against the -light I—I did not think he had come to save me.” - -“_Mon Dieu!_” breathed Mademoiselle in soft horror. - -“He knows I am pretty. He is an old man but he knows. Fräulein Hirsch -once made me feel actually sick by telling me, in her meek, sly, -careful way, that he liked beautiful girls and the people said he -wanted a young wife and had his eye on me. I was rude to her because it -made me so furious. _How_ did he know that woman so well? You see how -bad I have been made!” - -“He knows nearly all Europe. He has seen the dark corners as well as -the bright places. Perhaps he has saved other girls from her. He -brought her to punishment, and was able to do it because he has been on -her track for some time. You are not bad—but unjust. You have had too -great a shock to be able to reason sanely just yet.” - -“I think he will always make me creep a little,” said Robin, “but I -will say anything you think I ought to say.” - -On an occasion when Feather had gone again to make a visit in the -country, Mademoiselle came into the sitting room with the round window -in which plants grew, and Coombe followed her. Robin looked up from her -book with a little start and then stood up. - -“I have told Lord Coombe that you wish—that I wish you to thank him,” -Mademoiselle Vallé said. - -“I came on my own part to tell you that any expression of gratitude is -entirely unnecessary,” said Coombe. - -“I _must_ be grateful. I _am_ grateful.” Robin’s colour slowly faded as -she said it. This was the first time she had seen him since he had -supported her down the staircase which mounted to a place of hell. - -“There is nothing to which I should object so much as being regarded as -a benefactor,” he answered definitely, but with entire lack of warmth. -“The role does not suit me. Being an extremely bad man,” he said it as -one who speaks wholly without prejudice, “my experience is wide. I -chance to know things. The woman who called herself Lady Etynge is of a -class which—which does not count me among its clients. I had put -certain authorities on her track—which was how I discovered your -whereabouts when Mademoiselle Vallé told me that you had gone to take -tea with her. Mere chance you see. Don’t be grateful to me, I beg of -you, but to Mademoiselle Vallé.” - -“Why,” faltered Robin, vaguely repelled as much as ever, “did it matter -to you?” - -“Because,” he answered—Oh, the cold inhumanness of his gray eye!—“you -happened to live in—this house.” - -“I thought that was perhaps the reason,” she said—and she felt that he -made her “creep” even a shade more. - -“I beg your pardon,” she added, suddenly remembering, “Please sit -down.” - -“Thank you,” as he sat. “I will because I have something more to say to -you.” - -Robin and Mademoiselle seated themselves also and listened. - -“There are many hideous aspects of existence which are not considered -necessary portions of a girl’s education,” he began. - -“They ought to be,” put in Robin, and her voice was as hard as it was -young. - -It was a long and penetrating look he gave her. - -“I am not an instructor of Youth. I have not been called upon to -decide. I do not feel it my duty to go even now into detail.” - -“You need not,” broke in the hard young voice. “I know everything in -the world. I’m BLACK with knowing.” - -“Mademoiselle will discuss that point with you. What you have, -unfortunately, been forced to learn is that it is not safe for a -girl—even a girl without beauty—to act independently of older people, -unless she has found out how to guard herself against—devils.” The -words broke from him sharply, with a sudden incongruous hint of -ferocity which was almost startling. “You have been frightened,” he -said next, “and you have discovered that there are devils, but you have -not sufficient experience to guard yourself against them.” - -“I have been so frightened that I shall be a coward—a coward all my -life. I shall be afraid of every face I see—the more to be trusted they -look, the more I shall fear them. I hate every one in the world!” - -Her quite wonderful eyes—so they struck Lord Coombe—flamed with a -child’s outraged anguish. A thunder shower of tears broke and rushed -down her cheeks, and he rose and, walking quietly to the window full of -flowers, stood with his back to her for a few moments. She neither -cared nor knew whether it was because her hysteric emotion bored or -annoyed him, or because he had the taste to realize that she would not -wish to be looked at. Unhappy youth can feel no law but its own. - -But all was over during the few moments, and he turned and walked back -to his chair. - -“You want very much to do some work which will insure your entire -independence—to take some situation which will support you without aid -from others? You are not yet prepared to go out and take the first -place which offers. You have been—as you say—too hideously frightened, -and you know there are dangers in wandering about unguided. -Mademoiselle Vallé,” turning his head, “perhaps you will tell her what -you know of the Duchess of Darte?” - -Upon which, Mademoiselle Vallé took hold of her hand and entered into a -careful explanation. - -“She is a great personage of whom there can be no doubt. She was a lady -of the Court. She is of advanced years and an invalid and has a liking -for those who are pretty and young. She desires a companion who is well -educated and young and fresh of mind. The companion who had been with -her for many years recently died. If you took her place you would live -with her in her town house and go with her to the country after the -season. Your salary would be liberal and no position could be more -protected and dignified. I have seen and talked to her grace myself, -and she will allow me to take you to her, if you desire to go.” - -“Do not permit the fact that she has known me for many years to -prejudice you against the proposal,” said Coombe. “You might perhaps -regard it rather as a sort of guarantee of my conduct in the matter. -She knows the worst of me and still allows me to retain her -acquaintance. She was brilliant and full of charm when she was a young -woman, and she is even more so now because she is—of a rarity! If I -were a girl and might earn my living in her service, I should feel that -fortune had been good to me—good.” - -Robin’s eyes turned from one of them to the other—from Coombe to -Mademoiselle Vallé, and from Mademoiselle to Coombe pathetically. - -“You—you see—what has been done to me,” she said. “A few weeks ago I -should have _known_ that God was providing for me—taking care of me. -And now—I am still afraid. I feel as if she would see that—that I am -not young and fresh any more but black with evil. I am afraid of her—I -am afraid of you,” to Coombe, “and of myself.” - -Coombe rose, evidently to go away. - -“But you are not afraid of Mademoiselle Vallé,” he put it to her. “She -will provide the necessary references for the Duchess. I will leave her -to help you to decide.” - -Robin rose also. She wondered if she ought not to hold out her hand. -Perhaps he saw her slight movement. He himself made none. - -“I remember you objected to shaking hands as a child,” he said, with an -impersonal civil smile, and the easy punctiliousness of his bow made it -impossible for her to go further. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - -Some days before this the Duchess of Darte had driven out in the -morning to make some purchases and as she had sat in her large landau -she had greatly missed Miss Brent who had always gone with her when she -had made necessary visits to the shops. She was not fond of shopping -and Miss Brent had privately found pleasure in it which had made her a -cheerful companion. To the quiet elderly woman whose life previous to -her service with this great lady had been spent in struggles with -poverty, the mere incident of entering shops and finding eager salesmen -springing forward to meet her with bows and amiable offers of -ministration, was to the end of her days an almost thrilling thing. The -Duchess bought splendidly though quietly. Knowing always what she -wanted, she merely required that it be produced, and after silently -examining it gave orders that it should be sent to her. There was a -dignity in her decision which was impressive. She never gave trouble or -hesitated. The staffs of employees in the large shops knew and reveled -in her while they figuratively bent the knee. Miss Brent had been a -happy satisfied woman while she had lived. She had died peacefully -after a brief and, as it seemed at first, unalarming illness at one of -her employer’s country houses to which she had been amiably sent down -for a holiday. Every kindness and attention had been bestowed upon her -and only a few moments before she fell into her last sleep she had been -talking pleasantly of her mistress. - -“She is a very great lady, Miss Hallam,” she had said to her nurse. -“She’s the last of her kind I often think. Very great ladies seem to -have gone out—if you know what I mean. They’ve gone out.” - -The Duchess had in fact said of Brent as she stood a few days later -beside her coffin and looked down at her contentedly serene face, -something not unlike what Brent had said of herself. - -“You were a good friend, Brent, my dear,” she murmured. “I shall always -miss you. I am afraid there are no more like you left.” - -She was thinking of her all the morning as she drove slowly down to -Bond Street and Piccadilly. As she got out of her carriage to go into a -shop she was attracted by some photographs of beauties in a window and -paused to glance at them. Many of them were beauties whom she knew, but -among them were some of society’s latest discoveries. The particular -photographs which caught her eye were two which had evidently been -purposely placed side by side for an interesting reason. The reason was -that the two women, while obviously belonging to periods of some twenty -years apart as the fashion of their dress proved, were in face and form -so singularly alike that they bewilderingly suggested that they were -the same person. Both were exquisitely nymphlike, fair and large eyed -and both had the fine light hair which is capable of forming itself -into a halo. The Duchess stood and looked at them for the moment -spell-bound. She slightly caught her breath. She was borne back so -swiftly and so far. Her errand in the next door shop was forgotten. She -went into the one which displayed the photographs. - -“I wish to look at the two photographs which are so much alike,” she -said to the man behind the counter. - -He knew her as most people did and brought forth the photographs at -once. - -“Many people are interested in them, your grace,” he said. “It was the -amazing likeness which made me put them beside each other.” - -“Yes,” she answered. “It is almost incredible.” She looked up from the -beautiful young being dressed in the mode of twenty years past. - -“This is—_was_—?” she corrected herself and paused. The man replied in -a somewhat dropped voice. He evidently had his reasons for feeling it -discreet to do so. - -“Yes—_was_. She died twenty years ago. The young Princess Alixe of X—” -he said. “There was a sad story, your grace no doubt remembers. It was -a good deal talked about.” - -“Yes,” she replied and said no more, but took up the modern picture. It -displayed the same almost floating airiness of type, but in this case -the original wore diaphanous wisps of spangled tulle threatening to -take wings and fly away leaving the girl slimness of arms and shoulders -bereft of any covering whatsoever. - -“This one is—?” she questioned. - -“A Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. A widow with a daughter though she looks in her -teens. She’s older than the Princess was, but she’s kept her beauty as -ladies know how to in these days. It’s wonderful to see them side by -side. But it’s only a few that saw her Highness as she was the season -she came with the Prince to visit at Windsor in Queen Victoria’s day. -Did your grace—” he checked himself feeling that he was perhaps -somewhat exceeding Bond Street limits. - -“Yes. I saw her,” said the Duchess. “If these are for sale I will take -them both.” - -“I’m selling a good many of them. People buy them because the likeness -makes them a sort of curiosity. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is a very modern -lady and she is quite amused.” - -The Duchess took the two photographs home with her and looked at them a -great deal afterwards as she sat in her winged chair. - -They were on her table when Coombe came to drink tea with her in the -afternoon. - -When he saw them he stood still and studied the two faces silently for -several seconds. - -“Did you ever see a likeness so wonderful?” he said at last. - -“Never,” she answered. “Or an unlikeness. That is the most wonderful of -all—the unlikeness. It is the same body inhabited by two souls from -different spheres.” - -His next words were spoken very slowly. - -“I should have been sure you would see that,” he commented. - -“I lost my breath for a second when I saw them side by side in the shop -window—and the next moment I lost it again because I saw—what I speak -of—the utter world wide apartness. It is in their eyes. She—,” she -touched the silver frame enclosing the young Princess, “was a little -saint—a little spirit. There never was a young human thing so -transparently pure.” - -The rigid modeling of his face expressed a thing which, himself -recognizing its presence, he chose to turn aside as he moved towards -the mantel and leaned on it. The same thing caused his voice to sound -hoarse and low as he spoke in answer, saying something she had not -expected him to say. Its unexpectedness in fact produced in her an -effect of shock. - -“And she was the possession of a brute incarnate, mad with unbridled -lust and drink and abnormal furies. She was a child saint, and shook -with terror before him. He killed her.” - -“I believe he did,” she said unsteadily after a breath space of pause. -“Many people believed so though great effort was made to silence the -stories. But there were too many stories and they were so unspeakable -that even those in high places were made furiously indignant. He was -not received here at Court afterwards. His own emperor could not -condone what he did. Public opinion was too strong.” - -“The stories were true,” answered the hoarse low voice. “I myself, by -royal command, was a guest at the Schloss in the Bavarian Alps when it -was known that he struck her repeatedly with a dog whip. She was going -to have a child. One night I was wandering in the park in misery and I -heard shrieks which sent me in mad search. I do not know what I should -have done if I had succeeded, but I tried to force an entrance into the -wing from which the shrieks came. I was met and stopped almost by open -violence. The sounds ceased. She died a week later. But the most -experienced lying could not hide some things. Even royal menials may -have human blood in their veins. It was known that there were hideous -marks on her little dead body.” - -“We heard. We heard,” whispered the Duchess. - -“He killed her. But she would have died of horror if he had not struck -her a blow. She began to die from the hour the marriage was forced upon -her. I saw that when she was with him at Windsor.” - -“You were in attendance on him,” the Duchess said after a little -silence. “That was when I first knew you.” - -“Yes.” She had added the last sentence gravely and his reply was as -grave though his voice was still hoarse. “You were sublime goodness and -wisdom. When a woman through the sheer quality of her silence saves a -man from slipping over the verge of madness he does not forget. While I -was sane I dared scarcely utter her name. If I had gone mad I should -have raved as madmen do. For that reason I was afraid.” - -“I knew. Speech was the greatest danger,” she answered him. “She was a -princess of a royal house—poor little angel—and she had a husband whose -vileness and violence all Europe knew. How _dared_ they give her to -him?” - -“For reasons of their own and because she was too humbly innocent and -obedient to rebel.” - -The Duchess did not ask questions. The sublime goodness of which he had -spoken had revealed its perfection through the fact that in the long -past days she had neither questioned nor commented. She had given her -strong soul’s secret support to him and in his unbearable hours he had -known that when he came to her for refuge, while she understood his -need to the uttermost, she would speak no word even to himself. - -But today though she asked no question her eyes waited upon him as it -were. This was because she saw that for some unknown reason a heavy -veil had rolled back from the past he had chosen to keep hidden even -from himself, as it were, more than from others. - -“Speech is always the most dangerous thing,” he said. “Only the silence -of years piled one upon the other will bury unendurable things. Even -thought must be silenced. I have lived a lifetime since—” his words -began to come very slowly—as she listened she felt as if he were -opening a grave and drawing from its depths long buried things, “—since -the night when I met her alone in a wood in the park of the Schloss -and—lost hold of myself—lost it utterly.” - -The Duchess’ withered hands caught each other in a clasp which was -almost like a passionate exclamation. - -“There was such a night. And I was young—young—not an iron bound -_vieillard_ then. When one is young one’s anguish is the Deluge which -ends the world forever. I had lain down and risen up and spent every -hour in growing torture for months. I had been forced to bind myself -down with bands of iron. When I found myself, without warning, face to -face with her, alone in the night stillness of the wood, the bands -broke. She had dared to creep out in secret to hide herself and her -heartbroken terror in the silence and darkness alone. I knew it without -being told. I knew and I went quite mad for the time. I was only a boy. -I threw myself face downward on the earth and sobbed, embracing her -young feet.” - -Both of them were quite silent for a few moments before he went on. - -“She was not afraid,” he said, even with something which was like a -curious smile of tender pity at the memory. “Afterwards—when I stood -near her, trembling—she even took my hand and held it. Once she kissed -it humbly like a little child while her tears rained down. Never before -was there anything as innocently heartbreaking. She was so piteously -grateful for love of any kind and so heart wrung by my misery.” - -He paused again and looked down at the carpet, thinking. Then he looked -up at her directly. - -“I need not explain to you. You will know. I was twenty-five. My heart -was pounding in my side, my blood thudded through my veins. Every atom -of natural generous manhood in my being was wild with fury at the -brutal wrong done her exquisiteness. And she—” - -“She was a young novice fresh from a convent and very pious,” the -Duchess’ quiet voice put in. - -“You understand,” he answered. “She knelt down and prayed for her own -soul as well as mine. She thanked God that I was kind and would forgive -her and go away—and only remember her in my prayers. She believed it -was possible. It was not, but I kissed the hem of her white dress and -left her standing alone—a little saint in a woodland shrine. That was -what I thought deliriously as I staggered off. It was the next night -that I heard her shrieks. Then she died.” - -The Duchess knew what else had died—the high adventure of youth and joy -of life in him, the brilliant spirit which had been himself and whose -utter withdrawal from his being had left him as she had seen him on his -return to London in those days which now seemed a memory of a past life -in a world which had passed also. He had appeared before her late one -afternoon and she had for a moment been afraid to look at him because -she was struck to the depths of her being by a sense of seeing before -her a body which had broken the link holding it to life and walked the -earth, the crowded streets, the ordinary rooms where people gathered, a -dead thing. Even while it moved it gazed out of dead eyes. And the -years had passed and though they had been friends he had never spoken -until now. - -“Such a thing must be buried in a tomb covered with a heavy stone and -with a seal set upon it. I am unsealing a tomb,” he said. Then after a -silence he added, “I have, of cause, a reason.” She bent her head -because she had known this must be the case. - -“There is a thing I wish you to understand. Every woman could not.” - -“I shall understand.” - -“Because I know you will I need not enter into exact detail. You will -not find what I say abnormal.” - -There had been several pauses during his relation. Once or twice he had -stopped in the middle of a sentence as if for calmer breath or to draw -himself back from a past which had suddenly become again a present of -torment too great to face with modern steadiness. He took breath so to -speak in this manner again. - -“The years pass, the agony of being young passes. One slowly becomes -another man,” he resumed. “I am another man. I could not be called a -creature of sentiment. I have given myself interests in existence—many -of them. But the sealed tomb is under one’s feet. Not to allow oneself -to acknowledge its existence consciously is one’s affair. But—the devil -of chance sometimes chooses to play tricks. Such a trick was played on -me.” - -He glanced down at the two pictures at which she herself was looking -with grave eyes. It was the photograph of Feather he took up and set a -strange questioning gaze upon. - -“When I saw this,” he said, “this—exquisitely smiling at me under a -green tree in a sunny garden—the tomb opened under my feet, and I stood -on the brink of it—twenty-five again.” - -“You cannot possibly put it into words,” the Duchess said. “You need -not. I know.” For he had become for the moment almost livid. Even to -her who so well knew him it was a singular thing to see him hastily set -down the picture and touch his forehead with his handkerchief. - -She knew he was about to tell her his reason for this unsealing of the -tomb. When he sat down at her table he did so. He did not use many -phrases, but in making clear his reasons he also made clear to her -certain facts which most persons would have ironically disbelieved. But -no shadow of a doubt passed through her mind because she had through a -long life dwelt interestedly on the many variations in human type. She -was extraordinarily interested when he ended with the story of Robin. - -“I do not know exactly why ‘it matters to me’—I am quoting her mother,” -he explained, “but it happens that I am determined to stand between the -child and what would otherwise be the inevitable. It is not that she -has the slightest resemblance to—to anyone—which might awaken memory. -It is not that. She and her mother are of totally different types. And -her detestation of me is unconquerable. She believes me to be the worst -of men. When I entered the room into which the woman had trapped her, -she thought that I came as one of the creature’s damnable clients. You -will acknowledge that my position presents difficulties in the way of -explanation to a girl—to most adults in fact. Her childish frenzy of -desire to support herself arises from her loathing of the position of -accepting support from me. I sympathize with her entirely.” - -“Mademoiselle Vallé is an intelligent woman,” the Duchess said as -though thinking the matter out. “Send her to me and we will talk the -matter over. Then she can bring the child.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - -As a result of this, her grace saw Mademoiselle Vallé alone a few -mornings later and talked to her long and quietly. Their comprehension -of each other was complete. Before their interview was at an end the -Duchess’ interest in the adventure she was about to enter into had -become profound. - -“The sooner she is surrounded by a new atmosphere, the better,” was one -of the things the Frenchwoman had said. “The prospect of an arrangement -so perfect and so secure fills me with the profoundest gratitude. It is -absolutely necessary that I return to my parents in Belgium. They are -old and failing in health and need me greatly. I have been sad and -anxious for months because I felt that it would be wickedness to desert -this poor child. I have been torn in two. Now I can be at peace—thank -the good God.” - -“Bring her to me tomorrow if possible,” the Duchess said when they -parted. “I foresee that I may have something to overcome in the fact -that I am Lord Coombe’s old friend, but I hope to be able to overcome -it.” - -“She is a baby—she is of great beauty—she has a passionate little soul -of which she knows nothing.” Mademoiselle Vallé said it with an anxious -reflectiveness. “I have been afraid. If I were her mother——” her eyes -sought those of the older woman. - -“But she has no mother,” her grace answered. Her own eyes were serious. -She knew something of girls, of young things, of the rush and tumult of -young life in them and of the outlet it demanded. A baby who was of -great beauty and of a passionate soul was no trivial undertaking for a -rheumatic old duchess, but—“Bring her to me,” she said. - -So was Robin brought to the tall Early Victorian mansion in the -belatedly stately square. And the chief thought in her mind was that -though mere good manners demanded under the circumstances that she -should come to see the Dowager Duchess of Darte and be seen by her, if -she found that she was like Lord Coombe, she would not be able to -endure the prospect of a future spent in her service howsoever -desirable such service might outwardly appear. This desirableness -Mademoiselle Vallé had made clear to her. She was to be the companion -of a personage of great and mature charm and grace who desired not mere -attendance, but something more, which something included the warmth and -fresh brightness of happy youth and bloom. She would do for her -employer the things a young relative might do. She would have a suite -of rooms of her own and a freedom as to hours and actions which greater -experience on her part would have taught was not the customary portion -meted out to a paid companion. But she knew nothing of paid service and -a preliminary talk of Coombe’s with Mademoiselle Vallé had warned her -against allowing any suspicion that this “earning a living” had been -too obviously ameliorated. - -“Her life is unusual. She herself is unusual in a most dignified and -beautiful way. You will, it might almost be said, hold the position of -a young lady in waiting,” was Mademoiselle’s gracefully put -explanation. - -When, after they had been ushered into the room where her grace sat in -her beautiful and mellow corner by the fire, Robin advanced towards the -highbacked chair, what the old woman was chiefly conscious of was the -eyes which seemed all lustrous iris. There was uncommon appeal and fear -in them. The blackness of their setting of up-curled lashes made them -look babyishly wide. - -“Mademoiselle Vallé has told me of your wish to take a position as -companion,” the Duchess said after they were seated. - -“I want very much,” said Robin, “to support myself and Mademoiselle -thinks that I might fill such a place if I am not considered too -young.” - -“You are not too young—for me. I want something young to come and -befriend me. Am I too old for _you?_” Her smile had been celebrated -fifty years earlier and it had not changed. A smile does not. She was -not like Lord Coombe in any degree however remote. She did not belong -to his world, Robin thought. - -“If I can do well enough the things you require done,” she answered -blushing her Jacqueminot rose blush, “I shall be grateful if you will -let me try to do them. Mademoiselle will tell you that I have no -experience, but that I am one who tries well.” - -“Mademoiselle has answered all my questions concerning your -qualifications so satisfactorily that I need ask you very few.” - -Such questions as she asked were not of the order Robin had expected. -She led her into talk and drew Mademoiselle Vallé into the -conversation. It was talk which included personal views of books, old -gardens and old houses, people, pictures and even—lightly—politics. -Robin found herself quite incidentally, as it were, reading aloud to -her an Italian poem. She ceased to be afraid and was at ease. She -forgot Lord Coombe. The Duchess listening and watching her warmed to -her task of delicate investigation and saw reason for anticipating -agreeably stimulating things. She was not taking upon herself a merely -benevolent duty which might assume weight and become a fatigue. In fact -she might trust Coombe for that. After all it was he who had virtually -educated the child—little as she was aware of the singular fact. It was -he who had dragged her forth from her dog kennel of a top floor nursery -and quaintly incongruous as it seemed, had found her a respectable -woman for a nurse and an intelligent person for a governess and -companion as if he had been a domesticated middle class widower with a -little girl to play mother to. She saw in the situation more than -others would have seen in it, but she saw also the ironic humour of it. -Coombe—with the renowned cut of his overcoat—the perfection of his line -and scarcely to be divined suggestions of hue—Coombe! - -She did not avoid all mention of his name during the interview, but she -spoke of him only casually, and though the salary she offered was an -excellent one, it was not inordinate. Robin could not feel that she was -not being accepted as of the class of young persons who support -themselves self-respectingly, though even the most modest earned income -would have represented wealth to her ignorance. - -Before they parted she had obtained the position so pleasantly -described by Mademoiselle Vallé as being something like that of a young -lady in waiting. “But I am really a companion and I will do -everything—everything I can so that I shall be worth keeping,” she -thought seriously. She felt that she should want to be kept. If Lord -Coombe was a friend of her employer’s it was because the Duchess did -not know what others knew. And her house was not his house—and the -hideous thing she had secretly loathed would be at an end. She would be -supporting herself as decently and honestly as Mademoiselle or Dowie -had supported themselves all their lives. - -With an air of incidentally recalling a fact, the Duchess said after -they had risen to leave her: - -“Mademoiselle Vallé tells me you have an elderly nurse you are very -fond of. She seems to belong to a class of servants almost extinct.” - -“I love her,” Robin faltered—because the sudden reminder brought back a -pang to her. There was a look in her eyes which faltered also. “She -loves me. I don’t know how——” but there she stopped. - -“Such women are very valuable to those who know the meaning of their -type. I myself am always in search of it. My dear Miss Brent was of it, -though of a different class.” - -“But most people do not know,” said Robin. “It seems old-fashioned to -them—and it’s beautiful! Dowie is an angel.” - -“I should like to secure your Dowie for my housekeeper and myself,”—one -of the greatest powers of the celebrated smile was its power to -convince. “A competent person is needed to take charge of the linen. If -we can secure an angel we shall be fortunate.” - -A day or so later she said to Coombe in describing the visit. - -“The child’s face is wonderful. If you could but have seen her eyes -when I said it. It is not the mere beauty of size and shape and colour -which affect one. It is something else. She is a little flame of -feeling.” - -The “something else” was in the sound of her voice as she answered. - -“She will be in the same house with me! Sometimes perhaps I may see her -and talk to her! Oh! how _grateful_ I am!” She might even see and talk -to her as often as she wished, it revealed itself and when she and -Mademoiselle got into their hansom cab to drive away, she caught at the -Frenchwoman’s hand and clung to it, her eyelashes wet, - -“It is as if there _must_ be Goodness which takes care of one,” she -said. “I used to believe in it so—until I was afraid of all the world. -Dowie means most of all. I did not know how I could bear to let her go -away. And since her husband and her daughter died, she has no one but -me. I should have had no one but her if you had gone back to Belgium, -Mademoiselle. And now she will be safe in the same house with me. -Perhaps the Duchess will keep her until she dies. I hope she will keep -me until I die. I will be as good and faithful as Dowie and perhaps the -Duchess will live until I am quite old—and not pretty any more. And I -will make economies as you have made them, Mademoiselle, and save all -my salary—and I might be able to end my days in a little cottage in the -country.” - -Mademoiselle was conscious of an actual physical drag at her -heartstrings. The pulsating glow of her young loveliness had never been -more moving and oh! the sublime certainty of her unconsciousness that -Life lay between this hour and that day when she was “quite old and not -pretty any more” and having made economies could die in a little -cottage in the country! She believed in her vision as she had believed -that Donal would come to her in the garden. - -Upon Feather the revelation that her daughter had elected to join the -ranks of girls who were mysteriously determined to be responsible for -themselves produced a curious combination of effects. It was presented -to her by Lord Coombe in the form of a simple impersonal statement -which had its air of needing no explanation. She heard it with eyes -widening a little and a smile slowly growing. Having heard, she broke -into a laugh, a rather high-pitched treble laugh. - -“Really?” she said. “She is really going to do it? To take a situation! -She wants to be independent and ‘live her own life!’ What a joke—for a -girl of mine!” She was either really amused or chose to seem so. - -“What do _you_ think of it?” she asked when she stopped laughing. Her -eyes had curiosity in them. - -“I like it,” he answered. - -“Of course. I ought to have remembered that you helped her to an Early -Victorian duchess. She’s one without a flaw—the Dowager Duchess of -Darte. The most conscientiously careful mother couldn’t object. It’s -almost like entering into the kingdom of heaven—in a dull way.” She -began to laugh again as if amusing images rose suddenly before her. -“And what does the Duchess think of it?” she said after her laughter -had ceased again. “How does she reconcile herself to the idea of a -companion whose mother she wouldn’t have in her house?” - -“We need not enter into that view of the case. You decided some years -ago that it did not matter to you whether Early Victorian duchesses -included you in their visiting lists or did not. More modern ones do I -believe—quite beautiful and amusing ones.” - -“But for that reason I want this one and those like her. They would -bore me, but I want them. I want them to come to my house and be polite -to me in their stuffy way. I want to be invited to their hideous dinner -parties and see them sitting round their tables in their awful family -jewels ‘talking of the sad deaths of kings.’ That’s Shakespeare, you -know. I heard it last night at the theatre.” - -“Why do you want it?” Coombe inquired. - -“When I ask you why you show your morbid interest in Robin, you say you -don’t know. I don’t know—but I do want it.” - -She suddenly flushed, she even showed her small teeth. For an -extraordinary moment she looked like a little cat. - -“Robin will hare it,” she cried, grinding a delicate fist into the palm -on her knee. “She’s not eighteen and she’s a beauty and she’s taken up -by a perfectly decent old duchess. She’ll have _everything!_ The -Dowager will marry her to someone important. You’ll help,” she turned -on him in a flame of temper. “You are capable of marrying her -yourself!” There was a a brief but entire silence. It was broken by his -saying, - -“She is not capable of marrying _me_.” - -There was brief but entire silence again, and it was he who again broke -it, his manner at once cool and reasonable. - -“It is better not to exhibit this kind of feeling. Let us be quite -frank. There are few things you feel more strongly than that you do not -want your daughter in the house. When she was a child you told me that -you detested the prospect of having her on your hands. She is being -disposed of in the most easily explained and enviable manner.” - -“It’s true—it’s true,” Feather murmured. She began to see advantages -and the look of a little cat died out, or at least modified itself into -that of a little cat upon whom dawned prospects of cream. No mood ever -held her very long. “She won’t come back to stay,” she said. “The -Duchess won’t let her. I can use her rooms and I shall be very glad to -have them. There’s at least some advantage in figuring as a sort of -Dame Aux Camelias.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - - -The night before Robin went away as she sat alone in the dimness of one -light, thinking as girls nearly always sit and think on the eve of a -change, because to youth any change seems to mean the final closing as -well as the opening of ways, the door of her room was opened and an -exquisite and nymphlike figure in pale green stood exactly where the -rays of the reading lamp seemed to concentrate themselves in an effort -to reveal most purely its delicately startling effect. It was her -mother in a dress whose spring-like tint made her a sort of slim dryad. -She looked so pretty and young that Robin caught her breath as she rose -and went forward. - -“It is your aged parent come to give you her blessing,” said Feather. - -“I was wondering if I might come to your room in the morning,” Robin -answered. - -Feather seated herself lightly. She was not intelligent enough to have -any real comprehension of the mood which had impelled her to come. She -had merely given way to a secret sense of resentment of something which -annoyed her. She knew, however, why she had put on the spring-leaf -green dress which made her look like a girl. She was not going to let -Robin feel as if she were receiving a visit from her grandmother. She -had got that far. - -“We don’t know each other at all, do we?” she said. - -“No,” answered Robin. She could not remove her eyes from her -loveliness. She brought up such memories of the Lady Downstairs and the -desolate child in the shabby nursery. - -“Mothers are not as intimate with their daughters as they used to be -when it was a sort of virtuous fashion to superintend their rice -pudding and lecture them about their lessons. We have not seen each -other often.” - -“No,” said Robin. - -Feather’s laugh had again the rather high note Coombe had noticed. - -“You haven’t very much to say, have you?” she commented. “And you stare -at me as if you were trying to explain me. I dare say you know that you -have big eyes and that they’re a good colour, but I may as well hint to -you that men do not like to be stared at as if their deeps were being -searched. Drop your eyelids.” - -Robin’s lids dropped in spite of herself because she was startled, but -immediately she was startled again by a note in her mother’s voice—a -note of added irritation. - -“Don’t make a habit of dropping them too often,” it broke out, “or it -will look as if you did it to show your eyelashes. Girls with tricks of -that sort are always laughed at. Alison Carr _lives_ sideways became -she has a pretty profile.” - -Coombe would have recognized the little cat look, if he had been -watching her as she leaned back in her chair and scrutinized her -daughter. The fact was that she took in her every point, being an -astute censor of other women’s charms. - -“Stand up,” she said. - -Robin stood up because she could not well refuse to do so, but she -coloured because she was suddenly ashamed. - -“You’re not little, but you’re not tall,” her mother said. “That’s -against you. It’s the fashion for women to be immensely tall now. Du -Maurier’s pictures in Punch and his idiotic Trilby did it. Clothes are -made for giantesses. I don’t care about it myself, but a girl’s rather -out of it if she’s much less than six feet high. You can sit down.” - -A more singular interview between mother and daughter had assuredly -rarely taken place. As she looked at the girl her resentment of her -increased each moment. She actually felt as if she were beginning to -lose her temper. - -“You are what pious people call ‘going out into the world’,” she went -on. “In moral books mothers always give advice and warnings to their -girls when they’re leaving them. I can give you some warnings. You -think that because you have been taken up by a dowager duchess -everything will be plain sailing. You’re mistaken. You think because -you are eighteen and pretty, men will fall at your feet.” - -“I would rather be hideous,” cried suddenly passionate Robin. “I _hate_ -men!” - -The silly pretty thing who was responsible for her being, grew sillier -as her irritation increased. - -“That’s what girls always pretend, but the youngest little idiot knows -it isn’t true. It’s men who count. It makes me laugh when I think of -them—and of you. You know nothing about them and they know everything -about you. A clever man can do anything he pleases with a silly girl.” - -“Are they _all_ bad?” Robin exclaimed furiously. - -“They’re none of them bad. They’re only men. And that’s my warning. -Don’t imagine that when they make love to you they do it as if you were -the old Duchess’ granddaughter. You will only be her paid companion and -that’s a different matter.” - -“I will not speak to one of them——” Robin actually began. - -“You’ll be obliged to do what the Duchess tells you to do,” laughed -Feather, as she realized her obvious power to dull the glitter and glow -of things which she had felt the girl must be dazzled and uplifted -unduly by. She was rather like a spiteful schoolgirl entertaining -herself by spoiling an envied holiday for a companion. “Old men will -run after you and you will have to be nice to them whether you like it -or not.” A queer light came into her eyes. “Lord Coombe is fond of -girls just out of the schoolroom. But if he begins to make love to you -don’t allow yourself to feel too much flattered.” - -Robin sprang toward her. - -“Do you think I don’t _abhor_ Lord Coombe!” she cried out forgetting -herself in the desperate cruelty of the moment. “Haven’t I reason——” -but there she remembered and stopped. - -But Feather was not shocked or alarmed. Years of looking things in the -face had provided her with a mental surface from which tilings -rebounded. On the whole it even amused her and “suited her book” that -Robin should take this tone. - -“Oh! I suppose you mean you know he admires me and pays bills for me. -Where would you have been if he hadn’t done it? He’s been a sort of -benefactor.” - -“I know nothing but that even when I was a little child I could not -bear to touch his hand!” cried Robin. Then Feather remembered several -things she had almost forgotten and she was still more entertained. - -“I believe you’ve not forgotten through all these years that the boy -you fell so indecently in love with was taken away by his mother -because Lord Coombe was _your_ mother’s admirer and he was such a -sinner that even a baby was contaminated by him! Donal Muir is a young -man by this time. I wonder what his mother would do now if he turned up -at your mistress’ house—that’s what she is, you know, your mistress—and -began to make love to you.” She laughed outright. “You’ll get into all -sorts of messes, but that would be the nicest one!” - -Robin could only stand and gaze at her. Her moment’s fire had died -down. Without warning, out of the past a wave rose and overwhelmed her -then and there. It bore with it the wild woe of the morning when a -child had waited in the spring sun and her world had fallen into -nothingness. It came back—the broken-hearted anguish, the utter -helpless desolation, as if she stood in the midst of it again, as if it -had never passed. It was a re-incarnation. She could not bear it. - -“Do you hate me—as I hate Lord Coombe?” she cried out. “Do you _want_ -unhappy things to happen to me? Oh! Mother, why!” She had never said -“Mother” before. Nature said it for her here. The piteous appeal of her -youth and lonely young rush of tears was almost intolerably sweet. -Through some subtle cause it added to the thing in her which Feather -resented and longed to trouble and to hurt. - -“You are a spiteful little cat!” she sprang up to exclaim, standing -close and face to face with her. “You think I am an old thing and that -I’m jealous of you! Because you’re pretty and a girl you think women -past thirty don’t count. You’ll find out. Mrs. Muir will count and -she’s forty if she’s a day. Her son’s such a beauty that people go mad -over him. And he worships her—and he’s her slave. I wish you _would_ -get into some mess you couldn’t get out of! Don’t come to me if you -do.” - -The wide beauty of Robin’s gaze and her tear wet bloom were too much. -Feather was quite close to her. The spiteful schoolgirl impulse got the -better of her. - -“Don’t make eyes at me like that,” she cried, and she actually gave the -rose cheek nearest her a sounding little slap, “There!” she exclaimed -hysterically and she turned about and ran out of the room crying -herself. - -Robin had parted from Mademoiselle Vallé at Charing Cross Station on -the afternoon of the same day, but the night before they had sat up -late together and talked a long time. In effect Mademoiselle had said -also, “You are going out into the world,” but she had not approached -the matter in Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ mood. One may have charge of a girl -and be her daily companion for years, but there are certain things the -very years themselves make it increasingly difficult to say to her. And -after all why should one state difficult things in exact phrases unless -one lacks breeding and is curious. Anxious she had been at times, but -not curious. So it was that even on this night of their parting it was -not she who spoke. - -It was after a few minutes of sitting in silence and looking at the -fire that Robin broke in upon the quiet which had seemed to hold them -both. - -“I must learn to remember always that I am a sort of servant. I must be -very careful. It will be easier for me to realize that I am not in my -own house than it would be for other girls. I have not allowed Dowie to -dress me for a good many weeks. I have learned how to do everything for -myself quite well.” - -“But Dowie will be in the house with you and the Duchess is very kind.” - -“Every night I have begun my prayers by thanking God for leaving me -Dowie,” the girl said. “I have begun them and ended them with the same -words.” She looked about her and then broke out as if involuntarily. “I -shall be away from here. I shall not wear anything or eat anything or -sleep on any bed I have not paid for myself.” - -“These rooms are very pretty. We have been very comfortable here,” -Mademoiselle said. Suddenly she felt that if she waited a few moments -she would know definitely things she had previously only guessed at. -“Have you no little regrets?” - -“No,” answered Robin, “No.” - -She stood upon the hearth with her hands behind her. Mademoiselle felt -as if her fingers were twisting themselves together and the Frenchwoman -was peculiarly moved by the fact that she looked like a slim _jeune -fille_ of a creature saying a lesson. The lesson opened in this wise. - -“I don’t know when I first began to know that I was different from all -other children,” she said in a soft, hot voice—if a voice can express -heat. “Perhaps a child who has nothing—nothing—is obliged to begin to -_think_ before it knows what thoughts are. If they play and are loved -and amused they have no time for anything but growing and being happy. -You never saw the dreadful little rooms upstairs——” - -“Dowie has told me of them,” said Mademoiselle. - -“Another child might have forgotten them. I never shall. I—I was so -little and they were full of something awful. It was loneliness. The -first time Andrews pinched me was one day when the thing frightened me -and I suddenly began to cry quite loud. I used to stare out of the -window and—I don’t know when I noticed it first—I could see the -children being taken out by their nurses. And there were always two or -three of them and they laughed and talked and skipped. The nurses used -to laugh and talk too. Andrews never did. When she took me to the -gardens the other nurses sat together and chattered and their children -played games with other children. Once a little girl began to talk to -me and her nurse called her away. Andrews was very angry and jerked me -by my arm and told me that if ever I spoke to a child again she would -pinch me.” - -“Devil!” exclaimed the Frenchwoman. - -“I used to think and think, but I could never understand. How could I?” - -“A baby!” cried Mademoiselle Vallé and she got up and took her in her -arms and kissed her. “_Chère petite ange!_” she murmured. When she sat -down again her cheeks were wet. Robin’s were wet also, but she touched -them with her handkerchief quickly and dried them. It was as if she had -faltered for a moment in her lesson. - -“Did Dowie ever tell you anything about Donal?” she asked hesitatingly. - -“Something. He was the little boy you played with?” - -“Yes. He was the first human creature,” she said it very slowly as if -trying to find the right words to express what she meant, “—the first -_human_ creature I had ever known. You see Mademoiselle, he—he knew -everything. He had always been happy, he _belonged_ to people and -things. I belonged to nobody and nothing. If I had been like him he -would not have seemed so wonderful to me. I was in a kind of delirium -of joy. If a creature who had been deaf dumb and blind had suddenly -awakened, and seeing on a summer day in a world full of flowers and -sun—it might have seemed to them as it seemed to me.” - -“You have remembered it through all the years,” said Mademoiselle, -“like that?” - -“It was the first time I became alive. One could not forget it. We only -played as children play but—it _was_ a delirium of joy. I could not -bear to go to sleep at night and forget it for a moment. Yes, I -remember it—like that. There is a dream I have every now and then and -it is more real than—than this is—” with a wave of her hand about her. -“I am always in a real garden playing with a real Donal. And his -eyes—his eyes—” she paused and thought, “There is a look in them that -is like—it is just like—that first morning.” - -The change which passed over her face the next moment might have been -said to seem to obliterate all trace of the childish memory. - -“He was taken away by his mother. That was the beginning of my finding -out,” she said. “I heard Andrews talking to her sister and in a baby -way I gathered that Lord Coombe had sent him. I hated Lord Coombe for -years before I found out that he hadn’t—and that there was another -reason. After that it took time to puzzle things out and piece them -together. But at last I found out what the reason had been. Then I -began to make plans. These are not my rooms,” glancing about her again, -“—these are not my clothes,” with a little pull at her dress. “I’m not -‘a strong character’, Mademoiselle, as I wanted to be, but I haven’t -one little regret—not one.” She kneeled down and put her arms round her -old friend’s waist, lifting her face. “I’m like a leaf blown about by -the wind. I don’t know what it will do with me. Where do leaves go? One -never knows really.” - -She put her face down on Mademoiselle’s knee then and cried with soft -bitterness. - -When she bade her good-bye at Charing Cross Station and stood and -watched the train until it was quite out of sight, afterwards she went -back to the rooms for which she felt no regrets. And before she went to -bed that night Feather came and gave her farewell maternal advice and -warning. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - - -That a previously scarcely suspected daughter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -had become a member of the household of the Dowager Duchess of Darte -stirred but a passing wave of interest in a circle which was not that -of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself and which upon the whole but casually -acknowledged its curious existence as a modern abnormality. Also the -attitude of the Duchess herself was composedly free from any admission -of necessity for comment. - -“I have no pretty young relative who can be spared to come and live -with me. I am fond of things pretty and young and I am greatly pleased -with what a kind chance put in my way,” she said. In her discussion of -the situation with Coombe she measured it with her customary fine -acumen. - -“Forty years ago it could not have been done. The girl would have been -made uncomfortable and outside things could not have been prevented -from dragging themselves in. Filial piety in the mass would have -demanded that the mother should be accounted for. Now a genial -knowledge of a variety in mothers leaves Mrs. Gareth-Lawless to play -about with her own probably quite amusing set. Once poor Robin would -have been held responsible for her and so should I. My position would -have seemed to defy serious moral issues. But we have reached a sane -habit of detaching people from their relations. A nice condition we -should be in if we had not.” - -“You, of course, know that Henry died suddenly in some sort of fit at -Ostend.” Coombe said it as if in a form of reply. She had naturally -become aware of it when the rest of the world did, but had not seen him -since the event. - -“One did not suppose his constitution would have lasted so long,” she -answered. “You are more fortunate in young Donal Muir. Have you seen -him and his mother?” - -“I made a special journey to Braemarnie and had a curious interview -with Mrs. Muir. When I say ‘curious’ I don’t mean to imply that it was -not entirely dignified. It was curious only because I realize that -secretly she regards with horror and dread the fact that her boy is the -prospective Head of the House of Coombe. She does not make a jest of it -as I have had the temerity to do. It’s a cheap defense, this trick of -making an eternal jest of things, but it _is_ a defense and one has -formed the habit.” - -“She has never done it—Helen Muir,” his friend said. “On the whole I -believe she at times knows that she has been too grave. She was a -beautiful creature passionately in love with her husband. When such a -husband is taken away from such a woman and his child is left it often -happens that the flood of her love is turned into one current and that -it is almost overwhelming. She is too sane to have coddled the boy and -made him effeminate—what has she done instead?” - -“He is a splendid young Highlander. He would be too good-looking if he -were not as strong and active as a young stag. All she has done is to -so fill him with the power and sense of her charm that he has not seen -enough of the world or learned to care for it. She is the one woman on -earth for him and life with her at Braemarnie is all he asks for.” - -“Your difficulty will be that she will not be willing to trust him to -your instructions.” - -“I have not as much personal vanity as I may seem to have,” Coombe -said. “I put all egotism modestly aside when I talked to her and tried -to explain that I would endeavour to see that he came to no harm in my -society. My heir presumptive and I must see something of each other and -he must become intimate with the prospect of his responsibilities. More -will be demanded of the next Marquis of Coombe than has been demanded -of me. And it will be _demanded_ not merely hoped for or expected. And -it will be the overwhelming forces of Fate which will demand it—not -mere tenants or constituents or the general public.” - -“Have you any views as to _what_ will be demanded?” was her interested -question. - -“None. Neither has anyone else who shares my opinion. No one will have -any until the readjustment comes. But before the readjustment there -will be the pouring forth of blood—the blood of magnificent lads like -Donal Muir—perhaps his own blood,—my God!” - -“And there may be left no head of the house of Coombe,” from the -Duchess. - -“There will be many a house left without its head—houses great and -small. And if the peril of it were more generally foreseen at this date -it would be less perilous than it is.” - -“Lads like that!” said the old Duchess bitterly. “Lads in their -strength and joy and bloom! It is hideous.” - -“In all their young virility and promise for a next generation—the -strong young fathers of forever unborn millions! It’s damnable! And it -will be so not only in England, but all over a blood drenched world.” - -It was in this way they talked to each other of the black tragedy for -which they believed the world’s stage already being set in secret, and -though there were here and there others who felt the ominous -inevitability of the raising of the curtain, the rest of the world -looked on in careless indifference to the significance of the open -training of its actors and even the resounding hammerings of its stage -carpenters and builders. In these days the two discussed the matter -more frequently and even in the tone of those who waited for the -approach of a thing drawing nearer every day. - -Each time the Head of the House of Coombe made one of his so-called -“week end” visits to the parts an Englishman can reach only by crossing -the Channel, he returned with new knowledge of the special direction in -which the wind veered in the blowing of those straws he had so long -observed with absorbed interest. - -“Above all the common sounds of daily human life one hears in that one -land the rattle and clash of arms and the unending thudding tread of -marching feet,” he said after one such visit. “Two generations of men -creatures bred and born and trained to live as parts of a huge death -dealing machine have resulted in a monstrous construction. Each man is -a part of it and each part’s greatest ambition is to respond to the -shouted word of command as a mechanical puppet responds to the touch of -a spring. To each unit of the millions, love of his own country means -only hatred of all others and the belief that no other should be -allowed existence. The sacred creed of each is that the immensity of -Germany is such that there can be no room on the earth for another than -itself. Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior peoples. To -the masses that is their God’s will. Their God is an understudy of -their Kaiser.” - -“You are not saying that as part of the trick of making a jest of -things?” - -“I wish to God I were. The poor huge inhuman thing he has built does -not know that when he was a boy he did not play at war and battles as -other boys do, but as a creature obsessed. He has played at soldiers -with his people as his toys throughout all his morbid life—and he has -hungered and thirsted as he has done it.” - -A Bible lay upon the table and the Duchess drew it towards her. - -“There is a verse here—” she said “—I will find it.” She turned the -pages and found it. “Listen! ‘Know this and lay it to thy heart this -day. Jehovah is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is -none else.’ That is a power which does not confine itself to Germany or -to England or France or to the Map of Europe. It is the Law of the -Universe—and even Wilhelm the Second cannot bend it to his almighty -will. ‘There is none else.’” - -“‘There is none else’,” repeated Coombe slowly. “If there existed a -human being with the power to drive that home as a truth into his -delirious brain, I believe he would die raving mad. To him there is no -First Cause which was not ‘made in Germany.’ And it is one of his most -valuable theatrical assets. It is part of his paraphernalia—like the -jangling of his sword and the glitter of his orders. He shakes it -before his people to arrest the attention of the simple and honest ones -as one jingles a rattle before a child. There are those among them who -are not so readily attracted by terms of blood and iron.” - -“But they will be called upon to shed blood and to pour forth their -own. There will be young things like Donal Muir—lads with ruddy cheeks -and with white bodies to be torn to fragments.” She shuddered as she -said it. “I am afraid!” she said. “I am afraid!” - -“So am I,” Coombe answered. “Of what is coming. What a _fool_ I have -been!” - -“How long will it be before other men awaken to say the same thing?” - -“Each man’s folly is his own shame.” He drew himself stiffly upright as -a man might who stood before a firing squad. “I had a life to live or -to throw away. Because I was hideously wounded at the outset I threw it -aside as done for. I said ‘there is neither God nor devil, vice nor -virtue, love nor hate. I will do and leave undone what I choose.’ I had -power and brain and money. A man who could see clearly and who had -words to choose from might have stood firmly in the place to which he -was born and have spoken in a voice which might have been listened to. -He might have fought against folly and blindness and lassitude. I -deliberately chose privately to sneer at the thought of lifting a hand -to serve any thing but the cold fool who was myself. Life passes -quickly. It does not turn back.” He ended with a short harsh laugh. -“This is Fear,” he said. “Fear clears a man’s mind of rubbish and -non-essentials. It is because I am AFRAID that I accuse myself. And it -is not for myself or you but for the whole world which before the end -comes will seem to fall into fragments.” - -“You have been seeing ominous signs?” the Duchess said leaning forward -and speaking low. - -“There have been affectionate visits to Vienna. There is a certain -thing in the air—in the arrogance of the bearing of men clanking their -sabres as they stride through the streets. There is an exultant -eagerness in their eyes. Things are said which hold scarcely concealed -braggart threats. They have always been given to that sort of thing—but -now it strikes one as a thing unleashed—or barely leashed at all. The -background of the sound of clashing arms and the thudding of marching -feet is more unendingly present. One cannot get away from it. The great -munition factories are working night and day. In the streets, in -private houses, in the shops, one hears and recognizes signs. They are -signs which might not be clear to one who has not spent years in -looking on with interested eyes. But I have watched too long to see -only the surface of things. The nation is waiting for -something—waiting.” - -“What will be the pretext—what,” the Duchess pondered. - -“Any pretext will do—or none—except that Germany must have what she -wants and that she is strong enough to take it—after forty years of -building her machine.” - -“And we others have built none. We almost deserve whatever comes to -us.” The old woman’s face was darkly grave. - -“In three villages where I chance to be lord of the manor I have, by -means of my own, set lads drilling and training. It is supposed to be a -form of amusement and an eccentric whim of mine and it is a change from -eternal cricket. I have given prizes and made an occasional speech on -the ground that English brawn is so enviable a possession that it ought -to develop itself to the utmost. When I once went to the length of -adding that each Englishman should be muscle fit and ready in case of -England’s sudden need, I saw the lads grin cheerfully at the thought of -England in any such un-English plight. Their innocent swaggering belief -that the country is always ready for everything moved my heart of -stone. And it is men like myself who are to blame—not merely men of my -class, but men of my _kind_. Those who have chosen to detach themselves -from everything but the living of life as it best pleased their tastes -or served their personal ambitions.” - -“Are we going to be taught that man cannot argue without including his -fellow man? Are we going to be forced to learn it?” she said. - -“Yes—forced. Nothing but force could reach us. The race is an -undeveloped thing. A few centuries later it will have evolved another -sense. This century may see the first huge step—because the power of a -cataclysm sweeps it forward.” - -He turned his glance towards the opening door. Robin came in with some -letters in her hand. He was vaguely aware that she wore an aspect he -was unfamiliar with. The girl of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had in the past, -as it went without saying, expressed the final note of priceless -simplicity and mode. The more finely simple she looked, the more -priceless. The unfamiliarity in her outward seeming lay in the fact -that her quiet dun tweed dress with its lines of white at neck and -wrists was not priceless though it was well made. It, in fact, -unobtrusively suggested that it was meant for service rather than for -adornment. Her hair was dressed closely and her movements were very -quiet. Coombe realized that her greeting of him was delicately -respectful. - -“I have finished the letters,” she said to the Duchess. “I hope they -are what you want. Sometimes I am afraid——” - -“Don’t be afraid,” said the Duchess kindly. “You write very correct and -graceful little letters. They are always what I want. Have you been out -today?” - -“Not yet.” Robin hesitated a little. “Have I your permission to ask -Mrs. James if it will be convenient to her to let Dowie go with me for -an hour?” - -“Yes,” as kindly as before. “For two hours if you like. I shall not -drive this afternoon.” - -“Thank you,” said Robin and went out of the room as quietly as she had -entered it. - -When the door closed the Duchess was smiling at Lord Coombe. - -“I understand her,” she said. “She is sustained and comforted by her -pretty air of servitude. She might use Dowie as her personal maid and -do next to nothing, but she waits upon herself and punctiliously asks -my permission to approach Mrs. James the housekeeper with any request -for a favour. Her one desire is to be sure that she is earning her -living as other young women do when they are paid for their work. I -should really like to pet and indulge her, but it would only make her -unhappy. I invent tasks for her which are quite unnecessary. For years -the little shut-up soul has been yearning and praying for this -opportunity to stand honestly on her own feet and she can scarcely -persuade herself that it has been given to her. It must not be spoiled -for her. I send her on errands my maid could perform. I have given her -a little room with a serious business air. It is full of files and -papers and she sits in it and copies things for me and even looks over -accounts. She is clever at looking up references. I have let her sit up -quite late once or twice searching for detail and dates for my use. It -made her bloom with joy.” - -“You are quite the most delightful woman in the world,” said Coombe. -“Quite.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - - -In the serious little room the Duchess had given to her Robin built for -herself a condition she called happiness. She drew the spiritual -substance from which it was made from her pleasure in the books of -reference closely fitted into their shelves, in the files for letters -and more imposing documents, in the varieties of letter paper and -envelopes of different sizes and materials which had been provided for -her use in case of necessity. - -“You may not use the more substantial ones often, but you must be -prepared for any unexpected contingency,” the Duchess had explained, -thereby smoothing her pathway by the suggestion of responsibilities. - -The girl did not know the extent of her employer’s consideration for -her, but she knew that she was kind with a special grace and -comprehension. A subtle truth she also did not recognize was that the -remote flame of her own being was fiercely alert in its readiness to -leap upward at any suspicion that her duties were not worth the payment -made for them and that for any reason which might include Lord Coombe -she was occupying a position which was a sinecure. She kept her serious -little room in order herself, dusting and almost polishing the -reference books, arranging and re-arranging the files with such -exactness of system that she could—as is the vaunt of the model of -orderly perfection—lay her hand upon any document “in the dark.” She -was punctuality’s self and held herself in readiness at any moment to -appear at the Duchess’ side as if a magician had instantaneously -transported her there before the softly melodious private bell -connected with her room had ceased to vibrate. The correctness of her -deference to the convenience of Mrs. James the housekeeper in her -simplest communication with Dowie quite touched that respectable -person’s heart. - -“She’s a young lady,” Mrs. James remarked to Dowie. “And a credit to -you and her governess, Mrs. Dowson. Young ladies have gone almost out -of fashion.” - -“Mademoiselle Vallé had spent her governessing days among the highest. -My own places were always with gentle-people. Nothing ever came near -her that could spoil her manners. A good heart she was born with,” was -the civil reply of Dowie. - -“Nothing ever came _near_ her—?” Mrs. James politely checked what she -became conscious was a sort of unconscious exclamation. - -“Nothing,” said Dowie going on with her sheet hemming steadily. - -Robin wrote letters and copied various documents for the Duchess, she -went shopping with her and executed commissions to order. She was -allowed to enter into correspondence with the village schoolmistress -and the wife of the Vicar at Darte Norham and to buy prizes for notable -decorum and scholarship in the school, and baby linen and blankets for -the Maternity Bag and other benevolences. She liked buying prizes and -the baby clothes very much because—though she was unaware of the -fact—her youth delighted in youngness and the fulfilling of young -desires. Even oftener and more significantly than ever did eyes turn -towards her—try to hold hers—look after her eagerly when she walked in -the streets or drove with the Duchess in the high-swung barouche. More -and more she became used to it and gradually she ceased to be afraid of -it and began to feel it nearly always—there were sometimes exceptions—a -friendly thing. - -She saw friendliness in it because when she caught sight as she so -often did of young things like herself passing in pairs, laughing and -talking and turning to look into each other’s eyes, her being told her -that it was sweet and human and inevitable. They always turned and -looked at each other—these pairs—and then they smiled or laughed or -flushed a little. As she had not known when first she recognized, as -she looked down into the street from her nursery window, that the -children nearly always passed in twos or threes and laughed and skipped -and talked, so she did not know when she first began to notice these -joyous young pairs and a certain touch of exultation in them and feel -that it was sweet and quite a simple common natural thing. Her noting -and being sometimes moved by it was as natural as her pleasure in the -opening of spring flowers or the new thrill of spring birds—but she did -not know that either. - -The brain which has worked through many years in unison with the soul -to which it was apportioned has evolved a knowledge which has deep -cognizance of the universal law. The brain of the old Duchess had so -worked, keeping pace always with its guide, never visualizing the -possibility of working alone, also never falling into the abyss of that -human folly whose conviction is that all that one sees and gives a -special name to is all that exists—or that the names accepted by the -world justly and clearly describe qualities, yearnings, moods, as they -are. This had developed within her wide perception and a wisdom which -was sane and kind to tenderness. - -As she drove through the streets with Robin beside her she saw the -following eyes, she saw the girl’s soft friendly look at the young -creatures who passed her glowing and uplifted by the joy of life, and -she was moved and even disturbed. - -After her return from one particular morning’s outing she sent for -Dowie. - -“You have taken care of Miss Robin since she was a little child?” she -began. - -“She was not quite six when I first went to her, your grace.” - -“You are not of the women who only feed and bathe a child and keep her -well dressed. You have been a sort of mother to her.” - -“I’ve tried to, your grace. I’ve loved her and watched over her and -she’s loved me, I do believe.” - -“That is why I want to talk to you about her, Dowie. If you were the -woman who merely comes and goes in a child’s life, I could not. She -is—a very beautiful young thing, Dowie.” - -“From her little head to her slim bits of feet, your grace. No one -knows better than I do.” - -The Duchess’ renowned smile revealed itself. - -“A beautiful young thing ought to see and know other beautiful young -things and make friends with them. That is one of the reasons for their -being put in the world. Since she has been with me she has spoken to no -one under forty. Has she never had young friends?” - -“Never, your grace. Once two—young baggages—were left to have tea with -her and they talked to her about divorce scandals and corespondents. -She never wanted to see them again.” Dowie’s face set itself in lines -of perfectly correct inexpressiveness and she added, “They set her -asking me questions I couldn’t answer. And she broke down because she -suddenly understood why. No, your grace, she’s not known those of her -own age.” - -“She is—of the ignorance of a child,” the Duchess thought it out -slowly. - -“She thinks not, poor lamb, but she is,” Dowie answered. The Duchess’ -eyes met hers and they looked at each other for a moment. Dowie tried -to retain a non-committal steadiness and the Duchess observing the -intention knew that she was free to speak. - -“Lord Coombe confided to me that she had passed through a hideous -danger which had made a lasting impression on her,” she said in a low -voice. “He told me because he felt it would explain certain reserves -and fears in her.” - -“Sometimes she wakes up out of nightmares about it,” said Dowie. “And -she creeps into my room shivering and I take her into my bed and hold -her in my arms until she’s over the panic. She says the worst of it is -that she keeps thinking that there may have been other girls trapped -like her—and that they did not get away.” - -The Duchess was very thoughtful. She saw the complications in which -such a horror would involve a girl’s mind. - -“If she consorted with other young things and talked nonsense with them -and shared their pleasures she would forget it,” she said. - -“Ah!” exclaimed Dowie. “That’s it.” - -The question in the Duchess’ eyes when she lifted them required an -answer and she gave it respectfully. - -“The thing that happened was only the last touch put to what she’d -gradually been finding out as she grew from child to young girl. The -ones she would like to know—she said it in plain words once to -Mademoiselle—might not want to know her. I must take the liberty of -speaking plain, your grace, or it’s no use me speaking at all. She -holds it deep in her mind that she’s a sort of young outcast.” - -“I must convince her that she is not—.” It was the beginning of what -the Duchess had meant to say, but she actually found herself pausing, -held for the moment by Dowie’s quiet, civil eye. - -“Was your grace in your kindness thinking—?” was what the excellent -woman said. - -“Yes. That I would invite young people to meet her—help them to know -each other and to make friends.” And even as she said it she was -conscious of being slightly under the influence of Dowie’s wise gaze. - -“Your grace only knows those young people she would like to know.” It -was a mere simple statement. - -“People are not as censorious as they once were.” Her grace’s tone was -intended to reply to the suggestion lying in the words which had worn -the air of statement without comment. - -“Some are not, but some are,” Dowie answered. “There’s two worlds in -London now, your grace. One is your grace’s and one is Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless’. I _have_ heard say there are others between, but I -only know those two.” - -The Duchess pondered again. - -“You are thinking that what Miss Robin said to Mademoiselle Vallé might -be true—in mine. And perhaps you are not altogether wrong even if you -are not altogether right.” - -“Until I went to take care of Miss Robin I had only had places in -families Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ set didn’t touch anywhere. What I’m -remembering is that there was a—strictness—shown sometimes even when it -seemed a bit harsh. Among the servants the older ones said that is was -_because_ of the new sets and their fast wicked ways. One of my young -ladies once met another young lady about her own age—she was just -fifteen—at a charity bazaar and they made friends and liked each other -very much. The young lady’s mother was one there was a lot of talk -about in connection with a person of very high station—the highest, -your grace—and everyone knew. The girl was a lovely little creature and -beautifully behaved. It was said her mother wanted to push her into the -world she couldn’t get into herself. The acquaintance was stopped, your -grace—it was put a stop to at once. And my poor little young lady quite -broke her heart over it, and I heard it was much worse for the other.” - -“I will think this over,” the Duchess said. “It needs thinking over. I -wished to talk to you because I have seen that she has fixed little -ideas regarding what she thinks is suited to her position as a paid -companion and she might not be prepared. I wish you to see that she has -a pretty little frock or so which she could wear if she required them.” - -“She has two, your grace,” Dowie smiled affectionately as she said it. -“One for evening and one for special afternoon wear in case your grace -needed her to attend you for some reason. They are as plain as she dare -make them, but when she puts one on she can’t help giving it _a look_.” - -“Yes—she would give it all it needed,” her grace said. “Thank you, -Dowie. You may go.” - -With her sketch of a respectful curtsey Dowie went towards the door. As -she approached it her step became slower; before she reached it she had -stopped and there was a remarkable look on her face—a suddenly heroic -look. She turned and made several steps backward and paused again which -unexpected action caused the Duchess to turn to glance at her. When she -glanced her grace recognized the heroic look and waited, with a -consciousness of some slight new emotion within herself, for its -explanation. - -“Your grace,” Dowie began, asking God himself to give courage if she -was doing right and to check her if she was making a mistake, “When -your grace was thinking of the parents of other young ladies and -gentlemen—did it come to you to put it to yourself whether you’d be -willing—” she caught her breath, but ended quite clearly, respectfully, -reasonably. “Lady Kathryn—Lord Halwyn—” Lady Kathryn was the Duchess’ -young granddaughter, Lord Halwyn was her extremely good-looking -grandson who was in the army. - -The Duchess understood what the heroic look had meant, and her respect -for it was great. Its intention had not been to suggest inclusion of -George and Kathryn in her plan, it had only with pure justice put it to -her to ask herself what her own personal decision in such a matter -would be. - -“You do feel as if you were her mother,” she said. “And you are a -practical, clear-minded woman. It is only if I myself am willing to -take such a step that I have a right to ask it of other people. Lady -Lothwell is the mother I must speak to first. Her children are mine -though I am a mere grandmother.” - -Lady Lothwell was her daughter and though she was not regarded as -Victorian either of the Early or the Middle periods, Dowie as she -returned to her own comfortable quarters wondered what would happen. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - - -What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been -possible for a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest -mother of her day and have emerged from her training either obstinate -or illogical. Lady Lothwell listened to as much of the history of Robin -as her mother chose to tell her and plainly felt an amiable interest in -it. She knew much more detail and gossip concerning Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -than the Duchess herself did. She had heard of the child who was kept -out of sight, and she had been somewhat disgusted by a vague story of -Lord Coombe’s abnormal interest in it and the ugly hint that he had an -object in view. It was too unpleasantly morbid to be true of a man her -mother had known for years. - -“Of course you were not thinking of anything large or formal?” she said -after a moment of smiling hesitation. - -“No. I am not launching a girl into society. I only want to help her to -know a few nice young people who are good-natured and well-mannered. -She is not the ordinary old lady’s companion and if she were not so -strict with herself and with me, I confess I should behave towards her -very much as I should behave to Kathryn if you could spare her to live -with me. She is a heart-warming young thing. Because I am known to have -one of my eccentric fancies for her and because after all her father -_was_ well connected, her present position will not be the obstacle. -She is not the first modern girl who has chosen to support herself.” - -“But isn’t she much too pretty?” - -“Much. But she doesn’t flaunt it.” - -“But heart-warming—and too pretty! Dearest mamma!” Lady Lothwell -laughed again. “She can do no harm to Kathryn, but I own that if George -were not at present quite madly in love with a darling being at least -fifteen years older than himself I should pause to reflect. Mrs. Stacy -will keep him steady—Mrs. Alan Stacy, you know—the one with the -magnificent henna hair, and the eyes that droop. No boy of twenty-two -can resist her. They call her adorers ‘The Infant School’.” - -“A small dinner and a small dance—and George and Kathryn may be the -beginning of an interesting experiment. It would be pretty and kind of -you to drop in during the course of the evening.” - -“Are you hoping to—perhaps—make a marriage for her?” Lady Lothwell -asked the question a shade disturbedly. “You are so amazing, mamma -darling, that I know you will do it, if you believe in it. You seem to -be able to cause the things you really want, to evolve from the -universe.” - -“She is the kind of girl whose place in the universe is in the home of -some young man whose own place in the universe is in the heart and soul -and life of her kind of girl. They ought to carry out the will of God -by falling passionately in love with each other. They ought to marry -each other and have a large number of children as beautiful and -rapturously happy as themselves. They would assist in the evolution of -the race.” - -“Oh! Mamma! how delightful you always are! For a really brilliant woman -you are the most adorable dreamer in the world.” - -“Dreams are the only things which are true. The rest are nothing but -visions.” - -“Angel!” her daughter laughed a little adoringly as she kissed her. “I -will do whatever you want me to do. I always did, didn’t I? It’s your -way of making one see what you see when you are talking that does it.” - -It was understood before they parted that Kathryn and George would be -present at the small dinner and the small dance, and that a few other -agreeable young persons might be trusted to join them, and that Lady -Lothwell and perhaps her husband would drop in. - -“It’s your being almost Early Victorian, mamma, which makes it easy for -you to initiate things. You will initiate little Miss Lawless. It was -rather neat of her to prefer to drop the ‘Gareth.’ There has been less -talk in late years of the different classes ‘keeping their -places’—‘upper’ and ‘lower’ classes really strikes one as vulgar.” - -“We may ‘keep our places’,” the Duchess said. “We may hold on to them -as firmly as we please. It is the places themselves which are moving, -my dear. It is not unlike the beginning of a landslide.” - -Robin went to Dowie’s room the next evening and stood a moment in -silence watching her sewing before she spoke. She looked anxious and -even pale. - -“Her grace is going to give a party to some young people, Dowie,” she -said. “She wishes me to be present. I—I don’t know what to do.” - -“What you must do, my dear, is to put on your best evening frock and go -downstairs and enjoy yourself as the other young people will. Her grace -wants you to see someone your own age,” was Dowie’s answer. - -“But I am not like the others. I am only a girl earning her living as a -companion. How do I know—” - -“Her grace knows,” Dowie said. “And what she asks you to do it is your -duty to do—and do it prettily.” - -Robin lost even a shade more colour. - -“Do you realize that I have never been to a party in my life—not even -to a children’s party, Dowie? I shall not know how to behave myself.” - -“You know how to talk nicely to people, and you know how to sit down -and rise from your chair and move about a room like a quiet young lady. -You dance like a fairy. You won’t be asked to do anything more.” - -“The Duchess,” reflected Robin aloud slowly, “would not let me come -downstairs if she did not know that people would—be kind.” - -“Lady Kathryn and Lord Halwyn are coming. They are her own -grandchildren,” Dowie said. - -“How did you know that?” Robin inquired. - -Robin’s colour began to come back. - -“It’s not what usually happens to girls in situations,” she said. - -“Her grace herself isn’t what usually happens,” said Dowie. “There is -no one like her for high wisdom and kindness.” - -Having herself awakened to the truth of this confidence-inspiring fact, -Robin felt herself supported by it. One knew what far-sighted -perception and clarity of experienced vision this one woman had gained -during her many years of life. If she had elected to do this thing she -had seen her path clear before her and was not offering a gift which -awkward chance might spoil or snatch away from the hand held out to -receive it. A curious slow warmth began to creep about Robin’s heart -and in its mounting gradually fill her being. It was true she had been -taught to dance, to move about and speak prettily. She had been taught -a great many things which seemed to be very carefully instilled into -her mind and body without any special reason. She had not been aware -that Lord Coombe and Mademoiselle Vallé had directed and discussed her -training as if it had been that of a young royal person whose equipment -must be a flawless thing. If the Dowager Duchess of Darte had wished to -present her at Court some fair morning she would have known the length -of the train she must wear, where she must make her curtseys and to -whom and to what depth, how to kiss the royal hand, and how to manage -her train when she retired from the presence. When she had been taught -this she had asked Mademoiselle Vallé if the training was part of every -girl’s education and Mademoiselle had answered, - -“It is best to know everything—even ceremonials which may or may not -prove of use. It all forms part of a background and prevents one from -feeling unfamiliar with customs.” - -When she had passed the young pairs in the streets she had found an -added interest in them because of this background. She could imagine -them dancing together in fairy ball rooms whose lights and colours her -imagination was obliged to construct for her out of its own fabric; she -knew what the girls would look like if they went to a Drawing Room and -she often wondered if they would feel shy when the page spread out -their lovely peacock tails for them and left them to their own devices. -It was mere Nature that she should have pondered and pondered and -sometimes unconsciously longed to feel herself part of the flood of -being sweeping past her as she stood apart on the brink of the river. - -The warmth about her heart made it beat a little faster. She opened the -door of her wardrobe when she found herself in her bedroom. The dress -hung modestly in its corner shrouded from the penetration of London -fogs by clean sheeting. It was only white and as simple as she knew how -to order it, but Mademoiselle had taken her to a young French person -who knew exactly what she was doing in all cases, and because the girl -had the supple lines of a wood nymph and the eyes of young antelope she -had evolved that which expressed her as a petal expresses its rose. -Robin locked her door and took the dress down and found the silk -stockings and slippers which belonged to it. She put them all on -standing before her long mirror and having left no ungiven last touch -she fell a few steps backward and looked at herself, turning and -balancing herself as a bird might have done. She turned lightly round -and round. - -“Yes. I _am_—” she said. “I am—very!” - -The next instant she laughed at herself outright. - -“How silly! How silly!” she said. “Almost _everybody_ is—more or less! -I wonder if I remember the new steps.” For she had been taught the new -steps—the new walking and swayings and pauses and sudden swirls and -swoops. And her new dress was as short as other fashionable girls’ -dresses were, but in her case revealed a haunting delicacy of contour -and line. - -So before her mirror she danced alone and as she danced her lips parted -and her breast rose and fell charmingly, and her eyes lighted and -glowed as any girl’s might have done or as a joyous girl nymph’s might -have lighted as she danced by a pool in her forest seeing her -loveliness mirrored there. - -Something was awakening as something had awakened when Donal had kissed -a child under the soot sprinkled London trees. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - - -The whole day before the party was secretly exciting to Robin. She knew -how much more important it seemed to her than it really was. If she had -been six years old she might have felt the same kind of uncertain -thrills and tremulous wonders. She hid herself behind the window -curtains in her room that she might see the men putting up the crimson -and white awning from the door to the carriage step. The roll of red -carpet they took from their van had a magic air. The ringing of the -door bell which meant that things were being delivered, the extra -moving about of servants, the florists’ men who went into the -drawing-rooms and brought flowers and big tropical plants to re-arrange -the conservatory and fill corners which were not always decorated—each -and every one of them quickened the beating of her pulses. If she had -belonged in her past to the ordinary cheerful world of children, she -would have felt by this time no such elation. But she had only known of -the existence of such festivities as children’s parties because once a -juvenile ball had been given in a house opposite her mother’s and she -had crouched in an almost delirious little heap by the nursery window -watching carriages drive up and deposit fluffy pink and white and blue -children upon the strip of red carpet, and had seen them led or running -into the house. She had caught sounds of strains of music and had -shivered with rapture—but Oh! what worlds away from her the party had -been. - -She found her way into the drawing-rooms which were not usually thrown -open. They were lofty and stately and seemed to her immense. There were -splendid crystal-dropping chandeliers and side lights which she thought -looked as if they would hold a thousand wax candles. There was a -delightfully embowered corner for the musicians. It was all spacious -and wonderful in its beautiful completeness—its preparedness for -pleasure. She realized that all of it had always been waiting to be -used for the happiness of people who knew each other and were young and -ready for delight. When the young Lothwells had been children they had -had dances and frolicking games with other children in the huge rooms -and had kicked up their young heels on the polished floors at Christmas -parties and on birthdays. How wonderful it must have been. But they had -not known it was wonderful. - -As Dowie dressed her the reflection she saw in the mirror gave back to -her an intensified Robin whose curved lips almost quivered as they -smiled. The soft silk of her hair looked like the night and the small -rings on the back of her very slim white neck were things to ensnare -the eye and hold it helpless. - -“You look your best, my dear,” Dowie said as she clasped her little -necklace. “And it is a good best.” Dowie was feeling tremulous herself -though she could not have explained why. She thought that perhaps it -was because she wished that Mademoiselle could have been with her. - -Robin kissed her when the last touch had been given. - -“I’m going to run down the staircase,” she said. “If I let myself walk -slowly I shall have time to feel queer and shy and I might seem to -_creep_ into the drawing-room. I mustn’t creep in. I must walk in as if -I had been to parties all my life.” - -She ran down and as she did so she looked like a white bird flying, but -she was obliged to stop upon the landing before the drawing-room door -to quiet a moment of excited breathing. Still when she entered the room -she moved as she should and held her head poised with a delicately -fearless air. The Duchess—who herself looked her best in her fine old -ivory profiled way—gave her a pleased smile of welcome which was almost -affectionate. - -“What a perfect little frock!” she said. “You are delightfully pretty -in it.” - -“Is it quite right?” said Robin. “Mademoiselle chose it for me.” - -“It is quite right. ‘Frightfully right,’ George would say. George will -sit near you at dinner. He is my grandson—Lord Halwyn you know, and you -will no doubt frequently hear him say things are ‘frightfully’ -something or other during the evening. Kathryn will say things are -‘deevy’ or ‘exquig‘. I mention it because you may not know that she -means ‘exquisite’ and ‘divine.’ Don’t let it frighten you if you don’t -quite understand their language. They are dear handsome things sweeping -along in the rush of their bit of century. I don’t let it frighten me -that their world seems to me an entirely new planet.” - -Robin drew a little nearer her. She felt something as she had felt -years ago when she had said to Dowie. “I want to kiss you, Dowie.” Her -eyes were pools of childish tenderness because she so well understood -the infinitude of the friendly tact which drew her within its own -circle with the light humour of its “I don’t let them frighten _me_.” - -“You are kind—kind to me,” she said. “And I am grateful—_grateful_.” - -The extremely good-looking young people who began very soon to drift -into the brilliant big room—singly or in pairs of brother and -sister—filled her with innocent delight. They were so well built and -gaily at ease with each other and their surroundings, so perfectly -dressed and finished. The filmy narrowness of delicate frocks, the -shortness of skirts accentuated the youth and girlhood and added to it -a sort of child fairy-likeness. Kathryn in exquisite wisps of -silver-embroidered gauze looked fourteen instead of nearly twenty—aided -by a dimple in her cheek and a small tilted nose. A girl in scarlet -tulle was like a child out of a nursery ready to dance about a -Christmas tree. Everyone seemed so young and so suggested supple -dancing, perhaps because dancing was going on everywhere and all the -world whether fashionable or unfashionable was driven by a passion for -whirling, swooping and inventing new postures and fantastic steps. The -young men had slim straight bodies and light movements. Their clothes -fitted their suppleness to perfection. Robin thought they all looked as -if they had had a great deal of delightful exercise and plenty of -pleasure all their lives. - -They were of that stream which had always seemed to be rushing past her -in bright pursuit of alluring things which belonged to them as part of -their existence, but which had had nothing to do with her own youth. -Now the stream had paused as if she had for the moment some connection -with it. The swift light she was used to seeing illuminate glancing -eyes as she passed people in the street, she saw again and again as new -arrivals appeared. Kathryn was quite excited by her eyes and eyelashes -and George hovered about. There was a great deal of hovering. At the -dinner table sleek young heads held themselves at an angle which -allowed of their owners seeing through or around, or under floral -decorations and alert young eyes showed an eager gleam. After dinner -was over and dancing began the Duchess smiled shrewdly as she saw the -gravitating masculine movement towards a certain point. It was the -point where Robin stood with a small growing circle about her. - -It was George who danced with her first. He was tall and slender and -flexible and his good shoulders had a military squareness of build. He -had also a nice square face, and a warmly blue eye and knew all the -latest steps and curves and unexpected swirls. Robin was an ozier wand -and there was no swoop or dart or sudden sway and change she was not -alert at. The swing and lure of the music, the swift movement, the -fluttering of airy draperies as slim sister nymphs flew past her, set -her pulses beating with sweet young joy. A brief, uncontrollable ripple -of laughter broke from her before she had circled the room twice. - -“How heavenly it is!” she exclaimed and lifted her eyes to Halwyn’s. -“How heavenly!” - -They were not safe eyes to lift in such a way to those of a very young -man. They gave George a sudden enjoyable shock. He had heard of the -girl who was a sort of sublimated companion to his grandmother. The -Duchess herself had talked to him a little about her and he had come to -the party intending to behave very amiably and help the little thing -enjoy herself. He had also encountered before in houses where there -were no daughters the smart well-born, young companion who was allowed -all sorts of privileges because she knew how to assume tiresome little -responsibilities and how to be entertaining enough to add cheer and -spice to the life of the elderly and lonely. Sometimes she was a subtly -appealing sort of girl and given to being sympathetic and to liking -sympathy and quiet corners in conservatories or libraries, and -sometimes she was capable of scientific flirtation and required -scientific management. A man had to have his wits about him. This one -as she flew like a blown leaf across the floor and laughed up into his -face with wide eyes, produced a new effect and was a new kind. - -“It’s you who are heavenly,” he answered with a boy’s laugh. “You are -like a feather—and a willow wand.” - -“You are light too,” she laughed back, “and you are like steel as -well.” - -Mrs. Alan Stacy, the lady with the magnificent henna hair, had recently -given less time to him, being engaged in the preliminary instruction of -a new member of the Infant Class. Such things will, of course, happen -and though George had quite ingenuously raged in secret, the -circumstances left him free to “hover” and hovering was a pastime he -enjoyed. - -“Let us go on like this forever and ever,” he said sweeping half the -length of the room with her and whirling her as if she were indeed a -leaf in the wind, “Forever and ever.” - -“I wish we could. But the music will stop,” she gave back. - -“Music ought never to stop—never,” he answered. - -But the music did stop and when it began again almost immediately -another tall, flexible young man made a lightning claim on her and -carried her away only to hand her to another and he in his turn to -another. She was not allowed more than a moment’s rest and borne on the -crest of the wave of young delight, she did not need more. Young eyes -were always laughing into hers and elating her by a special look of -pleasure in everything she did or said or inspired in themselves. How -was she informed without phrases that for this exciting evening she was -a creature without a flaw, that the loveliness of her eyes startled -those who looked into them, that it was a thrilling experience to dance -with her, that somehow she was new and apart and wonderful? No -sleek-haired, slim and straight-backed youth said exactly any of these -things to her, but somehow they were conveyed and filled her with a -wondering realization of the fact that if they were true, they were no -longer dreadful and maddening, since they only made people like and -want to dance with one. To dance, to like people and be liked seemed so -heavenly natural and right—to be only like air and sky and free, happy -breathing. There was, it was true, a blissful little uplifted look -about her which she herself was not aware of, but which was singularly -stimulating to the masculine beholder. It only meant indeed that as she -whirled and swayed and swooped laughing she was saying to herself at -intervals, - -“This is what other girls feel like. They are happy like this. I am -laughing and talking to people just as other girls do. I am Robin -Gareth-Lawless, but I am enjoying a party like this—a _young_ party.” - -Lady Lothwell sitting near her mother watched the trend of affairs with -an occasional queer interested smile. - -“Well, mamma darling,” she said at last as youth and beauty whirled by -in a maelstrom of modern Terpsichorean liveliness, “she is a great -success. I don’t know whether it is quite what you intended or not.” - -The Duchess did not explain what she had intended. She was watching the -trend also and thinking a good deal. On the whole Lady Lothwell had -scarcely expected that she would explain. She rarely did. She seldom -made mistakes, however. - -Kathryn in her scant gauzy strips of white and silver having drifted -towards them at the moment stood looking on with a funny little -disturbed expression on her small, tip-tilted face. - -“There’s something _about_ her, grandmamma,” she said. - -“All the girls see it and no one knows what it is. She’s sitting out -for a few minutes and just look at George—and Hal Brunton—and Captain -Willys. They are all laughing, of course, and pretending to joke, but -they would like to eat each other up. Perhaps it’s her eyelashes. She -looks out from under them as if they were a curtain.” - -Lady Lothwell’s queer little smile became a queer little laugh. - -“Yes. It gives her a look of being ecstatically happy and yet almost -shy and appealing at the same time. Men can’t stand it of course.” - -“None of them are trying to stand it,” answered little Lady Kathryn -somewhat in the tone of a retort. - -“I don’t believe she knows she does it,” Lady Lothwell said quite -reflectively. - -“She does not know at all. That is the worst of it,” commented the -Duchess. - -“Then you see that there _is_ a worst,” said her daughter. - -The Duchess glanced towards Kathryn, but fortunately the puzzled fret -of the girl’s forehead was even at the moment melting into a smile as a -young man of much attraction descended upon her with smiles of his own -and carried her into the Tango or Fox Trot or Antelope Galop, -whichsoever it chanced to be. - -“If she were really aware of it that would be ‘the worst’ for other -people—for us probably. She could look out from under her lashes to -sufficient purpose to call what she wanted and take and keep it. As she -is not aware, it will make things less easy for herself—under the -circumstances.” - -“The circumstance of being Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ daughter is not an -agreeable one,” said Lady Lothwell. - -“It might give some adventurous boys ideas when they had time to -realize all it means. Do you know I am rather sorry for her myself. I -shouldn’t be surprised if she were rather a dear little thing. She -looks tender and cuddle-some. Perhaps she is like the heroine of a -sentimental novel I read the other day. Her chief slave said of her -‘She walks into a man’s heart through his eyes and sits down there and -makes a warm place which will never get cold again.‘ Rather nice, I -thought.” - -The Duchess thought it rather nice also. - -“‘Never get cold again,‘” she repeated. “What a heavenly thing to -happen to a pair of creatures—if—” she paused and regarded Robin, who -at the other side of the room was trying to decide some parlous -question of dances to which there was more than one claimant. She was -sweetly puckering her brow over her card and round her were youthful -male faces looking eager and even a trifle tense with repressed anxiety -for the victory of the moment. - -“Oh!” Lady Lothwell laughed. “As Kitty says ‘There’s something about -her’ and it’s not mere eyelashes. You have let loose a germ among us, -mamma my sweet, and you can’t do anything with a germ when you have let -it loose. To quote Kitty again, ‘Look at George!’” - -The music which came from the bower behind which the musicians were -hidden seemed to gain thrill and wildness as the hours went on. As the -rooms grew warmer the flowers breathed out more reaching scent. Now and -again Robin paused for a moment to listen to strange delightful chords -and to inhale passing waves of something like mignonette and lilies, -and apple blossoms in the sun. She thought there must be some flower -which was like all three in one. The rushing stream was carrying her -with it as it went—one of the happy petals on its surface. Could it -ever cast her aside and leave her on the shore again? While the violins -went singing on and the thousand wax candles shone on the faint or -vivid colours which mingled into a sort of lovely haze, it did not seem -possible that a thing so enchanting and so real could have an end at -all. All the other things in her life seemed less real tonight. - -In the conservatory there was a marble fountain which had long years -ago been brought from a palace garden in Rome. It was not as large as -it was beautiful and it had been placed among palms and tropic ferns -whose leaves and fronds it splashed merrily among and kept deliciously -cool and wet-looking. There was a quite intoxicating hot-house perfume -of warm damp moss and massed flowers and it was the kind of corner any -young man would feel it necessary to gravitate towards with a partner. - -George led Robin to it and she naturally sat upon the edge of the -marble basin and as naturally drew off a glove and dipped her hand into -the water, splashing it a little because it felt deliciously cool. -George stood near at first and looked down at her bent head. It was -impossible not also to take in her small fine ear and the warm velvet -white of the lovely little nape of her slim neck. He took them in with -elated appreciation. He was not subtle minded enough to be aware that -her reply to a casual remark he had made to her at dinner had had a -remote effect upon him. - -“One of the loveliest creatures I ever saw was a Mrs. Gareth-Lawless,” -he had said. “Are you related to her?” - -“I am her daughter,” Robin had answered and with a slightly startled -sensation he had managed to slip into amiably deft generalities while -he had secretly wondered how much his grandmother knew or did not know. - -An involuntary thought of Feather had crossed his mind once or twice -during the evening. This was the girl who, it was said, had actually -been saved up for old Coombe. Ugly morbid sort of idea if it was true. -How had the Duchess got hold of her and why and what was Coombe really -up to? Could he have some elderly idea of wanting a youngster for a -wife? Occasionally an old chap did. Serve him right if some young chap -took the wind out of his sails. He was not a desperate character, but -he had been very intimate with Mrs. Alan Stacy and her friends and it -had made him careless. Also Robin had drawn him—drawn him more than he -knew. - -“Is it still heavenly?” he asked. (How pointed her fingers were and how -soft and crushable her hand looked as it splashed like a child’s.) - -“More heavenly every minute,” she answered. He laughed outright. - -“The heavenly thing is the way you are enjoying it yourself. I never -saw a girl light up a whole room before. You throw out stars as you -dance.” - -“That’s like a skyrocket,” Robin laughed back. “And it’s because in all -my life I never went to a dance before.” - -“Never! You mean except to children’s parties?” - -“There were no children’s parties. This is the first—first—first.” - -“Well, I don’t see how that happened, but I am glad it did because it’s -been a great thing for me to see you at your first—first—first.” - -He sat down on the fountain’s edge near her. - -“I shall not forget it,” he said. - -“I shall remember it as long as I live,” said Robin and she lifted her -unsafe eyes again and smiled into his which made them still more -unsafe. - -Perhaps it was because he was extremely young, perhaps it was because -he was immoral, perhaps because he had never held a tight rein on his -fleeting emotions, even the next moment he felt that it was because he -was an idiot—but suddenly he found he had let himself go and was -kissing the warm velvet of the slim little nape—had kissed it twice. - -He had not given himself time to think what would happen as a result, -but what did happen was humiliating and ridiculous. One furious splash -of the curled hand flung water into his face and eyes and mouth while -Robin tore herself free from him and stood blazing with fury and -woe—for it was not only fury he saw. - -“You—You—!” she cried and actually would have swooped to the fountain -again if he had not caught her arm. - -He was furious himself—at himself and at her. - -“You—little fool!” he gasped. “What did you do that for even if I _was_ -a jackass? There was nothing in it. You’re so pretty——” - -“You’ve spoiled everything!” she flamed, “everything—everything!” - -“I’ve spoiled nothing. I’ve only been a fool—and it’s your own fault -for being so pretty.” - -“You’ve spoiled everything in the world! Now—” with a desolate horrible -little sob, “now I can only go back—_back!_” - -He had a queer idea that she spoke as if she were Cinderella and he had -made the clock strike twelve. Her voice had such absolute grief in it -that he involuntarily drew near her. - -“I say,” he was really breathless, “don’t speak like that. I beg -pardon. I’ll grovel! Don’t—Oh! Kathryn—_come_ here.” - -This last because at this difficult moment from between the banks of -hot-house bloom and round the big palms his sister Kathryn suddenly -appeared. She immediately stopped short and stared at them both—looking -from one to the other. - -“What is the matter?” she asked in a low voice. - -“Oh! _come_ and talk to her,” George broke forth. “I feel as if she -might scream in a minute and call everybody in. I’ve been a lunatic and -she has apparently never been kissed before. Tell her—tell her you’ve -been kissed yourself.” - -A queer little look revealed itself in Kathryn’s face. A delicate vein -of her grandmother’s wisdom made part of her outlook upon a rapidly -moving and exciting world. She had never been hide-bound or dull and -for a slight gauzy white and silver thing she was astute. - -“Don’t be impudent,” she said to George as she walked up to Robin and -put a cool hand on her arm. “He’s only been silly. You’d better let him -off,” she said. She turned a glance on George who was wiping his sleeve -with a handkerchief and she broke into a small laugh, “Did she push you -into the fountain?” she asked cheerfully. - -“She threw the fountain at me,” grumbled George. “I shall have to dash -off home and change.” - -“I would,” replied Kathryn still cheerful. “You can apologize better -when you’re dry.” - -He slid through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood and -gazed at each other. Robin’s flame had died down and her face had -settled itself into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know that she -herself looked at her as the Duchess might have looked at another girl -in the quite different days of her youth. - -“I’ll tell you something now he’s gone,” she said. “I _have_ been -kissed myself and so have other girls I know. Boys like George don’t -really matter, though of course it’s bad manners. But who has got good -manners? Things rush so that there’s scarcely time for manners at all. -When an older man makes a snatch at you it’s sometimes detestable. But -to push him into the fountain was a good idea,” and she laughed again. - -“I didn’t push him in.” - -“I wish you had,” with a gleeful mischief. The next moment, however, -the hint of a worried frown showed itself on her forehead. “You see,” -she said protestingly, “you are so _frightfully_ pretty.” - -“I’d rather be a leper,” Robin shot forth. - -But Kathryn did not of course understand. - -“What nonsense!” she answered. “What utter rubbish! You know you -wouldn’t. Come back to the ball room. I came here because my mother was -asking for George.” - -She turned to lead the way through the banked flowers and as she did so -added something. - -“By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of the -Balkan countries. They are always assassinating people. They like it. -Lord Coombe has just come in and is talking it over with grandmamma. I -can see they are quite excited in their quiet way.” - -As they neared the entrance to the ball room she paused a moment with a -new kind of impish smile. - -“Every girl in the room is absolutely shaky with thrills at this -particular moment,” she said. “And every man feels himself bristling a -little. The very best looking boy in all England is dancing with Sara -Studleigh. He dropped in by chance to call and the Duchess made him -stay. He is a kind of miracle of good looks and takingness.” - -Robin said nothing. She had plainly not been interested in the Balkan -tragedy and she as obviously did not care for the miracle. - -“You don’t ask who he is?” said Kathryn. - -“I don’t want to know.” - -“Oh! Come! You mustn’t feel as sulky as that. You’ll want to ask -questions the moment you see him. I did. Everyone does. His name is -Donal Muir. He’s Lord Coombe’s heir. He’ll be the Head of the House of -Coombe some day. Here he comes,” quite excitedly, “Look!” - -It was one of the tricks of Chance—or Fate—or whatever you will. The -dance brought him within a few feet of them at that very moment and the -slow walking steps he was taking held him—they were some of the queer -stealthy almost stationary steps of the Argentine Tango. He was finely -and smoothly fitted as the other youngsters were, his blond glossed -head was set high on a heroic column of neck, he was broad of shoulder, -but not too broad, slim of waist, but not too slim, long and strong of -leg, but light and supple and firm. He had a fair open brow and a -curved mouth laughing to show white teeth. Robin felt he ought to wear -a kilt and plaid and that an eagle’s feather ought to be standing up -from a chieftain’s bonnet on the fair hair which would have waved if it -had been allowed length enough. He was scarcely two yards from her now -and suddenly—almost as if he had been called—he turned his eyes away -from Sara Studleigh who was the little thing in Christmas tree scarlet. -They were blue like the clear water in a tarn when the sun shines on it -and they were still laughing as his mouth was. Straight into hers they -laughed—straight into hers. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - - -Through all aeons since all the worlds were made it is at least not -unthinkable that in all the worlds of which our own atom is one, there -has ruled a Force illimitable, unconquerable and inexplicable and -whichsoever its world and whatsoever the sign denoting or the name -given it, the Force—the Thing has been the same. Upon our own atom of -the universe it is given the generic name of Love and its existence is -that which the boldest need not defy, the most profound need not -attempt to explain with clarity, the most brilliantly sophistical to -argue away. Its forms of beauty, triviality, magnificence, imbecility, -loveliness, stupidity, holiness, purity and bestiality neither detract -from nor add to its unalterable power. As the earth revolves upon its -axis and reveals night and day, Spring, Summer and Winter, so it -reveals this ceaselessly working Force. Men who were as gods have been -uplifted or broken by it, fools have trifled with it, brutes have -sullied it, saints have worshipped, poets sung and wits derided it. As -electricity is a force death dealing, or illuminating and power -bestowing, so is this Great Impeller, and it is fatuous—howsoever -worldly wise or moderately sardonic one would choose to be—to hint -ironically that its proportions are less than the ages have proved -them. Whether a world formed without a necessity for the presence and -assistance of this psychological factor would have been a better or a -worse one, it is—by good fortune—not here imperative that one should -attempt to decide. What is—exists. None of us created it. Each one will -deal with the Impeller as he himself either sanely or madly elects. He -will also bear the consequences—and so also may others. - -Of this force the Head of the House of Coombe and his old friend knew -much and had often spoken to each other. They had both been accustomed -to recognizing its signs subtle or crude, and watching their -development. They had seen it in the eyes of creatures young enough to -be called boys and girls, they had heard it in musical laughter and in -silly giggles, they had seen it express itself in tragedy and comedy -and watched it end in union or in a nothingness which melted away like -a wisp of fog. But they knew it was a thing omnipresent and that no one -passed through life untouched by it in some degree. - -Years before this evening two children playing in a garden had not know -that the Power—the Thing—drew them with its greatest strength because -among myriads of atoms they two were created for oneness. Enraptured -and unaware they played together, their souls and bodies drawn nearer -each other every hour. - -So it was that—without being portentous—one may say that when an -unusually beautiful and unusually well dressed and perfectly fitted -young man turned involuntarily in the particular London ball room in -which Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ daughter watched the dancers, and looked -unintentionally into the eyes of a girl standing for a moment near the -wide entrance doors, the inexplicable and unconquerable Force -reconnected its currents again. - -Donal Muir’s eyes only widened a little for a second’s time. He had not -known why he had suddenly looked around and he did not know why he was -conscious of something which startled him a little. You could not -actually stare at a girl because your eyes chanced to get entangled in -hers for a second as you danced past her. It was true she was of a -startling prettiness and there was something—. Yes, there was -_something_ which drew the eye and—. He did not know what it was. It -had actually given him a sort of electric shock. He laughed at himself -a little and then his open brow looked puzzled for a moment. - -“You saw Miss Lawless,” said Sara Studleigh who was at the moment -dancing prettily with him. She was guilty of something which might have -been called a slight giggle, but it was good-natured. “I know, you saw -Miss Lawless—the pretty one near the door.” - -“There are so many pretty ones near everything. You can’t lift your -eyes without seeing one,” Donal answered. “What a lot of them!” (The -sense of having received a slight electric shock made you feel that you -must look again and find out what had caused it, he was thinking.) - -“She is the one with the eyelashes.” - -“I have eyelashes—so have you,” looking down at hers with a very taking -expression. Hers were in fact nice ones. - -“But ours are not two inches long and they don’t make a big soft circle -round our eyes when we look at anyone.” - -“Please look up and let me see,” said Donal. “When I asked you to dance -with me I thought—” - -What a “way” he had, Sara Studleigh was thinking. But “perhaps it _was_ -the eyelashes” was passing through Donal’s mind. Very noticeable -eyelashes were rather arresting. - -“I knew you saw her,” said Sara Studleigh, “because I have happened to -be near two or three people this evening when they caught their first -sight of her.” - -“What happens to them?” asked Donal Muir. - -“They forget where they are,” she laughed, “and don’t say anything for -a few seconds.” - -“I should not want to forget where I am. It wouldn’t be possible -either,” answered Donal. (“But that was it,” he thought. “For a minute -I forgot.”) - -One should not dance with one girl and talk to her about another. -Wisely he led her to other subjects. The music was swinging through the -air performing its everlasting miracle of swinging young souls and -pulses with it, the warmed flowers breathed more perceptible scent, -sweet chatter and laughter, swaying colour and glowing eyes -concentrated in making magic. This beautiful young man’s pulses only -beat with the rest—as one with the pulse of the Universe. Lady Lothwell -acting for the Duchess was very kind to him finding him another partner -as soon as a new dance began—this time her own daughter, Lady Kathryn. - -Even while he had been tangoing with Sara Studleigh he had seen the -girl with the eyelashes, whirling about with someone, and when he began -his dance with Kathryn, he caught a glimpse of her at the other end of -the room. And almost immediately Kathryn spoke of her. - -“I don’t know when you will get a dance with Miss Lawless,” she said. -“She is obliged to work out mathematical problems on her programme.” - -“I have a setter who fixes his eyes on you and waits without moving -until you look at him and then he makes a dart and you’re obliged to -pat him,” he said. “Perhaps if I go and stand near her and do that she -will take notice of me.” - -“Take notice of him, the enslaving thing!” thought Kathryn. “She’d -jump—for all her talk about lepers—any girl would. He’s TOO nice! -There’s something about _him_ too.” - -Robin did not jump. She had no time to do it because one dance followed -another so quickly and some of them were even divided in two or three -pieces. But the thrill of the singing sound of the violins behind the -greenery, the perfume and stately spaces and thousand candlelights had -suddenly been lifted on to another plane though she had thought they -could reach no higher one. Her whole being was a keen fine awareness. -Every moment she was _aware_. After all the years—from the far away -days—he had come back. No one had dreamed of the queer half abnormal -secret she had always kept to herself as a child—as a little girl—as a -bigger one when she would have died rather than divulge that in her -loneliness there had been something she had remembered—something she -had held on to—a memory which she had actually made a companion of, -making pictures, telling herself stories in the dark, even inventing -conversations which not for one moment had she thought would or could -ever take place. But they had been living things to her and her one -near warm comfort—closer, oh, so weirdly closer than kind, kind Dowie -and dearly beloved Mademoiselle. She had wondered if the two would have -disapproved if they had known—if Mademoiselle would have been shocked -if she had realized that sometimes when they walked together there -walked with them a growing, laughing boy in a swinging kilt and plaid -and that he had a voice and eyes that drew the heart out of your breast -for joy. At first he had only been a child like herself, but as she had -grown he had grown with her—but always taller, grander, marvellously -masculine and beyond compare. Yet never once had she dared to believe -or hope that he could take form before her eyes—a living thing. He had -only been the shadow she had loved and which could not be taken away -from her because he was her secret and no one could ever know. - -The music went swinging and singing with notes which were almost a -pain. And he was in the very room with her! Donal! Donal! He had not -known and did not know. He had laughed into her eyes without -knowing—but he had come back. A young man now like all the rest, but -more beautiful. What a laugh, what wonderful shoulders, what wonderful -dancing, how long and strongly smooth and supple he was in the line -fabric of his clothes! Though her mind did not form these things in -words for her, it was only that her eyes saw all the charm of him from -head to foot, and told her that he was only more than ever what he had -been in the miraculous first days. - -“Perhaps he will not find out at all,” she thought, dancing all the -while and trying to talk as well as think. “I was too little for him to -remember. I only remembered because I had nothing else. Oh, if he -should not find out!” She could not go and tell him. Even if a girl -could do such a thing, perhaps he could not recall a childish incident -of so long ago—such a small, small thing. It had only been immense to -her and so much water had flowed under his bridge bearing so many -flotillas. She had only stood and looked down at a thin trickling -stream which carried no ships at all. It was very difficult to keep her -eyes from stealing—even darting—about in search of him. His high fair -head with the clipped wave in its hair could be followed if one dared -be alert. He danced with an auburn haired girl, he spun down the room -with a brown one, he paused for a moment to show the trick of a new -step to a tall one with black coils. He was at the end of the room, he -was tangoing towards her and she felt her heart beat and beat. He -passed close by and his eyes turned upon her and after he had passed a -queer little inner trembling would not cease. Oh! if he had looked a -little longer—if her partner would only carry her past him! And how -dreadful she was to let herself feel so excited when he could not be -_expected_ to remember such a little thing—just a baby playing with him -in a garden. Oh!—her heart giving a leap—if he would look—if he would -_look!_ - -When did she first awaken to a realization—after what seemed years and -years of waiting and not being able to conquer the inwardly trembling -feeling—that he was _beginning_ to look—that somehow he had become -aware of her presence and that it drew his eyes though there was no -special recognition in them? Down the full length of the room they met -hers first, and again as he passed with yet another partner. Then when -he was resting between dances and being very gay indeed—though somehow -he always seemed gay. He had been gay when they played in the Gardens. -Yes, his eyes cane and found her. She thought he spoke of her to -someone near him. Of course Robin looked away and tried not to look -again too soon. But when in spite of intention and even determination, -something forced her glance and made it a creeping, following -glance—there were his eyes again. She was frightened each time it -happened, but he was not. She began to know with new beatings of the -pulse that he no longer looked by chance, but because he wanted to see -her—and wished her to see him, as if he had begun to call to her with a -gay Donal challenge. It was like that, though his demeanour was -faultlessly correct. - -The incident of their meeting was faultlessly correct, also, when after -one of those endless lapses of time Lady Lothwell appeared and -presented him as if the brief ceremony were one of the most ordinary in -existence. The conventional grace of his bow said no more than George’s -had said to those looking on, but when he put his arm round her and -they began to sway together in the dance, Robin wondered in terror if -he could not feel the beating of her heart under his hand. If he could -it would be horrible—but it would not stop. To be so near—to try to -believe it—to try to make herself remember that she could mean nothing -to him and that it was only she who was shaking—for nothing! But she -could not help it. This was the disjointed kind of thing that flew past -her mental vision. She was not a shy girl, but she could not speak. -Curiously enough he also was quite silent for several moments. They -danced for a space without a word and they did not notice that people -began to watch them because they were an attracting pair to watch. And -the truth was that neither of the two knew in the least what the other -thought. - -“That—is a beautiful waltz,” he said at last. He said it in a low -meaning voice as if it were a sort of emotional confidence. He had not -actually meant to speak in such a tone, but when he realized what its -sound had been he did not care in the least. What was the matter with -him? - -“Yes,” Robin answered. (Only “Yes.”) - -He had not known when he glanced at her first, he was saying mentally. -He could not, of course, swear to her now. But what an extraordinary -thing that—! She was like a swallow—she was like any swift flying thing -on a man’s arm. One could go on to the end of time. Once round the -great ball room, twice, and as the third round began he gave a little -laugh and spoke again. - -“I am going to ask you a question. May I?” - -“Yes.” - -“Is your name Robin?” - -“Yes,” she could scarcely breathe it. - -“I thought it was,” in the voice in which he had spoken of the music. -“I hoped it was—after I first began to suspect. I _hoped_ it was.” - -“It is—it is.” - -“Did we—” he had not indeed meant that his arm should hold her a shade -closer, but—in spite of himself—it did because he was after all so -little more than a boy, “—did we play together in a garden?” - -“Yes—yes,” breathed Robin. “We did.” Surely she heard a sound as if he -had caught a quick breath. But after it there were a few more steps and -another brief space of silence. - -“I knew,” he said next, very low. “I _knew_ that we played together in -a garden.” - -“You did not know when you first looked at me tonight.” Innocently -revealing that even his first glance had been no casual thing to her. - -But his answer revealed something too. - -“You were near the door—just coming into the room. I didn’t know why -you startled me. I kept looking for you afterwards in the crowd.” - -“I didn’t see you look,” said Robin softly, revealing still more in her -utter inexperience. - -“No, because you wouldn’t look at me—you were too much engaged. Do you -like this step?” - -“I like them all.” - -“Do you always dance like this? Do you always make your partner feel as -if he had danced with you all his life?” - -“It is—because we played together in the garden,” said Robin and then -was quite terrified at herself. Because after all—after all they were -only two conventional young people meeting for the first time at a -dance, not knowing each other in the least. It was really the first -time. The meeting of two children could not count. But the beating and -strange elated inward tremor would not stop. - -As for him he felt abnormal also and he was usually a very normal -creature. It was abnormal to be so excited that he found himself, as it -were, upon another plane, because he had recognized and was dancing -with a girl he had not seen since she was five or six. It was not -normal that he should be possessed by a desire to keep near to her, -overwhelmed by an impelling wish to talk to her—to ask her questions. -About what—about herself—themselves—the years between—about the garden. - -“It began to come back bit by bit after I had two fair looks. You -passed me several times though you didn’t know.” (Oh! had she not -known!) “I had been promised some dances by other people. But I went to -Lady Lothwell. She’s very kind.” - -Back swept the years and it had all begun again, the wonderful -happiness—just as the anguish had swept back on the night her mother -had come to talk to her. As he had brought it into her dreary little -world then, he brought it now. He had the power. She was so happy that -she seemed to be only waiting to hear what he would say—as if that were -enough. There are phases like this—rare ones—and it was her fate that -through such a phase she was passing. - -It was indeed true that much more water had passed under his bridge -than under hers, but now—! Memory reproduced for him with an acuteness -like actual pain, a childish torment he thought he had forgotten. And -it was as if it had been endured only yesterday—and as if the urge to -speak and explain was as intense as it had been on the first day. - -“She’s very little and she won’t understand,” he had said to his -mother. “She’s very little, really—perhaps she’ll cry.” - -How monstrous it had seemed! Had she cried—poor little soul! He looked -down at her eyelashes. Her cheek had been of the same colour and -texture then. That came back to him too. The impulse to tighten his -arms was infernally powerful—almost automatic. - -“She has no one but me to remember!” he heard his own child voice -saying fiercely. Good Lord, it _was_ as if it had been yesterday. He -actually gulped something down in his throat. - -“You haven’t rested much,” he said aloud. “There’s a conservatory with -marble seats and corners and a fountain going. Will you let me take you -there when we stop dancing? I want to apologize to you.” - -The eyelashes lifted themselves and made round her eyes the big soft -shadow of which Sara Studleigh had spoken. A strong and healthy -valvular organ in his breast lifted itself curiously at the same time. - -“To apologize?” - -Was he speaking to her almost as if she were still four or five? It was -to the helplessness of those years he was about to explain—and yet he -did not feel as though he were still eight. - -“I want to tell you why I never came back to the garden. It was a -broken promise, wasn’t it?” - -The music had not ceased, but they stopped dancing. - -“Will you come?” he said and she went with him like a child—just as she -had followed in her babyhood. It seemed only natural to do what he -asked. - -The conservatory was like an inner Paradise now. The tropically scented -warmth—the tiers on tiers of bloom above bloom—the softened swing of -music—the splash of the fountain on water and leaves. Their plane had -lifted itself too. They could hear the splashing water and sometimes -feel it in the corner seat of marble he took her to. A crystal drop -fell on her hand when she sat down. The blue of his eyes was vaguely -troubled and he spoke as if he were not certain of himself. - -“I was wakened up in what seemed to me the middle of the night,” he -said, as if indeed the thing had happened only the day before. “My -mother was obliged to go back suddenly to Scotland. I was only a little -chap, but it nearly finished me. Parents and guardians don’t understand -how gigantic such a thing can be. I had promised you—we had promised -each other—hadn’t we?” - -“Yes,” said Robin. Her eyes were fixed upon his face—open and unmoving. -Such eyes! Such eyes! All the touchingness of the past was in their -waiting on his words. - -“Children—little boys especially—are taught that they must not cry out -when they are hurt. As I sat in the train through the journey that day -I thought my heart would burst in my small breast. I turned my back and -stared out of the window for fear my mother would see my face. I’d -always loved her. Do you know I think that just then I _hated_ her. I -had never hated anything before. Good Lord! What a thing for a little -chap to go through! My mother was an angel, but she didn’t _know_.” - -“No,” said Robin in a small strange voice and without moving her gaze. -“She didn’t _know_.” - -He had seated himself on a sort of low marble stool near her and he -held a knee with clasped hands. They were hands which held each other -for the moment with a sort of emotional clinch. His position made him -look upward at her instead of down. - -“It was _you_ I was wild about,” he said. “You see it was _you_. I -could have stood it for myself. The trouble was that I felt I was such -a big little chap. I thought I was years—ages older than you—and -mountains bigger,” his faint laugh was touched with pity for the -smallness of the big little chap. “You seemed so tiny and pretty—and -lonely.” - -“I was as lonely as a new-born bird fallen out of its nest.” - -“You had told me you had ‘nothing.’ You said no one had ever kissed -you. I’d been loved all my life. You had a wondering way of fixing your -eyes on me as if I could give you everything—perhaps it was a coxy -little chap’s conceit that made me love you for it—but perhaps it -wasn’t.” - -“You _were_ everything,” Robin said—and the mere simpleness of the way -in which she said it brought the garden so near that he smelt the warm -hawthorn and heard the distant piano organ and it quickened his breath. - -“It was because I kept seeing your eyes and hearing your laugh that I -thought my heart was bursting. I knew you’d go and wait for me—and -gradually your little face would begin to look different. I knew you’d -believe I’d come. ‘She’s little’—that was what I kept saying to myself -again and again. ‘And she’ll cry—awfully—and she’ll think I did it. -She’ll never know.’ There,”—he hesitated a moment—“there was a kind of -mad shame in it. As if I’d _betrayed_ your littleness and your belief, -though I was too young to know what betraying was.” - -Just as she had looked at him before, “as if he could give her -everything,” she was looking at him now. In what other way could she -look while he gave her this wonderful soothing, binding softly all the -old wounds with unconscious, natural touch because he had really been -all her child being had been irradiated and warmed by. There was no -pose in his manner—no sentimental or flirtatious youth’s affecting of a -picturesque attitude. It was real and he told her this thing because he -must for his own relief. - -“Did you cry?” he said. “Did my little chap’s conceit make too much of -it? I suppose I ought to hope it did.” - -Robin put her hand softly against her heart. - -“No,” she answered. “I was only a baby, but I think it _killed_ -something—here.” - -He caught a big hard breath. - -“Oh!” he said and for a few seconds simply sat and gazed at her. - -“But it came to life again?” he said afterwards. - -“I don’t know. I don’t know what it was. Perhaps it could only live in -a very little creature. But it was killed.” - -“I say!” broke from him. “It was like wringing a canary’s neck when it -was singing in the sun!” - -A sudden swelling of the music of a new dance swept in to them and he -rose and stood up before her. - -“Thank you for giving me my chance to tell you,” he said. “This was the -apology. You have been kind to listen.” - -“I wanted to listen,” Robin said. “I am glad I didn’t live a long time -and grow old and die without your telling me. When I saw you tonight I -almost said aloud, ‘He’s come back!’” - -“I’m glad I came. It’s queer how one can live a thing over again. There -have been all the years between for us both. For me there’s been all a -lad’s life—tutors and Eton and Oxford and people and lots of travel and -amusement. But the minute I set eyes on you near the door something -must have begun to drag me back. I’ll own I’ve never liked to let -myself dwell on that memory. It wasn’t a good thing because it had a -trick of taking me back in a fiendish way to the little chap with his -heart bursting in the railway carriage—and the betrayal feeling. It’s -morbid to let yourself grouse over what can’t be undone. So you faded -away. But when I danced past you somehow I knew I’d come on -_something_. It made me restless. I couldn’t keep my eyes away -decently. Then all at once I _knew!_ I couldn’t tell you what the -effect was. There you were again—I was as much obliged to tell you as I -should have been if I’d found you at Braemarnie when I got there that -night. Conventions had nothing to do with it. It would not have -mattered even if you’d obviously thought I was a fool. You might have -thought so, you know.” - -“No, I mightn’t,” answered Robin. “There have been no Eton and Oxford -and amusements for me. This is my first party.” - -She rose as he had done and they stood for a second or so with their -eyes resting on each other’s—each with a young smile quivering into -life which neither was conscious of. It was she who first wakened and -came back. He saw a tiny pulse flutter in her throat and she lifted her -hand with a delicate gesture. - -“This dance was Lord Halwyn’s and we’ve sat it out. We must go back to -the ball room.” - -“I—suppose—we must,” he answered with slow reluctance—but he could -scarcely drag his eyes away from hers—even though he obeyed, and they -turned and went. - -In the shining ball room the music rose and fell and swelled again into -ecstasy as he took her white young lightness in his arm and they swayed -and darted and swooped like things of the air—while the old Duchess and -Lord Coombe looked on almost unseeing and talked in murmurs of -Sarajevo. - - - - -THE END - - - - -PUBLISHERS’ NOTE - - -The inflexible limitations of magazine space necessitated the -omission—in its serial form—of so large a portion of _The Head of the -House of Coombe_ as to eliminate much of the charm of characterization -and the creation of atmosphere and background which add so greatly to -the power and picturesqueness of the author’s work. - -These values having been unavoidably lost in a greatly compressed -version, it is the publishers’ desire to produce the story in its -entirety, and, as during its writing it developed into what might be -regarded as two novels—so distinctly does it deal with two epochs—it -has been decided to present it to its public as two separate books. The -first, _The Head of the House of Coombe_, deals with social life in -London during the evolutionary period between the late Victorian years -and the reign of Edward VII and that of his successor, previous to the -Great War. It brings Lord Coombe and Donal, Feather and her girl Robin -to the summer of 1914. It ends with the ending of a world which can -never again be the same. The second novel, _Robin_, to be published -later continues the story of the same characters, facing existence, -however, in a world transformed by tragedy, and in which new aspects of -character, new social, economic, and spiritual possibilities are to be -confronted, rising to the surface of life as from the depths of unknown -seas. Readers of _The Head of the House of Coombe_ will follow the -story of Robin with intensified interest. - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Head of the House of Coombe</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 22, 2002 [eBook #6491]<br /> -[Most recently updated: January 11, 2021]</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE ***</div> - -<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> -</div> - -<h1>The Head of the House of Coombe</h1> - -<h2 class="no-break">by Frances Hodgson Burnett</h2> - -<h5>NEW YORK</h5> - -<hr /> - -<h2>Contents</h2> - -<table summary="" style=""> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI</a></td> -</tr> - -<tr> -<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII</a></td> -</tr> - -</table> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> - -<p> -The history of the circumstances about to be related began many years -ago—or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, years before the -world being rocked to and fro revealed in the pause between each of its -heavings some startling suggestion of a new arrangement of its kaleidoscopic -particles, and then immediately a re-arrangement, and another and another until -all belief in a permanency of design seemed lost, and the inhabitants of the -earth waited, helplessly gazing at changing stars and colours in a degree of -mental chaos. -</p> - -<p> -Its opening incidents may be dated from a period when people still had reason -to believe in permanency and had indeed many of them—sometimes through -ingenuousness, sometimes through stupidity of type—acquired a singular -confidence in the importance and stability of their possessions, desires, -ambitions and forms of conviction. -</p> - -<p> -London at the time, in common with other great capitals, felt itself rather -final though priding itself on being much more fluid and adaptable than it had -been fifty years previously. In speaking of itself it at least dealt with fixed -customs, and conditions and established facts connected with them—which -gave rise to brilliant—or dull—witticisms. -</p> - -<p> -One of these, heard not infrequently, was to the effect that—in -London—one might live under an umbrella if one lived under it in the -right neighbourhood and on the right side of the street, which axiom is the -reason that a certain child through the first six years of her life sat on -certain days staring out of a window in a small, dingy room on the top floor of -a slice of a house on a narrow but highly fashionable London street and looked -on at the passing of motors, carriages and people in the dull afternoon -grayness. -</p> - -<p> -The room was exalted above its station by being called The Day Nursery and -another room equally dingy and uninviting was known as The Night Nursery. The -slice of a house was inhabited by the very pretty Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, its -inordinate rent being reluctantly paid by her—apparently with the -assistance of those “ravens” who are expected to supply the truly -deserving. The rent was inordinate only from the standpoint of one regarding it -soberly in connection with the character of the house itself which was a gaudy -little kennel crowded between two comparatively stately mansions. On one side -lived an inordinately rich South African millionaire, and on the other an -inordinately exalted person of title, which facts combined to form sufficient -grounds for a certain inordinateness of rent. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was also, it may be stated, of the fibre which must live on -the right side of the street or dissolve into nothingness—since as nearly -nothingness as an embodied entity can achieve had Nature seemingly created her -at the outset. So light and airy was the fair, slim, physical presentation of -her being to the earthly vision, and so almost impalpably diaphanous the -texture and form of mind and character to be observed by human perception, that -among such friends—and enemies—as so slight a thing could claim she -was prettily known as “Feather”. Her real name, -“Amabel”, was not half as charming and whimsical in its -appropriateness. “Feather” she adored being called and as it was -the fashion among the amazing if amusing circle in which she spent her life, to -call its acquaintances fantastic pet names selected from among the world of -birds, beasts and fishes or inanimate objects—“Feather” she -floated through her curious existence. And it so happened that she was the -mother of the child who so often stared out of the window of the dingy and -comfortless Day Nursery, too much a child to be more than vaguely conscious in -a chaotic way that a certain feeling which at times raged within her and made -her little body hot and restless was founded on something like actual hate for -a special man who had certainly taken no deliberate steps to cause her -detestation. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -“Feather” had not been called by that delicious name when she -married Robert Gareth-Lawless who was a beautiful and irresponsibly rather than -deliberately bad young man. She was known as Amabel Darrel and the loveliest -girl in the lovely corner of the island of Jersey where her father, a country -doctor, had begotten a large family of lovely creatures and brought them up on -the appallingly inadequate proceeds of his totally inadequate practice. Pretty -female things must be disposed of early lest their market value decline. -Therefore a well-born young man even without obvious resources represents a -sail in the offing which is naturally welcomed as possibly belonging to a bark -which may at least bear away a burden which the back carrying it as part of its -pack will willingly shuffle on to other shoulders. It is all very well for a -man with six lovely daughters to regard them as capital if he has money or -position or generous relations or if he has energy and an ingenious unfatigued -mind. But a man who is tired and neither clever nor important in any degree and -who has reared his brood in one of the Channel Islands with a faded, silly, -unattractive wife as his only aid in any difficulty, is wise in leaving the -whole hopeless situation to chance and luck. Sometimes luck comes without -assistance but—almost invariably—it does not. -</p> - -<p> -“Feather”—who was then “Amabel”—thought -Robert Gareth-Lawless incredible good luck. He only drifted into her summer by -merest chance because a friend’s yacht in which he was wandering about -“came in” for supplies. A girl Ariel in a thin white frock and with -big larkspur blue eyes yearning at you under her flapping hat as she answers -your questions about the best road to somewhere will not be too difficult about -showing the way herself. And there you are at a first-class beginning. -</p> - -<p> -The night after she met Gareth-Lawless in a lane whose banks were thick with -bluebells, Amabel and her sister Alice huddled close together in bed and talked -almost pantingly in whispers over the possibilities which might reveal -themselves—God willing—through a further acquaintance with Mr. -Gareth-Lawless. They were eager and breathlessly anxious but they were -young—<i>young</i> in their eagerness and Amabel was full of delight in -his good looks. -</p> - -<p> -“He is <i>so</i> handsome, Alice,” she whispered actually hugging -her, not with affection but exultation. “And he can’t be more than -twenty-six or seven. And I’m <i>sure</i> he liked me. You know that way a -man has of looking at you—one sees it even in a place like this where -there are only curates and things. He has brown eyes—like dark bright -water in pools. Oh, Alice, if he <i>should!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -Alice was not perhaps as enthusiastic as her sister. Amabel had seen him first -and in the Darrel household there was a sort of unwritten, not always observed -code flimsily founded on “First come first served.” Just at the -outset of an acquaintance one might say “Hands off” as it were. But -not for long. -</p> - -<p> -“It doesn’t matter how pretty one is they seldom do,” Alice -grumbled. “And he mayn’t have a farthing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Alice,” whispered Amabel almost agonizingly, “I -wouldn’t <i>care</i> a farthing—if only he <i>would!</i> Have I a -farthing—have you a farthing—has anyone who ever comes here a -farthing? He lives in London. He’d take me away. To live even in a back -street <i>in London</i> would be Heaven! And one <i>must</i>—as soon as -one possibly can.—One <i>must!</i> And Oh!” with another hug which -this time was a shudder, “think of what Doris Harmer had to do! Think of -his thick red old neck and his horrid fatness! And the way he breathed through -his nose. Doris said that at first it used to make her ill to look at -him.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s got over it,” whispered Alice. “She’s -almost as fat as he is now. And she’s loaded with pearls and -things.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shouldn’t have to ‘get over’ anything,” said -Amabel, “if this one <i>would</i>. I could fall in love with him in a -minute.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did you hear what Father said?” Alice brought out the words rather -slowly and reluctantly. She was not eager on the whole to yield up a detail -which after all added glow to possible prospects which from her point of view -were already irritatingly glowing. Yet she could not resist the impulse of -excitement. “No, you didn’t hear. You were out of the room.” -</p> - -<p> -“What about? Something about <i>him?</i> I hope it wasn’t horrid. -How could it be?” -</p> - -<p> -“He said,” Alice drawled with a touch of girlishly spiteful -indifference, “that if he was one of the poor Gareth-Lawlesses he -hadn’t much chance of succeeding to the title. His uncle—Lord -Lawdor—is only forty-five and he has four splendid healthy -boys—perfect little giants.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I didn’t know there was a title. How splendid,” -exclaimed Amabel rapturously. Then after a few moments’ innocent maiden -reflection she breathed with sweet hopefulness from under the sheet, -“Children so often have scarlet fever or diphtheria, and you know they -say those very strong ones are more likely to die than the other kind. The -Vicar of Sheen lost <i>four</i> all in a week. And the Vicar died too. The -doctor said the diphtheria wouldn’t have killed him if the shock -hadn’t helped.” -</p> - -<p> -Alice—who had a teaspoonful more brain than her sister—burst into a -fit of giggling it was necessary to smother by stuffing the sheet in her mouth. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! Amabel!” she gurgled. “You <i>are</i> such a donkey! You -would have been silly enough to say that even if people could have heard you. -Suppose <i>he</i> had!” -</p> - -<p> -“Why should he care,” said Amabel simply. “One can’t -help thinking things. If it happened he would be the Earl of Lawdor -and—” -</p> - -<p> -She fell again into sweet reflection while Alice giggled a little more. Then -she herself stopped and thought also. After all perhaps—! One had to be -practical. The tenor of her thoughts was such that she did not giggle again -when Amabel broke the silence by whispering with tremulous, soft devoutness. -</p> - -<p> -“Alice—do you think that praying <i>really</i> helps?” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve prayed for things but I never got them,” answered -Alice. “But you know what the Vicar said on Sunday in sermon about -‘Ask and ye shall receive’.” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps you haven’t prayed in the right spirit,” Amabel -suggested with true piety. “Shall we—shall we try? Let us get out -of bed and kneel down.” -</p> - -<p> -“Get out of bed and kneel down yourself,” was Alice’s -sympathetic rejoinder. “You wouldn’t take that much trouble for -<i>me</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -Amabel sat up on the edge of the bed. In the faint moonlight and her white -night-gown she was almost angelic. She held the end of the long fair soft plait -hanging over her shoulder and her eyes were full of reproach. -</p> - -<p> -“I think you ought to take <i>some</i> interest,” she said -plaintively. “You know there would be more chances for you and the -others—if I were not here.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll wait until you are not here,” replied the unstirred -Alice. -</p> - -<p> -But Amabel felt there was no time for waiting in this particular case. A yacht -which “came in” might so soon “put out”. She knelt -down, clasping her slim young hands and bending her forehead upon them. In -effect she implored that Divine Wisdom might guide Mr. Robert Gareth-Lawless in -the much desired path. She also made divers promises because nothing is so easy -as to promise things. She ended with a gently fervent appeal that—if her -prayer were granted—something “might happen” which would -result in her becoming a Countess of Lawdor. One could not have put the request -with greater tentative delicacy. -</p> - -<p> -She felt quite uplifted and a trifle saintly when she rose from her knees. -Alice had actually fallen asleep already and she sighed quite tenderly as she -slipped into the place beside her. Almost as her lovely little head touched the -pillow her own eyes closed. Then she was asleep herself—and in the -faintly moonlit room with the long soft plait trailing over her shoulder looked -even more like an angel than before. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -Whether or not as a result of this touching appeal to the Throne of Grace, -Robert Gareth-Lawless <i>did</i>. In three months there was a wedding at the -very ancient village church, and the flowerlike bridesmaids followed a flower -of a bride to the altar and later in the day to the station from where Mr. and -Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless went on their way to London. Perhaps Alice and Olive -also knelt by the side of their white beds the night after the wedding, for on -that propitious day two friends of the bridegroom’s—one of them the -owner of the yacht—decided to return again to the place where there were -to be found the most nymphlike of pretty creatures a man had ever by any chance -beheld. Such delicate little fair crowned heads, such delicious little -tip-tilted noses and slim white throats, such ripples of gay chatter and -nonsense! When a man has fortune enough of his own why not take the prettiest -thing he sees? So Alice and Olive were borne away also and poor Mr. and Mrs. -Darrel breathed sighs of relief and there were not only more chances but causes -for bright hopefulness in the once crowded house which now had rooms to spare. -</p> - -<p> -A certain inattention on the part of the Deity was no doubt responsible for the -fact that “something” did not “happen” to the family of -Lord Lawdor. On the contrary his four little giants of sons throve -astonishingly and a few months after the Gareth-Lawless wedding Lady -Lawdor—a trifle effusively, as it were—presented her husband with -twin male infants so robust that they were humorously known for years -afterwards as the “Twin Herculeses.” -</p> - -<p> -By that time Amabel had become “Feather” and despite Robert’s -ingenious and carefully detailed method of living upon nothing whatever, had -many reasons for knowing that “life is a back street in London” is -not a matter of beds of roses. Since the back street must be the “right -street” and its accompaniments must wear an aspect of at least seeming to -belong to the right order of detachment and fashionable ease, one was always in -debt and forced to keep out of the way of duns, and obliged to pretend things -and tell lies with aptness and outward gaiety. Sometimes one actually was so -far driven to the wall that one could not keep most important engagements and -the invention of plausible excuses demanded absolute genius. The slice of a -house between the two big ones was a rash feature of the honeymoon but a year -of giving smart little dinners in it and going to smart big dinners from it in -a smart if small brougham ended in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of -balancing oneself on the edge of a sword. -</p> - -<p> -Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity of course. Nobody had -contemplated her for a moment. Feather cried for a week when she first -announced the probability of her advent. Afterwards however she managed to -forget the approaching annoyance and went to parties and danced to the last -hour continuing to be a great success because her prettiness was delicious and -her diaphanous mentality was no strain upon the minds of her admirers male and -female. -</p> - -<p> -That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light weight -when Robin in the form of a bundle of lace was carried down by her nurse to be -exhibited in the gaudy crowded little drawing-room in the slice of a house in -the Mayfair street. -</p> - -<p> -It was the Head of the House of Coombe who asked the first question about her. -</p> - -<p> -“What will you <i>do</i> with her?” he inquired detachedly. -</p> - -<p> -The frequently referred to “babe unborn” could not have presented a -gaze of purer innocence than did the lovely Feather. Her eyes of larkspur -blueness were clear of any thought or intention as spring water is clear at its -unclouded best. -</p> - -<p> -Her ripple of a laugh was clear also—enchantingly clear. -</p> - -<p> -“Do!” repeated. “What is it people ‘do’ with -babies? I suppose the nurse knows. I don’t. I wouldn’t touch her -for the world. She frightens me.” -</p> - -<p> -She floated a trifle nearer and bent to look at her. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall call her Robin,” she said. “Her name is really -Roberta as she couldn’t be called Robert. People will turn round to look -at a girl when they hear her called Robin. Besides she has eyes like a robin. I -wish she’d open them and let you see.” -</p> - -<p> -By chance she did open them at the moment—quite slowly. They were dark -liquid brown and seemed to be all lustrous iris which gazed unmovingly at the -object in of focus. That object was the Head of the House of Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze,” he said, -and stared back unmovingly also, but with a sort of cold interest. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> - -<p> -The Head of the House of Coombe was not a title to be found in Burke or -Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head’s own and having been accepted -by his acquaintances was not infrequently used by them in their light moments -in the same spirit. The peerage recorded him as a Marquis and added several -lesser attendant titles. -</p> - -<p> -“When English society was respectable, even to stodginess at -times,” was his point of view, “to be born ‘the Head of the -House’ was a weighty and awe-inspiring thing. In fearful private -denunciatory interviews with one’s parents and governors it was brought -up against one as a final argument against immoral conduct such as debt and not -going to church. As the Head of the House one was called upon to be an Example. -In the country one appeared in one’s pew and announced oneself a -‘miserable sinner’ in loud tones, one had to invite the rector to -dinner with regularity and ‘the ladies’ of one’s family gave -tea and flannel petticoats and baby clothes to cottagers. Men and women were -known as ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ in those halcyon -days. One Represented things—Parties in Parliament—Benevolent -Societies, and British Hospitality in the form of astounding long dinners at -which one drank healths and made speeches. In roseate youth one danced the -schottische and the polka and the round waltz which Lord Byron denounced as -indecent. To recall the vigour of his poem gives rise to a smile—when one -chances to sup at a cabaret.” -</p> - -<p> -He was considered very amusing when he analyzed his own mental attitude towards -his world in general. -</p> - -<p> -“I was born somewhat too late and somewhat too early,” he explained -in his light, rather cold and detached way. “I was born and educated at -the closing of one era and have to adjust myself to living in another. I was as -it were cradled among treasured relics of the ethics of the Georges and Queen -Charlotte, and Queen Victoria in her bloom. <i>I</i> was in my bloom in the -days when ‘ladies’ were reproved for wearing dresses cut too low at -Drawing Rooms. Such training gives curious interest to fashions in which -bodices are unconsidered trifles and Greek nymphs who dance with bare feet and -beautiful bare legs may be one’s own relations. I trust I do not seem -even in the shadowiest way to comment unfavourably. I merely look on at the -rapidities of change with unalloyed interest. As the Head of the House of -Coombe I am not sure <i>what</i> I am an Example of—or to. Which is why I -at times regard myself in that capacity with a slightly ribald -lightness.” -</p> - -<p> -The detachment of his question with regard to the newborn infant of the airily -irresponsible Feather was in entire harmony with his attitude towards the -singular incident of Life as illustrated by the World, the Flesh and the Devil -by none of which he was—as far as could be observed—either -impressed, disturbed or prejudiced. His own experience had been richly varied -and practically unlimited in its opportunities for pleasure, sinful or unsinful -indulgence, mitigated or unmitigated wickedness, the gathering of strange -knowledge, and the possible ignoring of all dull boundaries. This being the -case a superhuman charity alone could have forborne to believe that his -opportunities had been neglected in the heyday of his youth. Wealth and lack of -limitations in themselves would have been quite enough to cause the -Nonconformist Victorian mind to regard a young—or middle-aged—male -as likely to represent a fearsome moral example, but these three temptations -combined with good looks and a certain mental brilliance were so inevitably the -concomitants of elegant iniquity that the results might be taken for granted. -</p> - -<p> -That the various worlds in which he lived in various lands accepted him -joyfully as an interesting and desirable of more or less abominably sinful -personage, the Head of the House of Coombe—even many years before he -became its head—regarded with the detachment which he had, even much -earlier, begun to learn. Why should it be in the least matter what people -thought of one? Why should it in the least matter what one thought of -oneself—and therefore—why should one think at all? He had begun at -the outset a brilliantly happy young pagan with this simple theory. After the -passing of some years he had not been quite so happy but had remained quite as -pagan and retained the theory which had lost its first fine careless rapture -and gained a secret bitterness. He had not married and innumerable stories were -related to explain the reason why. They were most of them quite false and none -of them quite true. When he ceased to be a young man his delinquency was much -discussed, more especially when his father died and he took his place as the -head of his family. He was old enough, rich enough, important enough for -marriage to be almost imperative. But he remained unmarried. In addition he -seemed to consider his abstinence entirely an affair of his own. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you as wicked as people say you are?” a reckless young woman -once asked him. She belonged to the younger set which was that season trying -recklessness, in a tentative way, as a new fashion. -</p> - -<p> -“I really don’t know. It is so difficult to decide,” he -answered. “I could tell better if I knew exactly what wickedness is. When -I find out I will let you know. So good of you to take an interest.” -</p> - -<p> -Thirty years earlier he knew that a young lady who had heard he was wicked -would have perished in flames before immodestly mentioning the fact to him, but -might have delicately attempted to offer “first aid” to -reformation, by approaching with sweetness the subject of going to church. -</p> - -<p> -The reckless young woman looked at him with an attention which he was far from -being blind enough not to see was increased by his answer. -</p> - -<p> -“I never know what you mean,” she said almost wistfully. -</p> - -<p> -“Neither do I,” was his amiable response. “And I am sure it -would not be worth while going into. Really, we neither of us know what we -mean. Perhaps I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may have painful -limitations—or I may not.” -</p> - -<p> -After his father’s death he spent rather more time in London and rather -less in wandering over the face of the globe. But by the time he was forty he -knew familiarly far countries and near and was intimate with most of the -peoples thereof. He could have found his way about blind-folded in the most -distinctive parts of most of the great cities. He had seen and learned many -things. The most absorbing to his mind had been the ambitions and changes of -nations, statesmen, rulers and those they ruled or were ruled by. Courts and -capitals knew him, and his opportunities were such as gave him all ease as an -onlooker. He was outwardly of the type which does not arouse caution in talkers -and he heard much which was suggestive even to illumination, from those to whom -he remained unsuspected of being a man who remembered things long and was -astute in drawing conclusions. The fact remained however that he possessed a -remarkable memory and one which was not a rag-bag filled with unassorted and -parti-coloured remnants, but a large and orderly space whose contents were -catalogued and filed and well enclosed from observation. He was also given to -the mental argument which follows a point to its conclusion as a mere habit of -mind. He saw and knew well those who sat and pondered with knit brows and -cautiously hovering hand at the great chess-board which is formed by the Map of -Europe. He found an enormous interest in watching their play. It was his -fortune as a result of his position to know persons who wore crowns and a -natural incident in whose lives it was to receive the homage expressed by the -uncovering of the head and the bending of the knee. At forty he looked back at -the time when the incongruousness, the abnormality and the unsteadiness of the -foundations on which such personages stood first struck him. The realization -had been in its almost sacrilegious novelty and daring, a sort of thunderbolt -passing through his mind. He had at the time spoken of it only to one person. -</p> - -<p> -“I have no moral or ethical views to offer,” he had said. “I -only <i>see</i>. The thing—as it is—will disintegrate. I am so at -sea as to what will take its place that I feel as if the prospect were rather -horrible. One has had the old landmarks and been impressed by the old pomp and -picturesqueness so many centuries, that one cannot see the earth without them. -There have been kings even in the Cannibal Islands.” -</p> - -<p> -As a statesman or a diplomat he would have seen far but he had been too much -occupied with Life as an entertainment, too self-indulgent for work of any -order. He freely admitted to himself that he was a worthless person but the -fact did not disturb him. Having been born with a certain order of brain it -observed and worked in spite of him, thereby adding flavour and interest to -existence. But that was all. -</p> - -<p> -It cannot be said that as the years passed he quite enjoyed the fact that he -knew he was rarely spoken of to a stranger without its being mentioned that he -was the most perfectly dressed man in London. He rather detested the idea -though he was aware that the truth was unimpeachable. The perfection of his -accompaniments had arisen in his youth from a secret feeling for fitness and -harmony. Texture and colour gave him almost abnormal pleasure. His expression -of this as a masculine creature had its limits which resulted in a -concentration on perfection. Even at five-and-twenty however he had never been -called a dandy and even at five-and-forty no one had as yet hinted at Beau -Brummel though by that time men as well as women frequently described to each -other the cut and colour of the garments he wore, and tailors besought him to -honour them with crumbs of his patronage in the ambitious hope that they might -mention him as a client. And the simple fact that he appeared in a certain -colour or cut set it at once on its way to become a fashion to be seized upon, -worn and exaggerated until it was dropped suddenly by its originator and lost -in the oblivion of cheap imitations and cheap tailor shops. The first -exaggeration of the harmony he had created and the original was seen no more. -</p> - -<p> -Feather herself had a marvellous trick in the collecting of her garments. It -was a trick which at times barely escaped assuming the proportions of absolute -creation. Her passion for self-adornment expressed itself in ingenious -combination and quite startling uniqueness of line now and then. Her slim -fairness and ash-gold gossamer hair carried airily strange tilts and curves of -little or large hats or daring tints other women could not sustain but -invariably strove to imitate however disastrous the results. Beneath soft -drooping or oddly flopping brims hopelessly unbecoming to most faces hers -looked out quaintly lovely as a pictured child’s wearing its -grandmother’s bonnet. Everything draped itself about or clung to her in -entrancing folds which however whimsical were never grotesque. -</p> - -<p> -“Things are always becoming to me,” she said quite simply. -“But often I stick a few pins into a dress to tuck it up here and there, -or if I give a hat a poke somewhere to make it crooked, they are much more -becoming. People are always asking me how I do it but I don’t know how. I -bought a hat from Cerise last week and I gave it two little thumps with my -fist—one in the crown and one in the brim and they made it wonderful. The -maid of the most grand kind of person tried to find out from my maid where I -bought it. I wouldn’t let her tell of course.” -</p> - -<p> -She created fashions and was imitated as was the Head of the House of Coombe -but she was enraptured by the fact and the entire power of such gray matter as -was held by her small brain cells was concentrated upon her desire to evolve -new fantasies and amazements for her world. -</p> - -<p> -Before he had been married for a year there began to creep into the mind of Bob -Gareth-Lawless a fearsome doubt remotely hinting that she might end by becoming -an awful bore in the course of time—particularly if she also ended by -being less pretty. She chattered so incessantly about nothing and was such an -empty-headed, extravagant little fool in her insistence on -clothes—clothes—clothes—as if they were the breath of life. -After watching her for about two hours one morning as she sat before her mirror -directing her maid to arrange and re-arrange her hair in different -styles—in delicate puffs and curls and straying rings—soft bands -and loops—in braids and coils—he broke forth into an uneasy short -laugh and expressed himself—though she did not know he was expressing -himself and would not have understood him if she had. -</p> - -<p> -“If you have a soul—and I’m not at all certain you -have—” he said, “it’s divided into a dressmaker’s -and a hairdresser’s and a milliner’s shop. It’s full of -tumbled piles of hats and frocks and diamond combs. It’s an awful mess, -Feather.” -</p> - -<p> -“I hope it’s a shoe shop and a jeweller’s as well,” she -laughed quite gaily. “And a lace-maker’s. I need every one of -them.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a rag shop,” he said. “It has nothing but -<i>chiffons</i> in it.” -</p> - -<p> -“If ever I <i>do</i> think of souls I think of them as silly gauzy things -floating about like little balloons,” was her cheerful response. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s an idea,” he answered with a rather louder laugh. -“Yours might be made of pink and blue gauze spangled with those things -you call <i>paillettes</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -The fancy attracted her. -</p> - -<p> -“If I had one like that”—with a pleased creative air, -“it would look rather ducky floating from my shoulder—or even my -hat—or my hair in the evenings, just held by a tiny sparkling chain -fastened with a diamond pin—and with lovely little pink and blue -streamers.” With the touch of genius she had at once relegated it to its -place in the scheme of her universe. And Robert laughed even louder than -before. -</p> - -<p> -“You mustn’t make me laugh,” she said holding up her hand. -“I am having my hair done to match that quakery thin pale mousey dress -with the tiny poke bonnet—and I want to try my face too. I must look -sweet and demure. You mustn’t really laugh when you wear a dress and hat -like that. You must only smile.” -</p> - -<p> -Some months earlier Bob would have found it difficult to believe that she said -this entirely without any touch of humour but he realized now that it was so -said. He had some sense of humour of his own and one of his reasons for vaguely -feeling that she might become a bore was that she had none whatever. -</p> - -<p> -It was at the garden party where she wore the thin quakery mousey dress and -tiny poke bonnet that the Head of the House of Coombe first saw her. It was at -the place of a fashionable artist who lived at Hampstead and had a garden and a -few fine old trees. It had been Feather’s special intention to strike -this note of delicate dim colour. Every other woman was blue or pink or yellow -or white or flowered and she in her filmy coolness of unusual hue stood out -exquisitely among them. Other heads wore hats broad or curved or flopping, hers -looked like a little nun’s or an imaginary portrait of a delicious young -great-grandmother. She was more arresting than any other female creature on the -emerald sward or under the spreading trees. -</p> - -<p> -When Coombe’s eyes first fell upon her he was talking to a group of -people and he stopped speaking. Someone standing quite near him said afterwards -that he had for a second or so become pale—almost as if he saw something -which frightened him. -</p> - -<p> -“Who is that under the copper beech—being talked to by -Harlow?” he inquired. -</p> - -<p> -Feather was in fact listening with a gentle air and with her eyelids down -drooped to the exact line harmonious with the angelic little poke bonnet. -</p> - -<p> -“It is Mrs. Robert Gareth-Lawless—‘Feather’ we call -her,” he was answered. “Was there ever anything more artful than -that startling little smoky dress? If it was flame colour one wouldn’t -see it as quickly.” -</p> - -<p> -“One wouldn’t look at it as long,” said Coombe. “One is -in danger of staring. And the little hat—or bonnet—which pokes and -is fastened under her pink ear by a satin bow held by a loose pale bud! Will -someone rescue me from staring by leading me to her. It won’t be staring -if I am talking to her. Please.” -</p> - -<p> -The paleness appeared again as on being led across the grass he drew nearer to -the copper beech. He was still rather pale when Feather lifted her eyes to him. -Her eyes were so shaped by Nature that they looked like an angel’s when -they were lifted. There are eyes of that particular cut. But he had not talked -to her fifteen minutes before he knew that there was no real reason why he -should ever again lose his colour at the sight of her. He had thought at first -there was. With the perception which invariably marked her sense of fitness of -things she had begun in the course of the fifteen minutes—almost before -the colour had quite returned to his face—the story of her -husband’s idea of her soul, as a balloon of pink and blue gauze spangled -with <i>paillettes</i>. And of her own inspiration of wearing it floating from -her shoulder or her hair by the light sparkling chain—and with delicate -ribbon streamers. She was much delighted with his laugh—though she -thought it had a rather cracked, harsh sound. She knew he was an important -person and she always felt she was being a success when people laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“Exquisite!” he said. “I shall never see you in the future -without it. But wouldn’t it be necessary to vary the colour at -times?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! Yes—to match things,” seriously. “I couldn’t -wear a pink and blue one with this—” glancing over the smoky mousey -thing “—or <i>paillettes</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no—not <i>paillettes</i>,” he agreed almost with -gravity, the harsh laugh having ended. -</p> - -<p> -“One couldn’t imagine the exact colour in a moment. One would have -to think,” she reflected. “Perhaps a misty dim bluey -thing—like the edge of a rain-cloud—scarcely a colour at -all.” -</p> - -<p> -For an instant her eyes were softly shadowed as if looking into a dream. He -watched her fixedly then. A woman who was a sort of angel might look like that -when she was asking herself how much her pure soul might dare to pray for. Then -he laughed again and Feather laughed also. -</p> - -<p> -Many practical thoughts had already begun to follow each other hastily through -her mind. It would be the best possible thing for them if he really admired -her. Bob was having all sorts of trouble with people they owed money to. Bills -were sent in again and again and disagreeable letters were written. Her -dressmaker and milliner had given her most rude hints which could indeed be -scarcely considered hints at all. She scarcely dared speak to their smart young -footman who she knew had only taken the place in the slice of a house because -he had been told that it might be an opening to better things. She did not know -the exact summing up at the agency had been as follows: -</p> - -<p> -“They’re a good looking pair and he’s Lord Lawdor’s -nephew. They’re bound to have their fling and smart people will come to -their house because she’s so pretty. They’ll last two or three -years perhaps and you’ll open the door to the kind of people who remember -a well set-up young fellow if he shows he knows his work above the -usual.” -</p> - -<p> -The more men of the class of the Head of the House of Coombe who came in and -out of the slice of a house the more likely the owners of it were to get good -invitations and continued credit, Feather was aware. Besides which, she thought -ingenuously, if he was rich he would no doubt lend Bob money. She had already -known that certain men who liked her had done it. She did not mind it at all. -One was obliged to have money. -</p> - -<p> -This was the beginning of an acquaintance which gave rise to much argument over -tea-cups and at dinner parties and in boudoirs—even in corners of -Feather’s own gaudy little drawing-room. The argument regarded the degree -of Coombe’s interest in her. There was always curiosity as to the degree -of his interest in any woman—especially and privately on the part of the -woman herself. Casual and shallow observers said he was quite infatuated if -such a thing were possible to a man of his temperament; the more concentrated -of mind said it was not possible to a man of his temperament and that any -attraction Feather might have for him was of a kind special to himself and that -he alone could explain it—and he would not. -</p> - -<p> -Remained however the fact that he managed to see a great deal of her. It might -be said that he even rather followed her about and more than one among the -specially concentrated of mind had seen him on occasion stand apart a little -and look at her—watch her—with an expression suggesting equally -profound thought and the profound intention to betray his private meditations -in no degree. There was no shadow of profundity of thought in his treatment of -her. He talked to her as she best liked to be talked to about herself, her -successes and her clothes which were more successful than anything else. He -went to the little but exceedingly lively dinners the Gareth-Lawlesses gave and -though he was understood not to be fond of dancing now and then danced with her -at balls. -</p> - -<p> -Feather was guilelessly doubtless concerning him. She was quite sure that he -was in love with her. Her idea of that universal emotion was that it was a -matter of clothes and propinquity and loveliness and that if one were at all -clever one got things one wanted as a result of it. Her overwhelming affection -for Bob and his for her had given her life in London and its entertaining -accompaniments. Her frankness in the matter of this desirable capture when she -talked to her husband was at once light and friendly. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course you will be able to get credit at his tailor’s as you -know him so well,” she said. “When I persuaded him to go with me to -Madame Hélène’s last week she was quite amiable. He helped me to choose -six dresses and I believe she would have let me choose six more.” -</p> - -<p> -“Does she think he is going to pay for them?” asked Bob. -</p> - -<p> -“It doesn’t matter what she thinks”; Feather laughed very -prettily. -</p> - -<p> -“Doesn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not a bit. I shall have the dresses. What’s the matter, Rob? You -look quite red and cross.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve had a headache for three days,” he answered, “and -I feel hot and cross. I don’t care about a lot of things you say, -Feather.” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t be silly,” she retorted. “I don’t care -about a lot of things you say—and do, too, for the matter of that.” -</p> - -<p> -Robert Gareth-Lawless who was sitting on a chair in her dressing-room grunted -slightly as he rubbed his red and flushed forehead. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s a—sort of limit,” he commented. He hesitated a -little before he added sulkily “—to the things -one—<i>says</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“That sounds like Alice,” was her undisturbed answer. “She -used to squabble at me because I <i>said</i> things. But I believe one of the -reasons people like me is because I make them laugh by <i>saying</i> things. -Lord Coombe laughs. He is a very good person to know,” she added -practically. “Somehow he <i>counts</i>. Don’t you recollect how -before we knew him—when he was abroad so long—people used to bring -him into their talk as if they couldn’t help remembering him and what he -was like. I knew quite a lot about him—about his cleverness and his -manners and his way of keeping women off without being rude—and the -things he says about royalties and the aristocracy going out of fashion. And -about his clothes. I adore his clothes. And I’m convinced he adores -mine.” -</p> - -<p> -She had in fact at once observed his clothes as he had crossed the grass to her -seat under the copper beech. She had seen that his fine thinness was inimitably -fitted and presented itself to the eye as that final note of perfect line which -ignores any possibility of comment. He did not wear things—they were -expressions of his mental subtleties. Feather on her part knew that she wore -her clothes—carried them about with her—however beautifully. -</p> - -<p> -“I like him,” she went on. “I don’t know anything about -political parties and the state of Europe so I don’t understand the -things he says which people think are so brilliant, but I like him. He -isn’t really as old as I thought he was the first day I saw him. He had a -haggard look about his mouth and eyes then. He looked as if a spangled pink and -blue gauze soul with little floating streamers was a relief to him.” -</p> - -<p> -The child Robin was a year old by that time and staggered about uncertainly in -the dingy little Day Nursery in which she passed her existence except on such -occasions as her nurse—who had promptly fallen in love with the smart -young footman—carried her down to the kitchen and Servants’ Hall in -the basement where there was an earthy smell and an abundance of cockroaches. -The Servants’ Hall had been given that name in the catalogue of the -fashionable agents who let the home and it was as cramped and grimy as the two -top-floor nurseries. -</p> - -<p> -The next afternoon Robert Gareth-Lawless staggered into his wife’s -drawing-room and dropped on to a sofa staring at her and breathing hard. -</p> - -<p> -“Feather!” he gasped. “Don’t know what’s up with -me. I believe I’m—awfully ill! I can’t see straight. -Can’t think.” -</p> - -<p> -He fell over sidewise on to the cushions so helplessly that Feather sprang at -him. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t, Rob, don’t!” she cried in actual anguish. -“Lord Coombe is taking us to the opera and to supper afterwards. -I’m going to wear—” She stopped speaking to shake him and try -to lift his head. “Oh! do try to sit up,” she begged pathetically. -“Just try. <i>Don’t</i> give up till afterwards.” But she -could neither make him sit up nor make him hear. He lay back heavily with his -mouth open, breathing stertorously and quite insensible. -</p> - -<p> -It happened that the Head of the House of Coombe was announced at that very -moment even as she stood wringing her hands over the sofa. -</p> - -<p> -He went to her side and looked at Gareth-Lawless. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you sent for a doctor?” he inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s—only just done it!” she exclaimed. -“It’s more than I can bear. You said the Prince would be at the -supper after the opera and—” -</p> - -<p> -“Were you thinking of going?” he put it to her quietly. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall have to send for a nurse of course—” she began. He -went so far as to interrupt her. -</p> - -<p> -“You had better not go—if you’ll pardon my saying so,” -he suggested. -</p> - -<p> -“Not go? Not go at all?” she wailed. -</p> - -<p> -“Not go at all,” was his answer. And there was such entire lack of -encouragement in it that Feather sat down and burst into sobs. -</p> - -<p> -In few than two weeks Robert was dead and she was left a lovely penniless widow -with a child. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> - -<p> -Two or three decades earlier the prevailing sentiment would have been that -“poor little Mrs. Gareth-Lawless” and her situation were pathetic. -Her acquaintances would sympathetically have discussed her helplessness and -absolute lack of all resource. So very pretty, so young, the mother of a dear -little girl—left with no income! How very sad! What <i>could</i> she do? -The elect would have paid her visits and sitting in her darkened drawing-room -earnestly besought her to trust to her Maker and suggested “the -Scriptures” as suitable reading. Some of them—rare and strange -souls even in their time—would have known what they meant and meant what -they said in a way they had as yet only the power to express through the medium -of a certain shibboleth, the rest would have used the same forms merely because -shibboleth is easy and always safe and creditable. -</p> - -<p> -But to Feather’s immediate circle a multiplicity of engagements, fevers -of eagerness in the attainment of pleasures and ambitions, anxieties, small and -large terrors, and a whirl of days left no time for the regarding of pathetic -aspects. The tiny house up whose staircase—tucked against a -wall—one had seemed to have the effect of crowding even when one went -alone to make a call, suddenly ceased to represent hilarious little parties -which were as entertaining as they were up to date and noisy. The most daring -things London gossiped about had been said and done and worn there. Novel -social ventures had been tried—dancing and songs which seemed almost -startling at first—but which were gradually being generally adopted. -There had always been a great deal of laughing and talking of nonsense and the -bandying of jokes and catch phrases. And Feather fluttering about and saying -delicious, silly things at which her hearers shouted with glee. Such a place -could not suddenly become pathetic. It seemed almost indecent for Robert -Gareth-Lawless to have dragged Death nakedly into their midst—to have -died in his bed in one of the little bedrooms, to have been put in his coffin -and carried down the stairs scraping the wall, and sent away in a hearse. -Nobody could bear to think of it. -</p> - -<p> -Feather could bear it less than anybody else. It seemed incredible that such a -trick could have been played her. She shut herself up in her stuffy little -bedroom with its shrimp pink frills and draperies and cried lamentably. At -first she cried as a child might who was suddenly snatched away in the midst of -a party. Then she began to cry because she was frightened. Numbers of cards -“with sympathy” had been left at the front door during the first -week after the funeral, they had accumulated in a pile on the salver but very -few people had really come to see her and while she knew they had the excuse of -her recent bereavement she felt that it made the house ghastly. It had never -been silent and empty. Things had always been going on and now there was -actually not a sound to be heard—no one going up and down -stairs—Rob’s room cleared of all his belongings and left orderly -and empty—the drawing-room like a gay little tomb without an occupant. -How long <i>would</i> it be before it would be full of people again—how -long must she wait before she could decently invite anyone?—It was really -at this point that fright seized upon her. Her brain was not given to -activities of reasoning and followed no thought far. She had not begun to ask -herself questions as to ways and means. Rob had been winning at cards and had -borrowed some money from a new acquaintance so no immediate abyss had yawned at -her feet. But when the thought of future festivities rose before her a sudden -check made her involuntarily clutch at her throat. She had no money at all, -bills were piled everywhere, perhaps now Robert was dead none of the shops -would give her credit. She remembered hearing Rob come into the house swearing -only the day before he was taken ill and it had been because he had met on the -door-step a collector of the rent which was long over-due and must be paid. She -had no money to pay it, none to pay the servants’ wages, none to pay the -household bills, none to pay for the monthly hire of the brougham! Would they -turn her into the street—would the servants go away—would she be -left without even a carriage? What could she do about clothes! She could not -wear anything but mourning now and by the time she was out of mourning her old -clothes would have gone out of fashion. The morning on which this aspect of -things occurred to her, she was so terrified that she began to run up and down -the room like a frightened little cat seeing no escape from the trap it is -caught in. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s awful—it’s awful—it’s awful!” -broke out between her sobs. “What can I do? I can’t do anything! -There’s nothing to do! It’s awful—it’s -awful—it’s awful!” She ended by throwing herself on the bed -crying until she was exhausted. She had no mental resources which would suggest -to her that there was anything but crying to be done. She had cried very little -in her life previously because even in her days of limitation she had been able -to get more or less what she wanted—though of course it had generally -been less. And crying made one’s nose and eyes red. On this occasion she -actually forgot her nose and eyes and cried until she scarcely knew herself -when she got up and looked in the glass. -</p> - -<p> -She rang the bell for her maid and sat down to wait her coming. Tonson should -bring her a cup of beef tea. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s time for lunch,” she thought. “I’m faint -with crying. And she shall bathe my eyes with rose-water.” -</p> - -<p> -It was not Tonson’s custom to keep her mistress waiting but today she was -not prompt. Feather rang a second time and an impatient third and then sat in -her chair and waited until she began to feel as she felt always in these -dreadful days the dead silence of the house. It was the thing which most struck -terror to her soul—that horrid stillness. The servants whose place was in -the basement were too much closed in their gloomy little quarters to have made -themselves heard upstairs even if they had been inclined to. During the last -few weeks Feather had even found herself wishing that they were less well -trained and would make a little noise—do anything to break the silence. -</p> - -<p> -The room she sat in—Rob’s awful little room adjoining—which -was awful because of what she had seen for a moment lying stiff and hard on the -bed before she was taken away in hysterics—were dread enclosures of utter -silence. The whole house was dumb—the very street had no sound in it. She -could not endure it. How dare Tonson? She sprang up and rang the bell again and -again until its sound came back to her pealing through the place. -</p> - -<p> -Then she waited again. It seemed to her that five minutes passed before she -heard the smart young footman mounting the stairs slowly. She did not wait for -his knock upon the door but opened it herself. -</p> - -<p> -“How dare Tonson!” she began. “I have rung four or five -times! How dare she!” -</p> - -<p> -The smart young footman’s manner had been formed in a good school. It was -attentive, impersonal. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know, ma’am,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you mean? What does <i>she</i> mean? Where is she?” -Feather felt almost breathless before his unperturbed good style. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know, ma’am,” he answered as before. Then with -the same unbiassed bearing added, “None of us know. She has gone -away.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather clutched the door handle because she felt herself swaying. -</p> - -<p> -“Away! Away!” the words were a faint gasp. -</p> - -<p> -“She packed her trunk yesterday and carried it away with her on a -four-wheeler. About an hour ago, ma’am.” Feather dropped her hand -from the knob of the door and trailed back to the chair she had left, sinking -into it helplessly. -</p> - -<p> -“Who—who will dress me?” she half wailed. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know, ma’am,” replied the young footman, his -excellent manner presuming no suggestion or opinion whatever. He added however, -“Cook, ma’am, wishes to speak to you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Tell her to come to me here,” Feather said. “And I—I -want a cup of beef tea.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, ma’am,” with entire respect. And the door closed -quietly behind him. -</p> - -<p> -It was not long before it was opened again. “Cook” had knocked and -Feather had told her to come in. Most cooks are stout, but this one was not. -She was a thin, tall woman with square shoulders and a square face somewhat -reddened by constant proximity to fires. She had been trained at a cooking -school. She carried a pile of small account books but she brought nothing else. -</p> - -<p> -“I wanted some beef tea, Cook,” said Feather protestingly. -</p> - -<p> -“There is no beef tea, ma’am,” said Cook. “There is -neither beef, nor stock, nor Liebig in the house.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why—why not?” stammered Feather and she stammered because -even her lack of perception saw something in the woman’s face which was -new to her. It was a sort of finality. -</p> - -<p> -She held out the pile of small books. -</p> - -<p> -“Here are the books, ma’am,” was her explanation. -“Perhaps as you don’t like to be troubled with such things, you -don’t know how far behind they are. Nothing has been paid for months. -It’s been an every-day fight to get the things that was wanted. -It’s not an agreeable thing for a cook to have to struggle and plead. -I’ve had to do it because I had my reputation to think of and I -couldn’t send up rubbish when there was company.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather felt herself growing pale as she sat and stared at her. Cook drew near -and laid one little book after another on the small table near her. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s the butcher’s book,” she said. -“He’s sent nothing in for three days. We’ve been living on -leavings. He’s sent his last, he says and he means it. This is the -baker’s. He’s not been for a week. I made up rolls because I had -some flour left. It’s done now—and <i>he’s</i> done. This is -groceries and Mercom & Fees wrote to Mr. Gareth-Lawless when the last -month’s supply came, that it would BE the last until payment was made. -This is wines—and coal and wood—and laundry—and milk. And -here is wages, ma’am, which <i>can’t</i> go on any longer.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather threw up her hands and quite wildly. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, go away!—go away!” she cried. “If Mr. Lawless were -here—” -</p> - -<p> -“He isn’t, ma’am,” Cook interposed, not fiercely but in -a way more terrifying than any ferocity could have been—a way which -pointed steadily to the end of things. “As long as there’s a -gentleman in a house there’s generally a sort of a prospect that things -<i>may</i> be settled some way. At any rate there’s someone to go and -speak your mind to even if you have to give up your place. But when -there’s no gentleman and nothing—and nobody—respectable -people with their livings to make have got to protect themselves.” -</p> - -<p> -The woman had no intention of being insolent. Her simple statement that her -employer’s death had left “Nothing” and “Nobody” -was prompted by no consciously ironic realization of the diaphanousness of -Feather. As for the rest she had been professionally trained to take care of -her interests as well as to cook and the ethics of the days of her grandmother -when there had been servants with actual affections had not reached her. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! go away! Go <i>awa-ay!</i>” Feather almost shrieked. -</p> - -<p> -“I am going, ma’am. So are Edward and Emma and Louisa. It’s -no use waiting and giving the month’s notice. We shouldn’t save the -month’s wages and the trades-people wouldn’t feed us. We -can’t stay here and starve. And it’s a time of the year when places -has to be looked for. You can’t hold it against us, ma’am. -It’s better for you to have us out of the house tonight—which is -when our boxes will be taken away.” -</p> - -<p> -Then was Feather seized with a panic. For the first time in her life she found -herself facing mere common facts which rose before her like a solid wall of -stone—not to be leapt, or crept under, or bored through, or slipped -round. She was so overthrown and bewildered that she could not even think of -any clever and rapidly constructed lie which would help her; indeed she was so -aghast that she did not remember that there were such things as lies. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean,” she cried out, “that you are all going to -<i>leave</i> the house—that there won’t be any servants to wait on -me—that there’s nothing to eat or drink—that I shall have to -stay here <i>alone</i>—and starve!” -</p> - -<p> -“We should have to starve if we stayed,” answered Cook simply. -“And of course there are a few things left in the pantry and closets. And -you might get in a woman by the day. You won’t starve, ma’am. -You’ve got your family in Jersey. We waited because we thought Mr. and -Mrs. Darrel would be sure to come.” -</p> - -<p> -“My father is ill. I think he’s dying. My mother could not leave -him for a moment. Perhaps he’s dead now,” Feather wailed. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve got your London friends, ma’am—” -</p> - -<p> -Feather literally beat her hands together. -</p> - -<p> -“My friends! Can I go to people’s houses and knock at their front -door and tell them I haven’t any servants or anything to eat! Can I do -that? Can I?” And she said it as if she were going crazy. -</p> - -<p> -The woman had said what she had come to say as spokeswoman for the rest. It had -not been pleasant but she knew she had been quite within her rights and dealt -with plain facts. But she did not enjoy the prospect of seeing her little fool -of a mistress raving in hysterics. -</p> - -<p> -“You mustn’t let yourself go, ma’am,” she said. -“You’d better lie down a bit and try to get quiet.” She -hesitated a moment looking at the pretty ruin who had risen from her seat and -stood trembling. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not my place of course to—make suggestions,” she -said quietly. “But—had you ever thought of sending for Lord Coombe, -ma’am?” -</p> - -<p> -Feather actually found the torn film of her mind caught for a second by -something which wore a form of reality. Cook saw that her tremor appeared to -verge on steadying itself. -</p> - -<p> -“Coombe,” she faintly breathed as if to herself and not to Cook. -</p> - -<p> -“Coombe.” -</p> - -<p> -“His lordship was very friendly with Mr. Lawless and he seemed fond -of—coming to the house,” was presented as a sort of added argument. -“If you’ll lie down I’ll bring you a cup of tea, -ma’am—though it can’t be beef.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather staggered again to her bed and dropped flat upon it—flat as a -slim little pancake in folds of thin black stuff which hung and floated. -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t bring you cream,” said Cook as she went out of the -room. “Louisa has had nothing but condensed milk—since -yesterday—to give Miss Robin.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh-h!” groaned Feather, not in horror of the tea without cream -though that was awful enough in its significance, but because this was the -first time since the falling to pieces of her world that she had given a -thought to the added calamity of Robin. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> - -<p> -If one were to devote one’s mental energies to speculation as to what is -going on behind the noncommittal fronts of any row of houses in any great city -the imaginative mind might be led far. Bricks, mortar, windows, doors, steps -which lead up to the threshold, are what are to be seen from the outside. -Nothing particular may be transpiring within the walls, or tragedies, crimes, -hideous suffering may be enclosed. The conclusion is obvious to -banality—but as suggestive as banal—so suggestive in fact that the -hyper-sensitive and too imaginative had better, for their own comfort’s -sake, leave the matter alone. In most cases the existing conditions would not -be altered even if one knocked at the door and insisted on entering with drawn -sword in the form of attendant policeman. The outside of the slice of a house -in which Feather lived was still rather fresh from its last decorative touching -up. It had been painted cream colour and had white doors and windows and green -window boxes with variegated vinca vines trailing from them and pink geraniums, -dark blue lobelia and ferns filling the earth stuffed in by the florist who -provided such adornments. Passers-by frequently glanced at it and thought it a -nice little house whose amusing diminutiveness was a sort of attraction. It was -rather like a new doll’s house. -</p> - -<p> -No one glancing at it in passing at the closing of this particular day had -reason to suspect that any unaccustomed event was taking place behind the -cream-coloured front. The front door “brasses” had been polished, -the window-boxes watered and no cries for aid issued from the rooms behind -them. The house was indeed quiet both inside and out. Inside it was indeed even -quieter than usual. The servants’ preparation for departure had been made -gradually and undisturbedly. There had been exhaustive quiet discussion of the -subject each night for weeks, even before Robert Gareth-Lawless’ illness. -The smart young footman Edward who had means of gaining practical information -had constituted himself a sort of private detective. He had in time learned all -that was to be learned. This, it had made itself clear to him on investigation, -was not one of those cases when to wait for evolutionary family events might be -the part of discretion. There were no prospects ahead—none at all. -Matters would only get worse and the whole thing would end in everybody not -only losing their unpaid back wages but having to walk out into the street -through the door of a disgraced household whose owners would be turned out into -the street also when their belongings were sold over their heads. Better get -out before everything went to pieces and there were unpleasantnesses. There -would be unpleasantnesses because there was no denying that the trades-people -had been played tricks with. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was only one of a lot of -pretty daughters whose father was a poor country doctor in Jersey. He had had -“a stroke” himself and his widow would have nothing to live on when -he died. That was what Mrs. Lawless had to look to. As to Lord Lawdor Edward -had learned from those who <i>did</i> know that he had never approved of his -nephew and that he’d said he was a fool for marrying and had absolutely -refused to have anything to do with him. He had six boys and a girl now and big -estates weren’t what they had been, everyone knew. There was only one -thing left for Cook and Edward and Emma and Louisa to do and that was to -“get out” without any talk or argument. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s not one that won’t find someone to look after -her,” ended Edward. “Somebody or other will take her up because -they’ll be sorry for her. But us lot aren’t widows and orphans. No -one’s going to be sorry for us or care a hang what we’ve been let -in for. The longer we stay, the longer we won’t be paid.” He was -not a particularly depraved or cynical young footman but he laughed a little at -the end of his speech. “There’s the Marquis,” he added. -“He’s been running in and out long enough to make a good bit of -talk. Now’s his time to turn up.” -</p> - -<p> -After she had taken her cup of tea without cream Feather had fallen asleep in -reaction from her excited agitation. It was in accord with the inevitable trend -of her being that even before her eyes closed she had ceased to believe that -the servants were really going to leave the house. It seemed too ridiculous a -thing to happen. She was possessed of no logic which could lead her to a -realization of the indubitable fact that there was no reason why servants who -could neither be paid nor provided with food should remain in a place. The mild -stimulation of the tea also gave rise to the happy thought that she would not -give them any references if they “behaved badly”. It did not -present itself to her that references from a house of cards which had -ignominiously fallen to pieces and which henceforth would represent only shady -failure, would be of no use. So she fell asleep. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -When she awakened the lights were lighted in the streets and one directly -across the way threw its reflection into her bedroom. It lit up the little -table near which she had sat and the first thing she saw was the pile of small -account books. The next was that the light which revealed them also fell -brightly on the glass knob of the door which led into Robert’s room. -</p> - -<p> -She turned her eyes away quickly with a nervous shudder. She had a horror of -the nearness of Rob’s room. If there had been another part of the house -in which she could have slept she would have fled to it as soon as he was taken -ill. But the house was too small to have “parts”. The tiny -drawing-rooms piled themselves on top of the dining-room, the -“master’s bedrooms” on top of the drawing-rooms, and the -nurseries and attics where Robin and the servants slept one on the other at the -top of the house. So she had been obliged to stay and endure everything. -Rob’s cramped quarters had always been full of smart boots and the smell -of cigars and men’s clothes. He had moved about a good deal and had -whistled and laughed and sworn and grumbled. They had neither of them had bad -tempers so that they had not quarrelled with each other. They had talked -through the open door when they were dressing and they had invented clever -tricks which helped them to get out of money scrapes and they had gossiped and -made fun of people. And now the door was locked and the room was a sort of -horror. She could never think of it without seeing the stiff hard figure on the -bed, the straight close line of the mouth and the white hard nose sharpened and -narrowed as Rob’s had never been. Somehow she particularly could not bear -the recollection of the sharp unnatural modeling of the hard, white nose. She -could not <i>bear</i> it! She found herself recalling it the moment she saw the -light on the door handle and she got up to move about and try to forget it. -</p> - -<p> -It was then that she went to the window and looked down into the street, -probably attracted by some slight noise though she was not exactly aware that -she had heard anything. -</p> - -<p> -She must have heard something however. Two four-wheeled cabs were standing at -the front door and the cabman assisted by Edward were putting trunks on top of -them. They were servants’ trunks and Cook was already inside the first -cab which was filled with paper parcels and odds and ends. Even as her mistress -watched Emma got in carrying a sedate band-box. She was the house-parlourmaid -and a sedate person. The first cab drove away as soon as its door was closed -and the cabman mounted to his seat. Louisa looking wholly unprofessional -without her nurse’s cap and apron and wearing a tailor-made navy blue -costume and a hat with a wing in it, entered the second cab followed by Edward -intensely suggesting private life and possible connection with a Bank. The -second cab followed the first and Feather having lost her breath looked after -them as they turned the corner of the street. -</p> - -<p> -When they were quite out of sight she turned back into the room. The colour had -left her skin, and her eyes were so wide stretched and her face so drawn and -pinched with abject terror that her prettiness itself had left her. -</p> - -<p> -“They’ve gone—all of them!” she gasped. She stopped a -moment, her chest rising and falling. Then she added even more breathlessly, -“There’s no one left in the house. It’s—empty!” -</p> - -<p> -This was what was going on behind the cream-coloured front, the white windows -and green flower-boxes of the slice of a house as motors and carriages passed -it that evening on their way to dinner parties and theatres, and later as the -policeman walked up and down slowly upon his beat. -</p> - -<p> -Inside a dim light in the small hall showed a remote corner where on a peg -above a decorative seat hung a man’s hat of the highest gloss and latest -form; and on the next peg a smart evening overcoat. They had belonged to Robert -Gareth-Lawless who was dead and needed such things no more. The same dim light -showed the steep narrowness of the white-railed staircase mounting into -gruesome little corners of shadows, while the miniature drawing-rooms illumined -only from the street seemed to await an explanation of dimness and chairs -unfilled, combined with unnatural silence. -</p> - -<p> -It would have been the silence of the tomb but that it was now and then broken -by something like a half smothered shriek followed by a sort of moaning which -made their way through the ceiling from the room above. -</p> - -<p> -Feather had at first run up and down the room like a frightened cat as she had -done in the afternoon. Afterwards she had had something like hysterics, falling -face downward upon the carpet and clutching her hair until it fell down. She -was not a person to be judged—she was one of the unexplained incidents of -existence. The hour has passed when the clearly moral can sum up the -responsibilities of a creature born apparently without brain, or soul or -courage. Those who aspire to such morals as are expressed by -fairness—mere fairness—are much given to hesitation. Courage had -never been demanded of Feather so far. She had none whatever and now she only -felt panic and resentment. She had no time to be pathetic about Robert, being -too much occupied with herself. Robert was dead—she was -alive—here—in an empty house with no money and no servants. She -suddenly and rather awfully realized that she did not know a single person whom -it would not be frantic to expect anything from. -</p> - -<p> -Nobody had money enough for themselves, however rich they were. The richer they -were the more they needed. It was when this thought came to her that she -clutched her hands in her hair. The pretty and smart women and agreeable more -or less good looking men who had chattered and laughed and made love in her -drawing-rooms were chattering, laughing and making love in other houses at this -very moment—or they were at the theatre applauding some fashionable -actor-manager. At this very moment—while she lay on the carpet in the -dark and every little room in the house had horror shut inside its closed -doors—particularly Robert’s room which was so hideously close to -her own, and where there seemed still to lie moveless on the bed, the stiff -hard figure. It was when she recalled this that the unnatural silence of the -drawing-rooms was intruded upon by the brief half-stifled hysteric shriek, and -the moaning which made its way through the ceiling. She felt almost as if the -door handle might turn and something stiff and cold try to come in. -</p> - -<p> -So the hours went on behind the cream-coloured outer walls and the white -windows and gay flower-boxes. And the street became more and more -silent—so silent at last that when the policeman walked past on his beat -his heavy regular footfall seemed loud and almost resounding. -</p> - -<p> -To even vaguely put to herself any question involving action would not have -been within the scope of her mentality. Even when she began to realize that she -was beginning to feel faint for want of food she did not dare to contemplate -going downstairs to look for something to eat. What did she know about -downstairs? She had never there and had paid no attention whatever to -Louisa’s complaints that the kitchen and Servants’ Hall were small -and dark and inconvenient and that cockroaches ran about. She had cheerfully -accepted the simple philosophy that London servants were used to these things -and if they did their work it did not really matter. But to go out of -one’s room in the horrible stillness and creep downstairs, having to turn -up the gas as one went, and to face the basement steps and cockroaches -scuttling away, would be even more impossible than to starve. She sat upon the -floor, her hair tumbling about her shoulders and her thin black dress crushed. -</p> - -<p> -“I’d give almost <i>anything</i> for a cup of coffee,” she -protested feebly. “And there’s no <i>use</i> in ringing the -bell!” -</p> - -<p> -Her mother ought to have come whether her father was ill or not. He -wasn’t dead. Robert was dead and her mother ought to have come so that -whatever happened she would not be quite alone and <i>something</i> could be -done for her. It was probably this tender thought of her mother which brought -back the recollection of her wedding day and a certain wedding present she had -received. It was a pretty silver travelling flask and she remembered that it -must be in her dressing-bag now, and there was some cognac left in it. She got -up and went to the place where the bag was kept. Cognac raised your spirits and -made you go to sleep, and if she could sleep until morning the house would not -be so frightening by daylight—and something might happen. The little -flask was almost full. Neither she nor Robert had cared much about cognac. She -poured some into a glass with water and drank it. -</p> - -<p> -Because she was unaccustomed to stimulant it made her feel quite warm and in a -few minutes she forgot that she had been hungry and realized that she was not -so frightened. It was such a relief not to be terrified; it was as if a pain -had stopped. She actually picked up one or two of the account books and glanced -at the totals. If you couldn’t pay bills you couldn’t and nobody -was put in prison for debt in these days. Besides she would not have been put -in prison—Rob would—and Rob was dead. Something would -happen—something. -</p> - -<p> -As she began to arrange her hair for the night she remembered what Cook had -said about Lord Coombe. She had cried until she did not look as lovely as -usual, but after she had bathed her eyes with cold rose-water they began to -seem only shadowy and faintly flushed. And her fine ash-gold hair was wonderful -when it hung over each shoulder in wide, soft plaits. She might be a -school-girl of fifteen. A delicate lacy night-gown was one of the most becoming -things one wore. It was a pity one couldn’t wear them to parties. There -was nothing the least indecent about them. Millicent Hardwicke had been -photographed in one of hers and no one had suspected what it was. Yes; she -would send a little note to Coombe. She knew Madame Hélène had only let her -have her beautiful mourning because—. The things she had created were -quite unique—thin, gauzy, black, floating or clinging. She had been quite -happy the morning she gave Hélène her orders. Tomorrow when she had slept -through the night and it was broad daylight again she would be able to think of -things to say in her letter to Lord Coombe. She would have to be a little -careful because he did not like things to bore him.—Death and widows -might—a little—at first. She had heard him say once that he did not -wish to regard himself in the light of a charitable institution. It -wouldn’t do to frighten him away. Perhaps if he continued coming to the -house and seemed very intimate the trades-people might be managed. -</p> - -<p> -She felt much less helpless and when she was ready for bed she took a little -more cognac. The flush had faded from her eye-lids and bloomed in delicious -rose on her cheeks. As she crept between the cool sheets and nestled down on -her pillow she had a delightful sense of increasing comfort—comfort. What -a beautiful thing it was to go to sleep! -</p> - -<p> -And then she was disturbed—started out of the divine doze stealing upon -her—by a shrill prolonged wailing shriek! -</p> - -<p> -It came from the Night Nursery and at the moment it seemed almost worse than -anything which had occurred all through the day. It brought everything back so -hideously. She had of course forgotten Robin again—and it was Robin! And -Louisa had gone away with Edward. She had perhaps put the child to sleep -discreetly before she went. And now she had wakened and was screaming. Feather -had heard that she was a child with a temper but by fair means or foul Louisa -had somehow managed to prevent her from being a nuisance. -</p> - -<p> -The shrieks shocked her into sitting upright in bed. Their shrillness tearing -through the utter soundlessness of the empty house brought back all her terrors -and set her heart beating at a gallop. -</p> - -<p> -“I—I <i>won’t!</i>” she protested, fairly with -chattering teeth. “I won’t! I <i>won’t!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -She had never done anything for the child since its birth, she did not know how -to do anything, she had not wanted to know. To reach her now she would be -obliged to go out in the dark—the gas-jet she would have to light was -actually close to the outer door of Robert’s bedroom—<i>the</i> -room! If she did not die of panic while she was trying to light it she would -have to make her way almost in the dark up the steep crooked little staircase -which led to the nurseries. And the awful little creature’s screams would -be going on all the time making the blackness and dead silence of the house -below more filled with horror by contrast—more shut off and at the same -time more likely to waken to some horror which was new. -</p> - -<p> -“I-I couldn’t—even if I wanted to!” she quaked. -“I daren’t! I daren’t! I wouldn’t do it—for <i>a -million pounds?</i>” And she flung herself down again shuddering and -burrowing her head under the coverings and pillows she dragged over her ears to -shut out the sounds. -</p> - -<p> -The screams had taken on a more determined note and a fiercer shrillness which -the still house heard well and made the most of, but they were so far deadened -for Feather that she began beneath her soft barrier to protest pantingly. -</p> - -<p> -“I shouldn’t know what to do if I went. If no one goes near her -she’ll cry herself to sleep. It’s—it’s only temper. -Oh-h! what a horrible wail! It—it sounds like a—a lost soul!” -</p> - -<p> -But she did not stir from the bed. She burrowed deeper under the bed clothes -and held the pillow closer to her ears. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -It did sound like a lost soul at times. What panic possesses a baby who cries -in the darkness alone no one will ever know and one may perhaps give thanks to -whatever gods there be that the baby itself does not remember. What awful woe -of sudden unprotectedness when life exists only through protection—what -piteous panic in the midst of black unmercifulness, inarticulate sound -howsoever wildly shrill can neither explain nor express. -</p> - -<p> -Robin knew only Louisa, warmth, food, sleep and waking. Or if she knew more she -was not yet aware that she did. She had reached the age when she generally -slept through the night. She might not have disturbed her mother until daylight -but Louisa had with forethought given her an infant sleeping potion. It had -disagreed with and awakened her. She was uncomfortable and darkness enveloped -her. A cry or so and Louisa would ordinarily have come to her sleepy, and -rather out of temper, but knowing what to do. In this strange night the normal -cry of warning and demand produced no result. -</p> - -<p> -No one came. The discomfort continued—the blackness remained black. The -cries became shrieks—but nothing followed; the shrieks developed into -prolonged screams. No Louisa, no light, no milk. The blackness drew in closer -and became a thing to be fought with wild little beating hands. Not a -glimmer—not a rustle—not a sound! Then came the cries of the lost -soul—alone—alone—in a black world of space in which there was -not even another lost soul. And then the panics of which there have been no -records and never will be, because if the panic stricken does not die in -mysterious convulsions he or she grows away from the memory of a formless -past—except that perhaps unexplained nightmares from which one wakens -quaking, with cold sweat, may vaguely repeat the long hidden thing. -</p> - -<p> -What the child Robin knew in the dark perhaps the silent house which echoed her -might curiously have known. But the shrieks wore themselves out at last and -sobs came—awful little sobs shuddering through the tiny breast and -shaking the baby body. A baby’s sobs are unspeakable -things—incredible things. Slower and slower Robin’s came—with -small deep gasps and chokings between—and when an uninfantile druglike -sleep came, the bitter, hopeless, beaten little sobs went on. -</p> - -<p> -But Feather’s head was still burrowed under the soft protection of the -pillow. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> - -<p> -The morning was a brighter one than London usually indulges in and the sun made -its way into Feather’s bedroom to the revealing of its coral pink glow -and comfort. She had always liked her bedroom and had usually wakened in it to -the sense of luxuriousness it is possible a pet cat feels when it wakens to -stretch itself on a cushion with its saucer of cream awaiting it. -</p> - -<p> -But she did not awaken either to a sense of brightness or luxury this morning. -She had slept it was true, but once or twice when the pillow had slipped aside -she had found herself disturbed by the far-off sound of the wailing of some -little animal which had caused her automatically and really scarcely -consciously to replace the pillow. It had only happened at long intervals -because it is Nature that an exhausted baby falls asleep when it is worn out. -Robin had probably slept almost as much as her mother. -</p> - -<p> -Feather staring at the pinkness around her reached at last, with the assistance -of a certain physical consciousness, a sort of spiritless intention. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s asleep now,” she murmured. “I hope she -won’t waken for a long time. I feel faint. I shall have to find something -to eat—if it’s only biscuits.” Then she lay and tried to -remember what Cook had said about her not starving. “She said there were -a few things left in the pantry and closets. Perhaps there’s some -condensed milk. How do you mix it up? If she cries I might go and give her -some. It wouldn’t be so awful now it’s daylight.” -</p> - -<p> -She felt shaky when she got out of bed and stood on her feet. She had not had a -maid in her girlhood so she could dress herself, much as she detested to do it. -After she had begun however she could not help becoming rather interested -because the dress she had worn the day before had become crushed and she put on -a fresh one she had not worn at all. It was thin and soft also, and black was -quite startlingly becoming to her. She would wear this one when Lord Coombe -came, after she wrote to him. It was silly of her not to have written before -though she knew he had left town after the funeral. Letters would be forwarded. -</p> - -<p> -“It will be quite bright in the dining-room now,” she said to -encourage herself. “And Tonson once said that the only places the sun -came into below stairs were the pantry and kitchen and it only stayed about an -hour early in the morning. I must get there as soon as I can.” -</p> - -<p> -When she had so dressed herself that the reflection the mirror gave back to her -was of the nature of a slight physical stimulant she opened her bedroom door -and faced exploration of the deserted house below with a quaking sense of the -proportions of the inevitable. She got down the narrow stairs casting a -frightened glance at the emptiness of the drawing-rooms which seemed to stare -at her as she passed them. There was sun in the dining-room and when she opened -the sideboard she found some wine in decanters and some biscuits and even a few -nuts and some raisins and oranges. She put them on the table and sat down and -ate some of them and began to feel a little less shaky. -</p> - -<p> -If she had been allowed time to sit longer and digest and reflect she might -have reached the point of deciding on what she would write to Lord Coombe. She -had not the pen of a ready writer and it must be thought over. But just when -she was beginning to be conscious of the pleasant warmth of the sun which shone -on her shoulders from the window, she was almost startled our of her chair by -hearing again stealing down the staircase from the upper regions that faint -wail like a little cat’s. -</p> - -<p> -“Just the moment—the very <i>moment</i> I begin to feel a little -quieted—and try to think—she begins again!” she cried out. -“It’s worse then <i>anything!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -Large crystal tears ran down her face and upon the polished table. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose she would starve to death if I didn’t give her some -food—and then <i>I</i> should be blamed! People would be horrid about it. -I’ve got nothing to eat myself.” -</p> - -<p> -She must at any rate manage to stop the crying before she could write to -Coombe. She would be obliged to go down into the pantry and look for some -condensed milk. The creature had no teeth but perhaps she could mumble a -biscuit or a few raisins. If she could be made to swallow a little port wine it -might make her sleepy. The sun was paying its brief morning visit to the -kitchen and pantry when she reached there, but a few cockroaches scuttled away -before her and made her utter a hysterical little scream. But there <i>was</i> -some condensed milk and there was a little warm water in a kettle because the -fire was not quite out. She imperfectly mixed a decoction and filled a bottle -which ought not to have been downstairs but had been brought and left there by -Louisa as a result of tender moments with Edward. -</p> - -<p> -When she put the bottle and some biscuits and scraps of cold ham on a tray -because she could not carry them all in her hands, her sense of outrage and -despair made her almost sob. -</p> - -<p> -“I am just like a servant—carrying trays upstairs,” she wept. -“I—I might be Edward—or—or Louisa.” And her woe -increased when she added in the dining-room the port wine and nuts and raisins -and macaroons as viands which <i>might</i> somehow add to infant diet and -induce sleep. She was not sure of course—but she knew they sucked things -and liked sweets. -</p> - -<p> -A baby left unattended to scream itself to sleep and awakening to scream itself -to sleep again, does not present to a resentful observer the flowerlike bloom -and beauty of infancy. When Feather carried her tray into the Night Nursery and -found herself confronting the disordered crib on which her offspring lay she -felt the child horrible to look at. Its face was disfigured and its eyes almost -closed. She trembled all over as she put the bottle to its mouth and saw the -fiercely hungry clutch of its hands. It was old enough to clutch, and clutch it -did, and suck furiously and starvingly—even though actually forced to -stop once or twice at first to give vent to a thwarted remnant of a scream. -</p> - -<p> -Feather had only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in Louisa’s arms -or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid and brilliant-eyed baby at -whom people looked as they passed. -</p> - -<p> -“Who will give her a bath?” wailed Feather. “Who will change -her clothes? Someone must! Could a woman by the day do it? Cook said I could -get a woman by the day.” -</p> - -<p> -And then she remembered that one got servants from agencies. And where were the -agencies? And even a woman “by the day” would demand wages and food -to eat. -</p> - -<p> -And then the front door bell rang. -</p> - -<p> -What could she do—what could she do? Go downstairs and open the door -herself and let everyone know! Let the ringer go on ringing until he was tired -and went away? She was indeed hard driven, even though the wail had ceased as -Robin clutched her bottle to her breast and fed with frenzy. Let them go -away—let them! And then came the wild thought that it might be -Something—the Something which must happen when things were at their -worst! And if it had come and the house seemed to be empty! She did not walk -down the stairs, she ran. Her heart beat until she reached the door out of -breath and when she opened it stood their panting. -</p> - -<p> -The people who waited upon the steps were strangers. They were very nice -looking and quite young—a man and a woman very perfectly dressed. The man -took a piece of paper out of his pocketbook and handed it to her with an -agreeable apologetic courtesy. -</p> - -<p> -“I hope we have not called early enough to disturb you,” he said. -“We waited until eleven but we are obliged to catch a train at half past. -It is an ‘order to view’ from Carson & Bayle.” He added -this because Feather was staring at the paper. -</p> - -<p> -Carson & Bayle were the agents they had rented the house from. It was -Carson & Bayle’s collector Robert had met on the threshold and sworn -at two days before he had been taken ill. They were letting the house over her -head and she would be turned out into the street? -</p> - -<p> -The young man and woman finding themselves gazing at this exquisitely pretty -creature in exquisite mourning, felt themselves appallingly embarrassed. She -was plainly the widow Carson had spoken of. But why did she open the door -herself? And why did she look as if she did not understand? Indignation against -Carson & Bayle began to stir the young man. -</p> - -<p> -“Beg pardon! So sorry! I am afraid we ought not to have come,” he -protested. “Agents ought to know better. They said you were giving up the -house at once and we were afraid someone might take it.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather held the “order to view” in her hand and snared at them -quite helplessly. -</p> - -<p> -“There—are no—no servants to show it to you,” she said. -“If you could wait—a few days—perhaps—” -</p> - -<p> -She was so lovely and Madame Hélène’s filmy black creation was in itself -such an appeal, that the amiable young strangers gave up at once. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, certainly—certainly! Do excuse us! Carson and Bayle ought not -to have—! We are so sorry. Good morning, <i>good</i> morning,” they -gave forth in discomfited sympathy and politeness, and really quite scurried -away. -</p> - -<p> -Having shut the door on their retreat Feather stood shivering. -</p> - -<p> -“I am going to be turned out of the house! I shall have to live in the -street!” she thought. “Where shall I keep my clothes if I live in -the street!” -</p> - -<p> -Even she knew that she was thinking idiotically. Of course if everything was -taken from you and sold, you would have no clothes at all, and wardrobes and -drawers and closets would not matter. The realization that scarcely anything in -the house had been paid for came home to her with a ghastly shock. She -staggered upstairs to the first drawing-room in which there was a silly pretty -little buhl writing table. -</p> - -<p> -She felt even more senseless when she sank into a chair before it and drew a -sheet of note-paper towards her. Her thoughts would not connect themselves with -each other and she could not imagine what she ought to say in her letter to -Coombe. In fact she seemed to have no thoughts at all. She could only remember -the things which had happened, and she actually found she could write nothing -else. There seemed nothing else in the world. -</p> - -<p> -“Dear Lord Coombe,” trailed tremulously over the -page—“The house is quite empty. The servants have gone away. I have -no money. And there is not any food. And I am going to be turned out into the -street—and the baby is crying because it is hungry.” -</p> - -<p> -She stopped there, knowing it was not what she ought to say. And as she stopped -and looked at the words she began herself to wail somewhat as Robin had wailed -in the dark when she would not listen or go to her. It was like a -beggar’s letter—a beggar’s! Telling him that she had no money -and no food—and would be turned out for unpaid rent. And that the baby -was crying because it was starving! -</p> - -<p> -“It’s a beggar’s letter—just a beggar’s,” -she cried out aloud to the empty room. “And it’s tru-ue!” -Robin’s wail itself had not been more hopeless than hers was as she -dropped her head and let it lie on the buhl table. -</p> - -<p> -She was not however even to be allowed to let it lie there, for the next -instant there fell on her startled ear quite echoing through the house another -ring at the doorbell and two steely raps on the smart brass knocker. It was -merely because she did not know what else to do, having just lost her wits -entirely that she got up and trailed down the staircase again. -</p> - -<p> -When she opened the door, Lord Coombe—the apotheosis of exquisite fitness -in form and perfect appointment as also of perfect expression—was -standing on the threshold. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> - -<p> -If he had meant to speak he changed his mind after his first sight of her. He -merely came in and closed the door behind him. Curious experiences with which -life had provided him had added finish to an innate aptness of observation, and -a fine readiness in action. -</p> - -<p> -If she had been of another type he would have saved both her and himself a -scene and steered ably through the difficulties of the situation towards a -point where they could have met upon a normal plane. A very pretty woman with -whose affairs one has nothing whatever to do, and whose pretty home has been -the perfection of modern smartness of custom, suddenly opening her front door -in the unexplained absence of a footman and confronting a visitor, plainly upon -the verge of hysteria, suggests the necessity of promptness. -</p> - -<p> -But Feather gave him not a breath’s space. She was in fact not merely on -the verge of her hysteria. She had gone farther. And here he was. Oh, here he -was! She fell down upon her knees and actually clasped his immaculateness. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!” She said it three -times because he presented to her but the one idea. -</p> - -<p> -He did not drag himself away from her embrace but he distinctly removed himself -from it. -</p> - -<p> -“You must not fall upon your knees, Mrs. Lawless,” he said. -“Shall we go into the drawing-room?” -</p> - -<p> -“I—was writing to you. I am starving—but it seemed too silly -when I wrote it. And it’s true!” Her broken words were as senseless -in their sound as she had thought them when she saw them written. -</p> - -<p> -“Will you come up into the drawing-room and tell me exactly what you -mean,” he said and he made her release him and stand upon her feet. -</p> - -<p> -As the years had passed he had detached himself from so many weaknesses and -their sequelae of emotion that he had felt himself a safely unreachable person. -He was not young and he knew enough of the disagreeableness of consequences to -be adroit in keeping out of the way of apparently harmless things which might -be annoying. Yet as he followed Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and watched her stumbling -up the stairs like a punished child he was aware that he was abnormally in -danger of pitying her as he did not wish to pity people. The pity was also -something apart from the feeling that it was hideous that a creature so lovely, -so shallow and so fragile should have been caught in the great wheels of Life. -</p> - -<p> -He knew what he had come to talk to her about but he had really no clear idea -of what her circumstances actually were. Most people had of course guessed that -her husband had been living on the edge of his resources and was accustomed to -debt and duns, but a lovely being greeting you by clasping your knees and -talking about “starving”—in this particular street in -Mayfair, led one to ask oneself what one was walking into. Feather herself had -not known, in fact neither had any other human being known, that there was a -special reason why he had drifted into seeming rather to allow her -about—why he had finally been counted among the frequenters of the narrow -house—and why he had seemed to watch her a good deal sometimes with an -expression of serious interest—sometimes with an air of irritation, and -sometimes with no expression at all. But there existed this reason and this it -was and this alone which had caused him to appear upon her threshold and it had -also been the power which had prevented his disengaging himself with more -incisive finality when he found himself ridiculously clasped about the knees as -one who played the part of an obdurate parent in a melodrama. -</p> - -<p> -Once in the familiar surroundings of her drawing-room her ash-gold blondness -and her black gauzy frock heightened all her effects so extraordinarily that he -frankly admitted to himself that she possessed assets which would have modified -most things to most men. -</p> - -<p> -As for Feather, when she herself beheld him against the background of the same -intimate aspects, the effect of the sound of his voice, the manner in which he -sat down in a chair and a certain remotely dim hint in the hue of his clothes -and an almost concealed note of some touch of colour which scarcely seemed to -belong to anything worn—were so reminiscent of the days which now seemed -past forever that she began to cry again. -</p> - -<p> -He received this with discreet lack of melodrama of tone. -</p> - -<p> -“You mustn’t do that, Mrs. Lawless,” he said, “or I -shall burst into tears myself. I am a sensitive creature.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, <i>do</i> say ‘Feather’ instead of Mrs. Lawless,” -she implored. “Sometimes you said ‘Feather’.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will say it now,” he answered, “if you will not weep. It -is an adorable name.” -</p> - -<p> -“I feel as if I should never hear it again,” she shuddered, trying -to dry her eyes. “It is all over!” -</p> - -<p> -“What is all over?” -</p> - -<p> -“This—!” turning a hopeless gaze upon the two tiny rooms -crowded with knick-knacks and nonsense. “The parties and the -fun—and everything in the world! I have only had some biscuits and -raisins to eat today—and the landlord is going to turn me out.” -</p> - -<p> -It seemed almost too preposterous to quite credit that she was uttering naked -truth.—And yet—! After a second’s gaze at her he repeated -what he had said below stairs. -</p> - -<p> -“Will you tell me exactly what you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -Then he sat still and listened while she poured it all forth. And as he -listened he realized that it was the mere every day fact that they were sitting -in the slice of a house with the cream-coloured front and the great lady in her -mansion on one side and the millionaire and his splendours on the other, which -peculiarly added to a certain hint of gruesomeness in the situation. -</p> - -<p> -It was not necessary to add colour and desperation to the story. Any effort -Feather had made in that direction would only have detracted from the nakedness -of its stark facts. They were quite enough in themselves in their normal -inevitableness. Feather in her pale and totally undignified panic presented the -whole thing with clearness which had—without being aided by her—an -actual dramatic value. This in spite of her mental dartings to and from and -dragging in of points and bits of scenes which were not connected with each -other. Only a brain whose processes of inclusion and exclusion were final and -rapid could have followed her. Coombe watched her closely as she talked. No -grief-stricken young widowed loneliness and heart-break were the background of -her anguish. She was her own background and also her own foreground. The -strength of the fine body laid prone on the bed of the room she held in horror, -the white rigid face whose good looks had changed to something she could not -bear to remember, had no pathos which was not concerned with the fact that -Robert had amazingly and unnaturally failed her by dying and leaving her -nothing but unpaid bills. This truth indeed made the situation more poignantly -and finally squalid, as she brought forth one detail after another. There were -bills which had been accumulating ever since they began their life in the -narrow house, there had been trades-people who had been juggled with, promises -made and supported by adroit tricks and cleverly invented misrepresentations -and lies which neither of the pair had felt any compunctions about and had -indeed laughed over. Coombe saw it all though he also saw that Feather did not -know all she was telling him. He could realize the gradually increasing -pressure and anger at tricks which betrayed themselves, and the gathering -determination on the part of the creditors to end the matter in the only way in -which it could be ended. It had come to this before Robert’s illness, and -Feather herself had heard of fierce interviews and had seen threatening -letters, but she had not believed they could mean all they implied. Since -things had been allowed to go on so long she felt that they would surely go on -longer in the same way. There had been some serious threatening about the rent -and the unpaid-for furniture. Robert’s supporting idea had been that he -might perhaps “get something out of Lawdor who wouldn’t enjoy being -the relation of a fellow who was turned into the street!” -</p> - -<p> -“He ought to have done something,” Feather complained. -“Robert would have been Lord Lawdor himself if his uncle had died before -he had all those disgusting children.” -</p> - -<p> -She was not aware that Coombe frequently refrained from saying things to -her—but occasionally allowed himself <i>not</i> to refrain. He did not -refrain now from making a simple comment. -</p> - -<p> -“But he is extremely robust and he has the children. Six stalwart boys -and a stalwart girl. Family feeling has apparently gone out of fashion.” -</p> - -<p> -As she wandered on with her story he mentally felt himself actually dragged -into the shrimp-pink bedroom and standing an onlooker when the footman outside -the door “did not know” where Tonson had gone. For a moment he felt -conscious of the presence of some scent which would have been sure to exhale -itself from draperies and wardrobe. He saw Cook put the account books on the -small table, he heard her, he also comprehended her. And Feather at the window -breathlessly watching the two cabs with the servants’ trunks on top, and -the servants respectably unprofessional in attire and going away quietly -without an unpractical compunction—he saw these also and comprehended -knowing exactly why compunctions had no part in latter-day domestic -arrangements. Why should they? -</p> - -<p> -When Feather reached the point where it became necessary to refer to Robin some -fortunate memory of Alice’s past warnings caused her to feel—quite -suddenly—that certain details might be eliminated. -</p> - -<p> -“She cried a little at first,” she said, “but she fell asleep -afterwards. I was glad she did because I was afraid to go to her in the -dark.” -</p> - -<p> -“Was she in the dark?” -</p> - -<p> -“I think so. Perhaps Louisa taught her to sleep without a light. There -was none when I took her some condensed milk this morning. There was only -c-con-d-densed milk to give her.” -</p> - -<p> -She shed tears and choked as she described her journey into the lower regions -and the cockroaches scuttling away before her into their hiding-places. -</p> - -<p> -“I <i>must</i> have a nurse! I <i>must</i> have one!” she almost -sniffed. “Someone must change her clothes and give her a bath!” -</p> - -<p> -“You can’t?” Coombe said. -</p> - -<p> -“I!” dropping her handkerchief. “How—how <i>can</i> -I?” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know,” he answered and picked up the handkerchief -with an aloof grace of manner. -</p> - -<p> -It was really Robin who was for Feather the breaking-point. -</p> - -<p> -He thought she was in danger of flinging herself upon him again. She caught at -his arm and her eyes of larkspur blue were actually wild. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you see where I am! How there is nothing and -nobody—Don’t you <i>see?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I see,” he answered. “You are quite right. There is -nothing <i>and</i> nobody. I have been to Lawdor myself.” -</p> - -<p> -“You have been to <i>talk</i> to him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yesterday. That was my reason for coming here. He will not see you or be -written to. He says he knows better than to begin that sort of thing. It may be -that family feeling has not the vogue it once had, but you may recall that your -husband infuriated him years ago. Also England is a less certain quantity than -it once was—and the man has a family. He will allow you a hundred a year -but there he draws the line.” -</p> - -<p> -“A hundred a year!” Feather breathed. From her delicate shoulders -hung floating scarf-like sleeves of black transparency and she lifted one of -them and held it out like a night moth’s wing—“This cost -forty pounds,” she said, her voice quite faint and low. “A good -nurse would cost forty! A cook—and a footman and a maid—and a -coachman—and the brougham—I don’t know how much they would -cost. Oh-h!” -</p> - -<p> -She drooped forward upon her sofa and laid face downward on a -cushion—slim, exquisite in line, lost in despair. -</p> - -<p> -The effect produced was that she gave herself into his hands. He felt as well -as saw it and considered. She had no suggestion to offer, no reserve. There she -was. -</p> - -<p> -“It is an incredible sort of situation,” he said in an even, -low-pitched tone rather as if he were thinking aloud, “but it is baldly -real. It is actually simple. In a street in Mayfair a woman and child -might—” He hesitated a second and a wailed word came forth from the -cushion. -</p> - -<p> -“Starve!” -</p> - -<p> -He moved slightly and continued. -</p> - -<p> -“Since their bills have not been paid the trades-people will not send in -food. Servants will not stay in a house where they are not fed and receive no -wages. No landlord will allow a tenant to occupy his property unless he pays -rent. It may sound inhuman—but it is only human.” -</p> - -<p> -The cushion in which Feather’s face was buried retained a faint scent of -Robert’s cigar smoke and the fragrance brought back to her things she had -heard him say dispassionately about Lord Coombe as well as about other men. He -had not been a puritanic or condemnatory person. She seemed to see herself -groveling again on the floor of her bedroom and to feel the darkness and -silence through which she had not dared to go to Robin. -</p> - -<p> -Not another night like that! No! No! -</p> - -<p> -“You must go to Jersey to your mother and father,” Coombe said. -“A hundred a year will help you there in your own home.” -</p> - -<p> -Then she sat upright and there was something in her lovely little countenance -he had never seen before. It was actually determination. -</p> - -<p> -“I have heard,” she said, “of poor girls who were -driven—by starvation to—to go on the streets. I—would go -<i>anywhere</i> before I would go back there.” -</p> - -<p> -“Anywhere!” he repeated, his own countenance expressing—or -rather refusing to express something as new as the thing he had seen in her -own. -</p> - -<p> -“Anywhere!” she cried and then she did what he had thought her on -the verge of doing a few minutes earlier—she fell at his feet and -embraced his knees. She clung to him, she sobbed, her pretty hair loosened -itself and fell about her in wild but enchanting disorder. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe! Oh, Lord Coombe!” she cried as -she had cried in the hall. -</p> - -<p> -He rose and endeavoured to disengage himself as he had done before. This time -with less success because she would not let him go. He had the greatest -possible objection to scenes. -</p> - -<p> -“Mrs. Lawless—Feather—I beg you will get up,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -But she had reached the point of not caring what happened if she could keep -him. He was a gentleman—he had everything in the world. What did it -matter? -</p> - -<p> -“I have no one but you and—and you always seemed to like me, I -would do anything—<i>anyone</i> asked me, if they would take care of me. -I have always liked you very much—and I did amuse you—didn’t -I? You liked to come here.” -</p> - -<p> -There was something poignant about her delicate distraught loveliness and, in -the remoteness of his being, a shuddering knowledge that it was quite true that -she would do anything for any man who would take care of her, produced an -effect on him nothing else would have produced. Also a fantastic and finely -ironic vision of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife rose before him and the -vision of himself as Joseph irked a certain complexness of his mentality. -Poignant as the thing was in its modern way, it was also faintly ridiculous. -</p> - -<p> -Then Robin awakened and shrieked again. The sound which had gained strength -through long sleep and also through added discomfort quite rang through the -house. What that sound added to the moment he himself would not have been able -to explain until long afterwards. But it singularly and impellingly added. -</p> - -<p> -“Listen!” panted Feather. “She has begun again. And there is -no one to go to her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Get up, Mrs. Lawless,” he said. “Do I understand that you -are willing that <i>I</i> should arrange this for you!” -</p> - -<p> -He helped her to her feet. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you mean—really!” she faltered. “Will -you—will you—?” -</p> - -<p> -Her uplifted eyes were like a young angel’s brimming with crystal drops -which slipped—as a child’s tears slip—down her cheeks. She -clasped her hands in exquisite appeal. He stood for a moment quite still, his -mind fled far away and he forgot where he was. And because of this the little -simpleton’s shallow discretion deserted her. -</p> - -<p> -“If you were a—a marrying man—?” she said -foolishly—almost in a whisper. -</p> - -<p> -He recovered himself. -</p> - -<p> -“I am not,” with a finality which cut as cleanly as a surgical -knife. -</p> - -<p> -Something which was not the words was of a succinctness which filled her with -new terror. -</p> - -<p> -“I—I know!” she whimpered, “I only said if you -were!” -</p> - -<p> -“If I were—in this instance—it would make no -difference.” He saw the kind of slippery silliness he was dealing with -and what it might transform itself into if allowed a loophole. “There -must be no mistakes.” -</p> - -<p> -In her fright she saw him for a moment more distinctly than she had ever seen -him before and hideous dread beset her lest she had blundered fatally. -</p> - -<p> -“There shall be none,” she gasped. “I always knew. There -shall be none at all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know what you are asking me?” he inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, yes—I’m not a girl, you know. I’ve been married. -I won’t go home. I can’t starve or live in awful lodgings. -<i>Somebody</i> must save me!” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know what people will say?” his steady voice was slightly -lower. -</p> - -<p> -“It won’t be said to me.” Rather wildly. “Nobody -minds—really.” -</p> - -<p> -He ceased altogether to look serious. He smiled with the light detached air his -world was most familiar with. -</p> - -<p> -“No—they don’t really,” he answered. “I had, -however, a slight preference for knowing whether you would or not. You flatter -me by intimating that you would not.” -</p> - -<p> -He knew that if he had held out an arm she would have fallen upon his breast -and wept there, but he was not at the moment in the mood to hold out an arm. He -merely touched hers with a light pressure. -</p> - -<p> -“Let us sit down and talk it over,” he suggested. -</p> - -<p> -A hansom drove up to the door and stopped before he had time to seat himself. -Hearing it he went to the window and saw a stout businesslike looking man get -out, accompanied by an attendant. There followed a loud, authoritative ringing -of the bell and an equally authoritative rap of the knocker. This repeated -itself. Feather, who had run to the window and caught sight of the stout man, -clutched his sleeve. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the agent we took the house from. We always said we were out. -It’s either Carson or Bayle. I don’t know which.” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe walked toward the staircase. -</p> - -<p> -“You can’t open the door!” she shrilled. -</p> - -<p> -“He has doubtless come prepared to open it himself.” he answered -and proceeded at leisure down the narrow stairway. -</p> - -<p> -The caller had come prepared. By the time Coombe stood in the hall a latchkey -was put in the keyhole and, being turned, the door opened to let in -Carson—or Bayle—who entered with an air of angered determination, -followed by his young man. -</p> - -<p> -The physical presence of the Head of the House of Coombe was always described -as a subtly impressive one. Several centuries of rather careful breeding had -resulted in his seeming to represent things by silent implication. A man who -has never found the necessity of explaining or excusing himself inevitably -presents a front wholly unsuggestive of uncertainty. The front Coombe presented -merely awaited explanations from others. -</p> - -<p> -Carson—or Bayle—had doubtless contemplated seeing a frightened -servant trying to prepare a stammering obvious lie. He confronted a tall, thin -man about whom—even if his clothes had been totally different—there -could be no mistake. He stood awaiting an apology so evidently that -Carson—or Bayle—began to stammer himself even before he had time to -dismiss from his voice the suggestion of bluster. It would have irritated -Coombe immensely if he had known that he—and a certain overcoat—had -been once pointed out to the man at Sandown and that—in consequence of -the overcoat—he vaguely recognized him. -</p> - -<p> -“I—I beg pardon,” he began. -</p> - -<p> -“Quite so,” said Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“Some tenants came to look at the house this morning. They had an order -to view from us. They were sent away, my lord—and decline to come back. -The rent has not been paid since the first half year. There is no one now who -can even <i>pretend</i> it’s going to be paid. Some step had to be -taken.” -</p> - -<p> -“Quite so,” said Coombe. “Suppose you step into the -dining-room.” -</p> - -<p> -He led the pair into the room and pointed to chairs, but neither the agent nor -his attendant was calm enough to sit down. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe merely stood and explained himself. -</p> - -<p> -“I quite understand,” he said. “You are entirely within your -rights. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is, naturally, not able to attend to business. For -the present—as a friend of her late husband’s—I will arrange -matters for her. I am Lord Coombe. She does not wish to give up the house. -Don’t send any more possible tenants. Call at Coombe House in an hour and -I will give you a cheque.” -</p> - -<p> -There were a few awkward apologetic moments and then the front door opened and -shut, the hansom jingled away and Coombe returned to the drawing-room. Robin -was still shrieking. -</p> - -<p> -“She wants some more condensed milk,” he said. “Don’t -be frightened. Go and give her some. I know an elderly woman who understands -children. She was a nurse some years ago. I will send her here at once. Kindly -give me the account books. My housekeeper will send you some servants. The -trades-people will come for orders.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather was staring at him. -</p> - -<p> -“W-will they?” she stammered. “W-will -everything—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—everything,” he answered. “Don’t be -frightened. Go upstairs and try to stop her. I must go now. I never heard a -creature yell with such fury.” -</p> - -<p> -She turned away and went towards the second flight of stairs with a rather -dazed air. She had passed through a rather tremendous crisis and she <i>was</i> -dazed. He made her feel so. She had never understood him for a moment and she -did not understand him now—but then she never did understand people and -the whole situation was a new one to her. If she had not been driven to the -wall she would have been quite as respectable as she knew how to be. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe called a hansom and drove home, thinking of many things and looking even -more than usually detached. He had remarked the facial expression of the short -and stout man as he had got into his cab and he was turning over mentally his -own exact knowledge of the views the business mind would have held and what the -business countenance would have decently covered if he—Coombe—had -explained in detail that he was so far—in this particular case—an -entirely blameless character. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> - -<p> -The slice of a house from that time forward presented the external aspect to -which the inhabitants of the narrow and fashionable street and those who passed -through it had been accustomed. Such individuals as had anticipated beholding -at some early day notices conspicuously placed announcing “Sale by -Auction. Elegant Modern Furniture” were vaguely puzzled as well as -surprised by the fact that no such notices appeared even inconspicuously. Also -there did not draw up before the door—even as the weeks went -on—huge and heavy removal vans with their resultant litter, their final -note of farewell a “To Let” in the front windows. -</p> - -<p> -On the contrary, the florist came and refilled the window boxes with an -admirable arrangement of fresh flowers; new and even more correct servants were -to be seen ascending and descending the area step; a young footman quite as -smart as the departed Edward opened the front door and attended Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless to her perfect little brougham. The trades-people appeared -promptly every day and were obsequiously respectful in manner. Evidently the -household had not disintegrated as a result of the death of Mr. Gareth-Lawless. -</p> - -<p> -As it became an established fact that the household had not fallen to pieces -its frequenters gradually returned to it, wearing indeed the air of people who -had never really remained away from it. There had been natural reasons enough -for considerate absence from a house of bereavement and a desolate widow upon -whose grief it would have been indelicate to intrude. As Feather herself had -realized, the circle of her intimates was not formed of those who could readily -adjust themselves to entirely changed circumstances. If you dance on a tight -rope and the rope is unexpectedly withdrawn, where are you? You cannot continue -dancing until the rope is restrung. -</p> - -<p> -The rope, however, being apparently made absolutely secure, it was not long -before the dancing began again. Feather’s mourning, wonderfully shading -itself from month to month, was the joy of all beholders. Madame Hélène treated -her as a star gleaming through gradually dispersing clouds. Her circle watched -her with secretly humorous interest as each fine veil of dimness was withdrawn. -</p> - -<p> -“The things she wears are priceless,” was said amiably in her own -drawing-room. “Where does she get them? Figure to yourself Lawdor paying -the bills.” -</p> - -<p> -“She gets them from Hélène,” said a long thin young man with a -rather good-looking narrow face and dark eyes, peering through <i>pince -nez</i>, “But I couldn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -In places where entertainment as a means of existence proceed so to speak, fast -and furiously, questions of taste are not dwelt upon at leisure. You need not -hesitate before saying anything you liked in any one’s drawing-room so -long as it was amusing enough to make somebody—if not -everybody—laugh. Feather had made people laugh in the same fashion in the -past. The persons she most admired were always making sly little impudent -comments and suggestions, and the thwarted years on the island of Jersey had, -in her case, resulted in an almost hectic desire to keep pace. Her efforts had -usually been successes because Nature’s self had provided her with the -manner of a silly pretty child who did not know how far she went. Shouts of -laughter had often greeted her, and the first time she had for a moment doubted -her prowess was on an occasion when she had caught a glimpse of Coombe who -stared at her with an expression which she would—just for one -second—have felt might be horror, if she had not been so sure it -couldn’t be, and must of course be something else—one of the things -nobody ever understood in him. -</p> - -<p> -By the time the softly swathing veils of vaporous darkness were withdrawn, and -the tight rope assuring everyone of its permanent security became a trusted -support, Feather at her crowded little parties and at other people’s -bigger ones did not remain wholly unaware of the probability that even people -who rather liked her made, among themselves, more or less witty comments upon -her improved fortunes. They were improved greatly. Bills were paid, -trades-people were polite, servants were respectful; she had no need to invent -excuses and lies. She and Robert had always kept out of the way of stodgy, -critical people, so they had been intimate with none of the punctilious who -might have withdrawn themselves from a condition of things they chose to -disapprove: accordingly, she found no gaps in her circle. Those who had formed -the habit of amusing themselves at her house were as ready as before to amuse -themselves again. -</p> - -<p> -The fact remained, however,—curiously, perhaps, in connection with the -usual slightness of all impressions made on her—that there was a memory -which never wholly left her. Even when she tried to force it so far into the -background of her existence that it might almost be counted as forgotten, it -had a trick of rising before her. It was the memory of the empty house as its -emptiness had struck to the centre of her being when she had turned from her -bedroom window after watching the servants drive away in their cabs. It was -also the memory of the hours which had followed—the night in which nobody -had been in any of the rooms—no one had gone up or down the -stairs—when all had seemed dark and hollow—except the Night Nursery -where Robin screamed, and her own room where she herself cowered under the bed -clothes and pulled the pillow over her head. But though the picture would not -let itself be blotted out, its effect was rather to intensify her sense of -relief because she had slipped so safely from under the wheels of destiny. -</p> - -<p> -“Sometimes,” she revealed artlessly to Coombe, “while I am -driving in the park on a fine afternoon when every one is out and the dresses -look like the flower beds, I let myself remember it just to make myself enjoy -everything more by contrast.” -</p> - -<p> -The elderly woman who had been a nurse in her youth and who had been sent by -Lord Coombe temporarily to replace Louisa had not remained long in charge of -Robin. She was not young and smart enough for a house on the right side of the -right street, and Feather found a young person who looked exactly as she should -when she pushed the child’s carriage before her around the square. -</p> - -<p> -The square—out of which the right street branches—and the -“Gardens” in the middle of the square to which only privileged -persons were admitted by private key, the basement kitchen and Servants’ -Hall, and the two top floor nurseries represented the world to the child Robin -for some years. When she was old enough to walk in the street she was led by -the hand over the ground she had travelled daily in her baby carriage. Her -first memory of things was a memory of standing on the gravel path in the -Square Gardens and watching some sparrows quarrel while Andrews, her nurse, sat -on a bench with another nurse and talked in low tones. They were talking in a -way Robin always connected with servants and which she naturally accepted as -being the method of expression of their species—much as she accepted the -mewing of cats and the barking of dogs. As she grew older, she reached the -stage of knowing that they were generally saying things they did not wish her -to hear. -</p> - -<p> -She liked watching the sparrows in the Gardens because she liked watching -sparrows at all times. They were the only friends she had ever known, though -she was not old enough to call them friends, or to know what friends meant. -Andrews had taught her, by means of a system of her own, to know better than to -cry or to make any protesting noise when she was left alone in her ugly small -nursery. Andrews’ idea of her duties did not involve boring herself to -death by sitting in a room on the top floor when livelier entertainment awaited -her in the basement where the cook was a woman of wide experience, the -housemaid a young person who had lived in gay country houses, and the footman -at once a young man of spirit and humour. So Robin spent many hours of the -day—taking them altogether—quite by herself. She might have more -potently resented her isolations if she had ever known any other condition than -that of a child in whom no one was in the least interested and in whom -“being good” could only mean being passive under neglect and -calling no one’s attention to the fact that she wanted anything from -anybody. As a bird born in captivity lives in its cage and perhaps believes it -to be the world, Robin lived in her nursery and knew every square inch of it -with a deadly if unconscious sense of distaste and fatigue. She was put to bed -and taken up, she was fed and dressed in it, and once a day—twice perhaps -if Andrews chose—she was taken out of it downstairs and into the street. -That was all. And that was why she liked the sparrows so much. -</p> - -<p> -And sparrows are worth watching if you live in a nursery where nothing ever -happens and where, when you look out, you are so high up that it is not easy to -see the people in the world below, in addition to which it seems nearly always -raining. Robin used to watch them hopping about on the slate roofs of the homes -on the other side of the street. They fluttered their wings, they picked up -straws and carried them away. She thought they must have houses of their own -among the chimneys—in places she could not see. She fancied it would be -nice to hop about on the top of a roof oneself if one were not at all afraid of -falling. She liked the chippering and chirping sounds the birds made became it -sounded like talking and laughing—like the talking and laughing she -sometimes wakened out of her sleep to lie and listen to when the Lady -Downstairs had a party. She often wondered what the people were doing because -it sounded as if they liked doing it very much. -</p> - -<p> -Sometimes when it had rained two or three days she had a feeling which made her -begin to cry to herself—but not aloud. She had once had a little black -and blue mark on her arm for a week where Andrews had pinched her because she -had cried loud enough to be heard. It had seemed to her that Andrews twisted -and pinched the bit of flesh for five minutes without letting it go and she had -held her large hand over her mouth as she did it. -</p> - -<p> -“Now you keep that in your mind,” she had said when she had -finished and Robin had almost choked in her awful little struggle to keep back -all sound. -</p> - -<p> -The one thing Andrews was surest of was that nobody would come upstairs to the -Nursery to inquire the meaning of any cries which were not unearthly enough to -disturb the household. So it was easy to regulate the existence of her charge -in such a manner as best suited herself. -</p> - -<p> -“Just give her food enough and keep her from making silly noises when she -wants what she doesn’t get,” said Andrews to her companions below -stairs. “That one in the drawing-room isn’t going to interfere with -the Nursery. Not her! I know my business and I know how to manage her kind. I -go to her politely now and then and ask her permission to buy things from -Best’s or Liberty’s or some other good place. She always stares a -minute when I begin, as if she scarcely understood what I was talking about and -then she says ‘Oh, yes, I suppose she must have them.’ And I go and -get them. I keep her as well dressed as any child in Mayfair. And she’s -been a beauty since she was a year old so she looks first rate when I wheel her -up and down the street, so the people can see she’s well taken care of -and not kept hidden away. No one can complain of her looks and nobody is -bothered with her. That’s all that’s wanted of <i>me</i>. I get -good wages and I get them regular. I don’t turn up my nose at a place -like this, whatever the outside talk is. Who cares in these days anyway? -Fashionable people’s broader minded than they used to be. In Queen -Victoria’s young days they tell me servants were no class that -didn’t live in families where they kept the commandments.” -</p> - -<p> -“Fat lot the commandments give any one trouble in these times,” -said Jennings, the footman, who was a wit. “There’s one of -’em I could mention that’s been broken till there’s no bits -of it left to keep. If I smashed that plate until it was powder it’d have -to be swept into the dust din. That’s what happened to one or two -commandments in particular.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” remarked Mrs. Blayne, the cook, “she don’t -interfere and he pays the bills prompt. That’ll do <i>me</i> instead of -commandments. If you’ll believe me, my mother told me that in them Queen -Victoria days ladies used to inquire about cold meat and ask what was done with -the dripping. Civilisation’s gone beyond that—commandments or no -commandments.” -</p> - -<p> -“He’s precious particular about bills being paid,” -volunteered Jennings, with the air of a man of the world. “I heard him -having a row with her one day about some bills she hadn’t paid. -She’d spent the money for some nonsense and he was pretty stiff in that -queer way of his. Quite right he was too. I’d have been the same -myself,” pulling up his collar and stretching his neck in a manner -indicating exact knowledge of the natural sentiments of a Marquis when justly -annoyed. “What he intimated was that if them bills was not paid with the -money that was meant to pay them, the money wouldn’t be forthcoming the -next time.” Jennings was rather pleased by the word -“forthcoming” and therefore he repeated it with emphasis, “It -wouldn’t be <i>forthcoming</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’d frighten her,” was Andrews’ succinct -observation. -</p> - -<p> -“It did!” said Jennings. “She’d have gone in hysterics -if he hadn’t kept her down. He’s got a way with him, Coombe -has.” -</p> - -<p> -Andrews laughed, a brief, dry laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know what the child calls her?” she said. “She calls -her the Lady Downstairs. She’s got a sort of fancy for her and tries to -get peeps at her when we go out. I notice she always cranes her little neck if -we pass a room she might chance to be in. It’s her pretty clothes and her -laughing that does it. Children’s drawn by bright colours and noise that -sounds merry.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s my belief the child doesn’t know she <i>is</i> her -mother!” said Mrs. Blayne as she opened an oven door to look at some -rolls. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s my belief that if I told her she was she wouldn’t know -what the word meant. It was me she got the name from,” Andrews still -laughed as she explained. “I used to tell her about the Lady Downstairs -would hear if she made a noise, or I’d say I’d let her have a peep -at the Lady Downstairs if she was very good. I saw she had a kind of awe of her -though she liked her so much, so it was a good way of managing her. You -mayn’t believe me but for a good bit I didn’t take in that she -didn’t know there was such things as mothers and, when I did take it in, -I saw there wasn’t any use in trying to explain. She wouldn’t have -understood.” -</p> - -<p> -“How would you go about to explain a mother, anyway?” suggested -Jennings. “I’d have to say that she was the person that had the -right to slap your head if you didn’t do what she told you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’d have to say that she was the woman that could keep you slaving -at kitchen maid’s work fifteen hours a day,” said Mrs. Blayne; -“My mother was cook in a big house and trained me under her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never had one,” said Andrews stiffly. The truth was that she had -taken care of eight infant brothers and sisters, while her maternal parent -slept raucously under the influence of beer when she was not quarrelling with -her offspring. -</p> - -<p> -Jane, the housemaid, had passed a not uncomfortable childhood in the country -and was perhaps of a soft nature. -</p> - -<p> -“I’d say that a mother’s the one that you belong to and -that’s fond of you, even if she does keep you straight,” she put -in. -</p> - -<p> -“Her mother isn’t fond of her and doesn’t keep herself -straight,” said Jennings. “So that wouldn’t do.” -</p> - -<p> -“And she doesn’t slap her head or teach her to do kitchen -maid’s work,” put in Mrs. Blayne, “so yours is no use, Mr. -Jennings, and neither is mine. Miss Andrews ’ll have to cook up an -explanation of her own herself when she finds she has to.” -</p> - -<p> -“She can get it out of a Drury Lane melodrama,” said Jennings, with -great humour. “You’ll have to sit down some night, Miss Andrews, -and say, ‘The time has come, me chee-ild, when I must tell you -All’.” -</p> - -<p> -In this manner were Mrs. Gareth-Lawless and her maternal affections discussed -below stairs. The interesting fact remained that to Robin the Lady Downstairs -was merely a radiant and beautiful being who floated through certain rooms -laughing or chattering like a bird, and always wearing pretty clothes, which -were different each time one beheld her. Sometimes one might catch a glimpse of -her through a door, or, if one pressed one’s face against the window pane -at the right moment, she might get into her bright little carnage in the street -below and, after Jennings had shut its door, she might be seen to give a lovely -flutter to her clothes as she settled back against the richly dark blue -cushions. -</p> - -<p> -It is a somewhat portentous thing to realize that a newborn human creature can -only know what it is taught. The teaching may be conscious or unconscious, -intelligent or idiotic, exquisite or brutal. The images presented by those -surrounding it, as its perceptions awaken day by day, are those which record -themselves on its soul, its brain, its physical being which is its sole means -of expressing, during physical life, all it has learned. That which -automatically becomes the Law at the dawning of newborn consciousness remains, -to its understanding, the Law of Being, the Law of the Universe. To the -cautious of responsibility this at times wears the aspect of an awesome thing, -suggesting, however remotely, that it might seem well, perhaps, to remove the -shoes from one’s feet, as it were, and tread with deliberate and delicate -considering of one’s steps, as do the reverently courteous even on the -approaching of an unknown altar. -</p> - -<p> -This being acknowledged a scientific, as well as a spiritual truth, there -remains no mystery in the fact that Robin at six years old—when she -watched the sparrows in the Square Gardens—did not know the name of the -feeling which had grown within her as a result of her pleasure in the chance -glimpses of the Lady Downstairs. It was a feeling which made her eager to see -her or anything which belonged to her; it made her strain her child ears to -catch the sound of her voice; it made her long to hear Andrews or the other -servants speak of her, and yet much too shy to dare to ask any questions. She -had found a place on the staircase leading to the Nursery, where, by squeezing -against the balustrade, she could sometimes see the Lady pass in and out of her -pink bedroom. She used to sit on a step and peer between the railing with -beating heart. Sometimes, after she had been put to bed for the night and -Andrews was safely entertained downstairs, Robin would be awakened from her -first sleep by sounds in the room below and would creep out of bed and down to -her special step and, crouching in a hectic joy, would see the Lady come out -with sparkling things in her hair and round her lovely, very bare white neck -and arms, all swathed in tints and draperies which made her seem a vision of -colour and light. She was so radiant a thing that often the child drew in her -breath with a sound like a little sob of ecstasy, and her lip trembled as if -she were going to cry. But she did not know that what she felt was the yearning -of a thing called love—a quite simple and natural common thing of which -she had no reason for having any personal knowledge. As she was unaware of -mothers, so she was unaware of affection, of which Andrews would have felt it -to be superfluously sentimental to talk to her. -</p> - -<p> -On the very rare occasions when the Lady Downstairs appeared on the threshold -of the Day Nursery, Robin—always having been freshly dressed in one of -her nicest frocks—stood and stared with immense startled eyes and -answered in a whisper the banal little questions put to her. The Lady appeared -at such rare intervals and remained poised upon the threshold like a tropic -plumaged bird for moments so brief, that there never was time to do more than -lose breath and gaze as at a sudden vision. Why she came—when she did -come—Robin did not understand. She evidently did not belong to the small, -dingy nurseries which grew shabbier every year as they grew steadily more grimy -under the persistent London soot and fogs. -</p> - -<p> -Feather always held up her draperies when she came. She would not have come at -all but for the fact that she had once or twice been asked if the child was -growing pretty, and it would have seemed absurd to admit that she never saw her -at all. -</p> - -<p> -“I think she’s rather pretty,” she said downstairs. -“She’s round and she has a bright colour—almost too bright, -and her eyes are round too. She’s either rather stupid or she’s -shy—and one’s as bad as the other. She’s a child that -stares.” -</p> - -<p> -If, when Andrews had taken her into the Gardens, she had played with other -children, Robin would no doubt have learned something of the existence and -normal attitude of mothers through the mere accident of childish chatter, but -it somehow happened that she never formed relations with the charges of other -nurses. She took it for granted for some time that this was because Andrews had -laid down some mysterious law. Andrews did not seem to form acquaintances -herself. Sometimes she sat on a bench and talked a little to another nurse, but -she seldom sat twice with the same person. It was indeed generally her custom -to sit alone, crocheting or sewing, with a rather lofty and exclusive air and -to call Robin back to her side if she saw her slowly edging towards some other -child. -</p> - -<p> -“My rule is to keep myself to myself,” she said in the kitchen. -“And to look as if I was the one that would turn up noses, if noses was -to be turned up. There’s those that would snatch away their children if I -let Robin begin to make up to them. Some wouldn’t, of course, but -I’m not going to run risks. I’m going to save my own pride.” -</p> - -<p> -But one morning when Robin was watching her sparrows, a nurse, who was an old -acquaintance, surprised Andrews by appearing in the Gardens with two little -girls in her charge. They were children of nine and eleven and quite sufficient -for themselves, apart from the fact that they regarded Robin as a baby and, -therefore, took no notice of her. They began playing with skipping ropes, which -left their nurse free to engage in delighted conversation with Andrews. -</p> - -<p> -It was conversation so delightful that Robin was forgotten, even to the extent -of being allowed to follow her sparrows round a clump of shrubbery and, -therefore, out of Andrews’ sight, though she was only a few yards away. -The sparrows this morning were quarrelsome and suddenly engaged in a fight, -pecking each other furiously, beating their wings and uttering shrill, -protesting chipperings. Robin did not quite understand what they were doing and -stood watching them with spellbound interest. -</p> - -<p> -It was while she watched them that she heard footsteps on the gravel walk which -stopped near her and made her look up to see who was at her side. A big boy in -Highland kilts and bonnet and sporan was standing by her, and she found herself -staring into a pair of handsome deep blue eyes, blue like the waters of a -hillside tarn. They were wide, glowing, friendly eyes and none like them had -ever looked into hers before. He seemed to her to be a very big boy indeed, and -in fact, he was unusually tall and broad for his age, but he was only eight -years old and a simple enough child pagan. Robin’s heart began to beat as -it did when she watched the Lady Downstairs, but there was something different -in the beating. It was something which made her red mouth spread and curve -itself into a smile which showed all her small teeth. -</p> - -<p> -So they stood and stared at each other and for some strange, strange -reason—created, perhaps, with the creating of Man and still hidden among -the deep secrets of the Universe—they were drawn to each -other—wanted each other—knew each other. Their advances were, of -course, of the most primitive—as primitive and as much a matter of -instinct as the nosing and sniffing of young animals. He spread and curved his -red mouth and showed the healthy whiteness of his own handsome teeth as she had -shown her smaller ones. Then he began to run and prance round in a circle, -capering like a Shetland pony to exhibit at once his friendliness and his -prowess. He tossed his curled head and laughed to make her laugh also, and she -not only laughed but clapped her hands. He was more beautiful than anything she -had ever seen before in her life, and he was plainly trying to please her. No -child creature had ever done anything like it before, because no child creature -had ever been allowed by Andrews to make friends with her. He, on his part, was -only doing what any other little boy animal would have done—expressing -his child masculinity by “showing off” before a little female. But -to this little female it had never happened before. -</p> - -<p> -It was all beautifully elemental. As does not too often happen, two souls as -well as two bodies were drawn towards each other by the Magnet of Being. When -he had exhibited himself for a minute or two he came back to her, breathing -fast and glowing. -</p> - -<p> -“My pony in Scotland does that. His name is Chieftain. He is a Shetland -pony and he is only that high,” he measured forty inches from the ground. -“I’m called Donal. What are you called?” -</p> - -<p> -“Robin,” she answered, her lips and voice trembling with joy. He -was so beautiful. His hair was bright and curly. His broad forehead was clear -white where he had pushed back his bonnet with the eagle feather standing -upright on it. His strong legs and knees were white between his tartan kilt and -his rolled back stockings. The clasps which held his feather and the plaid over -his shoulder were set with fine stones in rich silver. She did not know that he -was perfectly equipped as a little Highland chieftain, the head of his clan, -should be. -</p> - -<p> -They began to play together, and the unknown Fates, which do their work as they -choose, so wrought on this occasion as to cause Andrews’ friend to set -forth upon a journey through a story so exciting in its nature that its hearer -was held spellbound and oblivious to her surroundings themselves. Once, it is -true, she rose as in a dream and walked round the group of shrubs, but the -Fates had arranged for that moment also. Robin was alone and was busily playing -with some leaves she had plucked and laid on the seat of a bench for some -mysterious reason. She looked good for an hour’s safe occupation, and -Andrews returned to her friend’s detailed and intimate version of a great -country house scandal, of which the papers were full because it had ended in -the divorce court. -</p> - -<p> -Donal had, at that special moment, gone to pick some of the biggest leaves from -the lilac bush of which the Gardens contained numerous sooty specimens. The -leaves Robin was playing with were some he had plucked first to show her a -wonderful thing. If you laid a leaf flat on the seat of the bench and were -fortunate enough to possess a large pin you could prick beautiful patterns on -the leaf’s greenness—dots and circles, and borders and tiny -triangles of a most decorative order. Neither Donal nor Robin had a pin but -Donal had, in his rolled down stocking, a little dirk the point of which could -apparently be used for any interesting purpose. It was really he who did the -decoration, but Robin leaned against the bench and looked on enthralled. She -had never been happy before in the entire course of her brief existence. She -had not known or expected any conditions other than those she was familiar -with—the conditions of being fed and clothed, kept clean and exercised, -but totally unloved and unentertained. She did not even know that this nearness -to another human creature, the exchange of companionable looks, which were like -flashes of sunlight, the mutual outbreaks of child laughter and pleasure were -happiness. To her, what she felt, the glow and delight of it, had no name but -she wanted it to go on and on, never to be put an end to by Andrews or anyone -else. -</p> - -<p> -The boy Donal was not so unconscious. He had been happy all his life. What he -felt was that he had liked this little girl the minute he saw her. She was -pretty, though he thought her immensely younger than himself, and, when she had -looked up at him with her round, asking eyes, he had wanted to talk to her and -make friends. He had not played much with boys and he had no haughty objection -to girls who liked him. This one did, he saw at once. -</p> - -<p> -Through what means children so quickly convey to each other—while seeming -scarcely to do more than play—the entire history of their lives and -surroundings, is a sort of occult secret. It is not a matter of prolonged -conversation. Perhaps images created by the briefest of unadorned statements -produce on the unwritten tablets of the child mind immediate and complete -impressions. Safe as the locked garden was, Andrews cannot have forgotten her -charge for any very great length of time and yet before Donal, hearing his -attendant’s voice from her corner, left Robin to join her and be taken -home, the two children knew each other intimately. Robin knew that -Donal’s home was in Scotland—where there are hills and moors with -stags on them. He lived there with “Mother” and he had been brought -to London for a visit. The person he called “Mother” was a woman -who took care of him and he spoke of her quite often. Robin did not think she -was like Andrews, though she did not in the least know why. On his part Donal -knew about the nurseries and the sparrows who hopped about on the slates of the -houses opposite. Robin did not describe the nurseries to him, but Donal knew -that they were ugly and that there were no toys in them and nothing to do. -Also, in some mystic fashion, he realized that Andrews would not let Robin play -with him if she saw them together, and that, therefore, they must make the most -of their time. Full of their joy in each other, they actually embarked upon an -ingenious infant intrigue, which involved their trying to meet behind the -shrubs if they were brought to the Gardens the next day. Donal was sure he -could come because his nurse always did what he asked of her. He was so big now -that she was not a real nurse, but she had been his nurse when he was quite -little and “Mother” liked her to travel with them. He had a tutor -but he had stayed behind in Scotland at Braemarnie, which was their house. -Donal would come tomorrow and he would look for Robin and when she saw him she -must get away from Andrews and they would play together again. -</p> - -<p> -“I will bring one of my picture books,” he said grandly. “Can -you read at all?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” answered Robin adoring him. “What are picture -books?” -</p> - -<p> -“Haven’t you any?” he blurted out. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” said Robin. She looked at the gravel walk, reflecting a -moment thoughtfully on the Day Nursery and the Night Nursery. Then she lifted -her eyes to the glowing blueness of his and said quite simply, “I -haven’t anything.” -</p> - -<p> -He suddenly remembered things his Mother had told him about poor people. -Perhaps she was poor. Could she be poor when her frock and hat and coat were so -pretty? It was not polite to ask. But the thought made him love her more. He -felt something warm rush all over his body. The truth, if he had been old -enough to be aware of it, was that the entire simpleness of her acceptance of -things as they were, and a something which was unconsciousness of any cause for -complaint, moved his child masculinity enormously. His old nurse’s voice -came from her corner again. -</p> - -<p> -“I must go to Nanny,” he said, feeling somehow as if he had been -running fast. “I’ll come tomorrow and bring two picture -books.” -</p> - -<p> -He was a loving, warm blooded child human thing, and the expression of -affection was, to him, a familiar natural impulse. He put his strong little -eight-year-old arms round her and kissed her full on her mouth, as he embraced -her with all his strength. He kissed her twice. -</p> - -<p> -It was the first time for Robin. Andrews did not kiss. There was no one else. -It was the first time, and Nature had also made her a loving, warm blooded, -human thing. How beautiful he was—how big—how strong his arms -were—and how soft and warm his mouth felt. She stood and gazed at him -with wide asking eyes and laughed a little. She had no words because she did -not know what had happened. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you like to be kissed?” said Donal, uncertain because -she looked so startled and had not kissed him back. -</p> - -<p> -“Kissed,” she repeated, with a small, caught breath, -“ye-es.” She knew now what it was. It was being kissed. She drew -nearer at once and lifted up her face as sweetly and gladly, as a flower lifts -itself to the sun. “Kiss me again,” she said quite eagerly. As -ingenuously and heartily as before, he kissed her again and, this time, she -kissed too. When he ran quickly away, she stood looking after him with smiling, -trembling lips, uplifted, joyful—wondering and amazed. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> - -<p> -When she went back to Andrews she carried the pricked leaves with her. She -could not have left them behind. From what source she had drawn a -characterizing passionate, though silent, strength of mind and body, it would -be difficult to explain. Her mind and her emotions had been left utterly unfed, -but they were not of the inert order which scarcely needs feeding. Her feeling -for the sparrows had held more than she could have expressed; her secret -adoration of the “Lady Downstairs” was an intense thing. Her -immediate surrender to the desire in the first pair of human eyes—child -eyes though they were—which had ever called to her being for response, -was simple and undiluted rapture. She had passed over her little soul without a -moment’s delay and without any knowledge of the giving. It had flown from -her as a bird might fly from darkness into the sun. Eight-year-old Donal was -the sun. -</p> - -<p> -No special tendency to innate duplicity was denoted by the fact that she had -acquired, through her observation of Andrews, Jennings, Jane and Mrs. Blayne, -the knowledge that there were things it was best not to let other people know. -You were careful about them. From the occult communications between herself and -Donal, which had resulted in their intrigue, there had of course evolved a -realizing sense of the value of discretion. She did not let Andrews see the -decorated leaves, but put them into a small pocket in her coat. Her -Machiavellian intention was to slip them out when she was taken up to the -Nursery. Andrews was always in a hurry to go downstairs to her lunch and she -would be left alone and could find a place where she could hide them. -</p> - -<p> -Andrews’ friend started when Robin drew near to them. The child’s -cheeks and lips were the colour of Jacqueminot rose petals. Her eyes glowed -with actual rapture. -</p> - -<p> -“My word! That’s a beauty if I ever saw one,” said the woman. -“First sight makes you jump. My word!” -</p> - -<p> -Robin, however, did not know what she was talking about and in fact scarcely -heard her. She was thinking of Donal. She thought of him as she was taken home, -and she did not cease thinking of him during the whole rest of the day and far -into the night. When Andrews left her, she found a place to hide the pricked -leaves and before she put them away she did what Donal had done to -her—she kissed them. She kissed them several times because they were -Donal’s leaves and he had made the stars and lines on them. It was almost -like kissing Donal but not quite so beautiful. -</p> - -<p> -After she was put to bed at night and Andrews left her she lay awake for a long -time. She did not want to go to sleep because everything seemed so warm and -wonderful and she could think and think and think. What she thought about was -Donal’s face, his delightful eyes, his white forehead with curly hair -pushed back with his Highland bonnet. His plaid swung about when he ran and -jumped. When he held her tight the buttons of his jacket hurt her a little -because they pressed against her body. What was “Mother” like? Did -he kiss her? What pretty stones there were in his clasps and buckles! How nice -it was to hear him laugh and how fond he was of laughing. Donal! Donal! Donal! -He liked to play with her though she was a girl and so little. He would play -with her tomorrow. His cheeks were bright pink, his hair was bright, his eyes -were bright. He was all bright. She tried to see into the blueness of his eyes -again as it seemed when they looked at each other close to. As she began to see -the clear colour she fell asleep. -</p> - -<p> -The power which had on the first morning guided Robin to the seclusion behind -the clump of shrubs and had provided Andrews with an enthralling companion, -extended, the next day, an even more beneficient and complete protection. -Andrews was smitten with a cold so alarming as to confine her to bed. Having no -intention of running any risks, whatsoever, she promptly sent for a younger -sister who, temporarily being “out of place”, came into the house -as substitute. She was a pretty young woman who assumed no special -responsibilities and was fond of reading novels. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s been trained to be no trouble, Anne. She’ll amuse -herself without bothering you as long as you keep her out,” Andrews said -of Robin. -</p> - -<p> -Anne took “Lady Audley’s Secret” with her to the Gardens and, -having led her charge to a shady and comfortable seat which exactly suited her, -she settled herself for a pleasant morning. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, you can play while I read,” she said to Robin. -</p> - -<p> -As they had entered the Gardens they had passed, not far from the gate, a bench -on which sat a highly respectable looking woman who was hemming a delicate bit -of cambric, and evidently in charge of two picture books which lay on the seat -beside her. A fine boy in Highland kilts was playing a few yards away. Robin -felt something like a warm flood rush over her and her joy was so great and -exquisite that she wondered if Anne felt her hand trembling. Anne did not -because she was looking at a lady getting into a carriage across the street. -</p> - -<p> -The marvel of that early summer morning in the gardens of a splendid but dingy -London square was not a thing for which human words could find expression. It -was not an earthly thing, or, at least, not a thing belonging to an earth grown -old. A child Adam and Eve might have known something like it in the Garden of -Eden. It was as clear and simple as spring water and as warm as the sun. -</p> - -<p> -Anne’s permission to “play” once given, Robin found her way -behind the group of lilacs and snowballs. Donal would come, not only because he -was so big that Nanny would let him do what he wanted to do, but because he -would do everything and anything in the world. Donal! Donal! Her heart was a -mere baby’s heart but it beat as if she were seventeen—beat with -pure rapture. He was all bright and he would laugh and laugh. -</p> - -<p> -The coming was easy enough for Donal. He had told his mother and Nanny -rejoicingly about the little girl he had made friends with and who had no -picture books. But he did not come straight to her. He took his picture books -under his arm, and showing all his white teeth in a joyous grin, set out to -begin their play properly with a surprise. He did not let her see him coming -but “stalked” her behind the trees and bushes until he found where -she was waiting, and then thrust his face between the branches of a tall shrub -near her and laughed the outright laugh she loved. And when she turned she was -looking straight into the clear blue she had tried to see when she fell asleep. -“Donal! Donal!” she cried like a little bird with but one note. -</p> - -<p> -The lilac and the snowball were in blossom and there was a big hawthorn tree -which smelt sweet and sweet. They could not see the drift of smuts on the -blossoms, they only smelled the sweetness and sat under the hawthorn and -sniffed and sniffed. The sun was deliciously warm and a piano organ was playing -beautifully not far away. They sat close to each other, so close that the -picture book could lie open on both pairs of knees and the warmth of each young -body penetrated the softness of the other. Sometimes Donal threw an arm around -her as she bent over the page. Love and caresses were not amazements to him; he -accepted them as parts of the normal joy of life. To Robin they were absolute -wonder. The pictures were delight and amazement in one. Donal knew all about -them and told her stories. She felt that such splendour could have emanated -only from him. It could not occur to her that he had not invented them and made -the pictures. He showed her Robinson Crusoe and Robin Hood. The scent of the -hawthorn and lilac intoxicated them and they laughed tremendously because Robin -Hood’s name was like Robin’s own and he was a man and she was a -girl. They could scarcely stop laughing and Donal rolled over and over on the -grass, half from unconquerable high spirits and half to make Robin laugh still -more. -</p> - -<p> -He had some beautiful coloured glass marbles in his pocket and he showed her -how to play with them, and gave her two of the prettiest. He could shoot them -over the ground in a way to thrill the beholder. He could hop on one leg as far -as he liked. He could read out of books. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you like me?” he said once in a pause between displays of his -prowess. -</p> - -<p> -Robin was kneeling upon the grass watching him and she clasped her little hands -as if she were uttering a prayer. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes, yes!” she yearned. “Yes! Yes!” -</p> - -<p> -“I like you,” he answered; “I told my mother all about -you.” -</p> - -<p> -He came to her and knelt by her side. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you a mother?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” shaking her head. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you live with your aunt?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I don’t live with anybody.” -</p> - -<p> -He looked puzzled. -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t there any lady in your house?” he put it to her. She -brightened a little, relieved to think she had something to tell him. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s the Lady Downstairs,” she said. “She’s -so pretty—so pretty.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is she——” he stopped and shook his head. “She -couldn’t be your mother,” he corrected himself. “You’d -know about <i>her</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“She wears pretty clothes. Sometimes they float about and sparkle and she -wears little crowns on her head—or flowers. She laughs,” Robin -described eagerly. “A great many people come to see her. They all laugh. -Sometimes they sing. I lie in bed and listen.” -</p> - -<p> -“Does she ever come upstairs to the Nursery?” inquired Donal with a -somewhat reflective air. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. She comes and stands near the door and says, ‘Is she quite -well, Andrews?’ She does not laugh then. She—she <i>looks</i> at -me.” -</p> - -<p> -She stopped there, feeling suddenly that she wished very much that she had more -to tell. What she was saying was evidently not very satisfactory. He seemed to -expect more—and she had no more to give. A sense of emptiness crept upon -her and for no reason she understood there was a little click in her throat. -</p> - -<p> -“Does she only stand near the door?” he suggested, as one putting -the situation to a sort of crucial test. “Does she never sit on a big -chair and take you on her knee?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, no,” in a dropped voice. “She will not sit down. She -says the chairs are grubby.” -</p> - -<p> -“Doesn’t she <i>love</i> you at all?” persisted Donal. -“Doesn’t she <i>kiss</i> you?” -</p> - -<p> -There was a thing she had known for what seemed to her a long time—God -knows in what mysterious fashion she had learned it, but learned it well she -had. That no human being but herself was aware of her knowledge was inevitable. -To whom could she have told it? But Donal—Donal wanted to know all about -her. The little click made itself felt in her throat again. -</p> - -<p> -“She—she doesn’t <i>like</i> me!” Her dropped voice was -the whisper of one humbled to the dust by confession, -“She—doesn’t <i>like</i> me!” And the click became -another thing which made her put up her arm over her eyes—her round, -troubled child eyes, which, as she had looked into Donal’s, had widened -with sudden, bewildered tears. -</p> - -<p> -Donal flung his arms round her and squeezed his buttons into her tender chest. -He hugged her close; he kissed her; there was a choking in his throat. He was -hot all over. -</p> - -<p> -“She does like you. She must like you. I’ll make her!” he -cried passionately. “She’s not your mother. If she was, she’d -<i>love</i> you! She’d <i>love</i> you!” -</p> - -<p> -“Do Mothers l-love you?” the small voice asked with a half sob. -“What’s—what’s <i>love</i> you?” It was not -vulgar curiosity. She only wanted to find out. -</p> - -<p> -He loosed his embrace, sitting back on his heels to stare. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you <i>know?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -She shook her head with soft meekness. -</p> - -<p> -“N-no,” she answered. -</p> - -<p> -Big boys like himself did not usually play with such little girls. But -something had drawn him to her at their first moment of encounter. She -wasn’t like any other little girls. He felt it all the time and that was -part of the thing which drew him. He was not, of course, aware that the male -thrill at being regarded as one who is a god had its power over the emotions. -She wasn’t making silly fun and pretending. She really didn’t -know—because she was different. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s liking very much. It’s more,” he explained. -“My mother loves <i>me</i>. I—I <i>love</i> you!” stoutly. -“Yes, I <i>love</i> you. That’s why I kissed you when you -cried.” -</p> - -<p> -She was so uplifted, so overwhelmed with adoring gratitude that as she knelt on -the grass she worshipped him. -</p> - -<p> -“I love <i>you</i>,” she answered him. “I <i>love</i> -you—<i>love</i> you!” And she looked at him with such actual -prayerfulness that he caught at her and, with manly promptness, kissed her -again—this being mere Nature. -</p> - -<p> -Because he was eight years old and she was six her tears flashed away and they -both laughed joyously as they sat down on the grass again to talk it over. -</p> - -<p> -He told her all the pleasant things he knew about Mothers. The world was full -of them it seemed—full. You belong to them from the time you were a baby. -He had not known many personally because he had always lived at Braemarnie, -which was in the country in Scotland. There were no houses near his home. You -had to drive miles and miles before you came to a house or a castle. He had not -seen much of other children except a few who lived at the Manse and belonged to -the minister. Children had fathers as well as mothers. Fathers did not love you -or take care of you quite as much as Mothers—because they were men. But -they loved you too. His own father had died when he was a baby. His mother -loved him as much as he loved her. She was beautiful but—it seemed to -reveal itself—not like the Lady Downstairs. She did not laugh very much, -though she laughed when they played together. He was too big now to sit on her -knee, but squeezed into the big chair beside her when she read or told him -stories. He always did what his mother told him. She knew everything in the -world and so knew what he ought to do. Even when he was a big man he should do -what his mother told him. -</p> - -<p> -Robin listened to every word with enraptured eyes and bated breath. This was -the story of Love and Life and it was the first time she had ever heard it. It -was as much a revelation as the Kiss. She had spent her days in the grimy -Nursery and her one close intimate had been a bony woman who had taught her not -to cry, employing the practical method of terrifying her into silence by -pinching her—knowing it was quite safe to do it. It had not been -necessary to do it often. She had seen people on the streets, but she had only -seen them in passing by. She had not watched them as she had watched the -sparrows. When she was taken down for a few minutes into the basement, she -vaguely knew that she was in the way and that Mrs. Blayne’s and -Andrews’ and Jennings’ low voices and occasional sidelong look -meant that they were talking about her and did not want her to hear. -</p> - -<p> -“I have no mother and no father,” she explained quite simply to -Donal. “No one kisses me.” -</p> - -<p> -“No one!” Donal said, feeling curious. “Has no one ever -kissed you but me?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” she answered. -</p> - -<p> -Donal laughed—because children always laugh when they do not know what -else to do. -</p> - -<p> -“Was that why you looked as if you were frightened when I said good-bye -to you yesterday?” -</p> - -<p> -“I—I didn’t know,” said Robin, laughing a little -too—but not very much, “I wasn’t frightened. I liked -you.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll kiss you as often as you want me to,” he volunteered -nobly. “I’m used to it—because of my mother. I’ll kiss -you again now.” And he did it quite without embarrassment. It was a sort -of manly gratuity. -</p> - -<p> -Once Anne, with her book in her hand, came round the shrubs to see how her -charge was employing herself, and seeing her looking at pictures with a -handsomely dressed companion, she returned to “Lady Audley’s -Secret” feeling entirely safe. -</p> - -<p> -The lilac and the hawthorn tree continued to breathe forth warmed scents of -paradise in the sunshine, the piano organ went on playing, sometimes nearer, -sometimes farther away, but evidently finding the neighbourhood a desirable -one. Sometimes the children laughed at each other, sometimes at pictures Donal -showed, or stories he told, or at his own extreme wit. The boundaries were -removed from Robin’s world. She began to understand that there was -another larger one containing wonderful and delightful things she had known -nothing about. Donal was revealing it to her in everything he said even when he -was not aware that he was telling her anything. When Eve was formed from the -rib of Adam the information it was necessary for him to give her regarding her -surroundings must have filled her with enthralling interest and a reverence -which adored. The planted enclosure which was the central feature of the soot -sprinkled, stately London Square was as the Garden of Eden. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -The Garden of Eden it remained for two weeks. Andrews’ cold was serious -enough to require a doctor and her sister Anne continued to perform their -duties. The weather was exceptionally fine and, being a vain young woman, she -liked to dress Robin in her pretty clothes and take her out because she was a -beauty and attracted attention to her nurse as well as to herself. Mornings -spent under the trees reading were entirely satisfactory. Each morning the -children played together and each night Robin lay awake and lived again the -delights of the past hours. Each day she learned more wonders and her young -mind and soul were fed. There began to stir in her brain new thoughts and the -beginning of questioning. Scotland, Braemarnie, Donal’s mother, even the -Manse and the children in it, combined to form a world of enchantment. There -were hills with stags living in them, there were moors with purple heather and -yellow brome and gorse; birds built their nests under the bushes and -Donal’s pony knew exactly where to step even in the roughest places. -There were two boys and two girls at the Manse and they had a father and a -mother. These things were enough for a new heaven and a new earth to form -themselves around. The centre of the whole Universe was Donal with his strength -and his laugh and his eyes which were so alive and glowing that she seemed -always to see them. She knew nothing about the thing which was their -somehow—not-to-be-denied allure. They were <i>asking</i> eyes—and -eyes which gave. The boy was in truth a splendid creature. His body and beauty -were perfect life and joyous perfect living. His eyes asked other eyes for -everything. “Tell me more,” they said. “Tell me more! Like -me! Answer me! Let us give each other everything in the world.” He had -always been well, he had always been happy, he had always been praised and -loved. He had known no other things. -</p> - -<p> -During the first week in which the two children played together, his mother, -whose intense desire it was to understand him, observed in him a certain -absorption of mood when he was not talking or amusing himself actively. He -began to fall into a habit of standing at the windows, often with his chin in -his hand, looking out as if he were so full of thought that he saw nothing. It -was not an old habit, it was a new one. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you thinking about, Donal?” she asked one afternoon. -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to awaken, as it were, when he heard her. He turned about with his -alluring smile. -</p> - -<p> -“I am thinking it is <i>funny</i>,” he said. “It is funny -that I should like such a little girl such a lot. She is years and years -younger than I am. But I like her so. It is such fun to tell her things.” -He marched over to his mother’s writing table and leaned against it. What -his mother saw was that he had an impassioned desire to talk about this child. -She felt it was a desire even a trifle abnormal in its eagerness. -</p> - -<p> -“She has such a queer house, I think,” he explained. “She has -a nurse and such pretty clothes and she is so pretty herself, but I don’t -believe she has any toys or books in her nursery.” -</p> - -<p> -“Where is her mother?” -</p> - -<p> -“She must be dead. There is no lady in her house but the Lady Downstairs. -She is very pretty and is always laughing. But she is not her mother because -she doesn’t like her and she never kisses her. I think that’s the -queerest thing of all. No one had <i>ever</i> kissed her till I did.” -</p> - -<p> -His mother was a woman given to psychological analysis. Her eyes began to dwell -on his face with slightly anxious questioning. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you kiss her?” she inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I kissed her when I said good morning the first day. I thought she -didn’t like me to do it but she did. It was only because no one had ever -done it before. She likes it very much.” -</p> - -<p> -He leaned farther over the writing table and began to pour forth, his smile -growing and his eyes full of pleasure. His mother was a trifle alarmedly struck -by the feeling that he was talking like a young man in love who cannot keep his -tongue still, though in his case even the youngest manhood was years away, and -he made no effort to conceal his sentiments which a young man would certainly -have striven to do. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s got such a pretty little face and such a pretty mouth and -cheeks,” he touched a Jacqueminot rose in a vase. “They are the -colour of that. Today a robin came with the sparrows and hopped about near us. -We laughed and laughed because her eyes are like the robin’s, and she is -called Robin. I wish you would come into the Gardens and see her, mother. She -likes everything I do.” -</p> - -<p> -“I must come, dear,” she answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Nanny thinks she is lovely,” he announced. “She says I am in -love with her. Am I, mother?” -</p> - -<p> -“You are too young to be in love,” she said. “And even when -you are older you must not fall in love with people you know nothing -about.” -</p> - -<p> -It was an unconscious bit of Scotch cautiousness which she at once realized was -absurd and quite out of place. But—! -</p> - -<p> -She realized it because he stood up and squared his shoulders in an odd -young-mannish way. He had not flushed even faintly before and now a touch of -colour crept under his fair skin. -</p> - -<p> -“But I <i>do</i> love her,” he said. “I <i>do</i>. I -can’t stop.” And though he was quite simple and obviously little -boy-like, she actually felt frightened for a moment. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> - -<p> -On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was standing in -Feather’s drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand and wearing the look -of a man who is given up to reflection. -</p> - -<p> -“I saw Mrs. Muir today for the first time for several years,” he -said after a silence. “She is in London with the boy.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is she as handsome as ever?” -</p> - -<p> -“Quite. Hers is not the beauty that disappears. It is line and bearing -and a sort of splendid grace and harmony.” -</p> - -<p> -“What is the boy like?” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe reflected again before he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“He is—amazing. One so seldom sees anything approaching physical -perfection that it strikes one a sort of blow when one comes upon it suddenly -face to face.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is he as beautiful as all that?” -</p> - -<p> -“The Greeks used to make statues of bodies like his. They often called -them gods—but not always. The Creative Intention plainly was that all -human beings should be beautiful and he is the expression of it.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather was pretending to embroider a pink flower on a bit of gauze and she -smiled vaguely. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know what you mean,” she admitted with no abasement -of spirit, “but if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has not -been carried out.” Her smile broke into a little laugh as she stuck her -needle into her work. “I’m thinking of Henry,” she let drop -in addition. -</p> - -<p> -“So was I, it happened,” answered Coombe after a second or so of -pause. -</p> - -<p> -Henry was the next of kin who was—to Coombe’s great -objection—his heir presumptive, and was universally admitted to be a -repulsive sort of person both physically and morally. He had brought into the -world a weakly and rickety framework and had from mere boyhood devoted himself -to a life which would have undermined a Hercules. A relative may so easily -present the aspect of an unfortunate incident over which one has no control. -This was the case with Henry. His character and appearance were such that even -his connection with an important heritage was not enough to induce respectable -persons to accept him in any form. But if Coombe remained without issue Henry -would be the Head of the House. -</p> - -<p> -“How is his cough?” inquired Feather. -</p> - -<p> -“Frightful. He is an emaciated wreck and he has no physical cause for -remaining alive.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather made three or four stitches. -</p> - -<p> -“Does Mrs. Muir know?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“If Mrs. Muir is conscious of his miserable existence, that is -all,” he answered. “She is not the woman to inquire. Of course she -cannot help knowing that—when he is done with—her boy takes his -place in the line of succession.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, yes, she’d know that,” put in Feather. -</p> - -<p> -It was Coombe who smiled now—very faintly. -</p> - -<p> -“You have a mistaken view of her,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“You admire her very much,” Feather bridled. The figure of this big -Scotch creature with her “line” and her “splendid grace and -harmony” was enough to make one bridle. -</p> - -<p> -“She doesn’t admire me,” said Coombe. “She is not proud -of me as a connection. She doesn’t really want the position for the boy, -in her heart of hearts.” -</p> - -<p> -“Doesn’t want it!” Feather’s exclamation was a little -jeer only because she would not have dared a big one. -</p> - -<p> -“She is Scotch Early Victorian in some things and extremely advanced in -others,” he went on. “She has strong ideas of her own as to how he -shall be brought up. She’s rather Greek in her feeling for his being as -perfect physically and mentally as she can help him to be. She believes things. -It was she who said what you did not understand—about the Creative -Intention.” -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose she is religious,” Feather said. “Scotch people -often are but their religion isn’t usually like that. Creative -Intention’s a new name for God, I suppose. I ought to know all about God. -I’ve heard enough about Him. My father was not a clergyman but he was -very miserable, and it made him so religious that he was <i>almost</i> one. We -were every one of us christened and catechized and confirmed and all that. So -God’s rather an old story.” -</p> - -<p> -“Queer how old—from Greenland’s icy mountains to -India’s coral strand,” said Coombe. “It’s an ancient -search—that for the Idea—whether it takes form in metal or wood or -stone.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” said Feather, holding her bit of gauze away from her the -better to criticize the pink flower. “As <i>almost</i> a -clergyman’s daughter I must say that if there is one thing God -didn’t do, it was to fill the world with beautiful people and things as -if it was only to be happy in. It was made to—to try us by suffering -and—that sort of thing. It’s a—a—what d’ye call -it? Something beginning with P.” -</p> - -<p> -“Probation,” suggested Coombe regarding her with an expression of -speculative interest. Her airy bringing forth of her glib time-worn little -scraps of orthodoxy—as one who fished them out of a bag of long-discarded -remnants of rubbish—was so true to type that it almost fascinated him for -a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. That’s it—probation,” she answered. “I knew -it began with a P. It means ‘thorny paths’ and ‘seas of -blood’ and, if you are religious, you ‘tread them with bleeding -feet—’ or swim them as the people do in hymns. And you praise and -glorify all the time you’re doing it. Of course, I’m not religious -myself and I can’t say I think it’s pleasant—but I do -<i>know!</i> Every body beautiful and perfect indeed! That’s not -religion—it’s being irreligious. Good gracious, think of the -cripples and lepers and hunchbacks!” -</p> - -<p> -“And the idea is that God made them all—by way of entertaining -himself?” he put it to her quietly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, who else did?” said Feather cheerfully. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know,” he said. “Certain things I heard Mrs. -Muir say suggested to one that it might be interesting to think it out.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did she talk to you about God at afternoon tea?” said Feather. -“It’s the kind of thing a religious Scotch woman might do.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, she did not talk to me. Perhaps that was her mistake. She might have -reformed me. She never says more to me than civility demands. And it was not at -tea. I accidentally dropped in on the Bethunes and found an Oriental had been -lecturing there. Mrs. Muir was talking to him and I heard her. The man seemed -to be a scholar and a deep thinker and as they talked a group of us stood and -listened or asked questions.” -</p> - -<p> -“How funny!” said Feather. -</p> - -<p> -“It was not funny at all. It was astonishingly calm and serious—and -logical. The logic was the new note. I had never thought of reason in that -connection.” -</p> - -<p> -“Reason has nothing to do with it. You must have faith. You must just -believe what you’re told not think at all. Thinking is -wickedness—unless you think what you hear preached.” Feather was -even a trifle delicately smug as she rattled off her orthodoxy—but she -laughed after she had done with it. “But it <i>must</i> have been -funny—a Turk or a Hindoo in a turban and a thing like a tea gown and Mrs. -Muir in her Edinburgh looking clothes talking about God.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are quite out of it,” Coombe did not smile at all as he said -it. “The Oriental was as physically beautiful as Donal Muir is. And Mrs. -Muir—no other woman in the room compared with her. Perhaps people who -think grow beautiful.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather was not often alluring or coquettish in her manner to Coombe but she -tilted her head prettily and looked down at her flower through lovely lashes. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>I</i> don’t think,” she said. “And I am not so bad -looking.” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” he answered coldly. “You are not. At times you look -like a young angel.” -</p> - -<p> -“If Mrs. Muir is like that,” she said after a brief pause, “I -should like to know what she thinks of me?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, you would not—neither should I—if she thinks at -all,” was his answer. “But you remember you said you did not mind -that sort of thing.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t. Why should I? It can’t harm me.” Her hint of -a pout made her mouth entrancing. “But, if she thinks good looks are the -result of religiousness I should like to let her see Robin—and compare -her with her boy. I saw Robin in the park last week and she’s a perfect -beauty.” -</p> - -<p> -“Last week?” said Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“She doesn’t need anyone but Andrews. I should bore her to death if -I went and sat in the Nursery and stared at her. No one does that sort of thing -in these days. But I should like to see Mrs. Muir to see the two children -together!” -</p> - -<p> -“That could not easily be arranged, I am afraid,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Why not?” -</p> - -<p> -His answer was politely deliberate. -</p> - -<p> -“She greatly disapproves of me, I have told you. She is not proud of the -relationship.” -</p> - -<p> -“She does not like <i>me</i> you mean?” -</p> - -<p> -“Excuse me. I mean exactly what I said in telling you that she has her -own very strong views of the boy’s training and surroundings. They may be -ridiculous but that sort of thing need not trouble you.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather held up her hand and actually laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“If Robin meets him in ten years from now—<i>that</i> for her very -strong views of his training and surroundings!” -</p> - -<p> -And she snapped her fingers. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -Mrs. Muir’s distaste for her son’s unavoidable connection with the -man he might succeed had a firm foundation. She had been brought up in a -Scottish Manse where her father dominated as an omnipotent and almost divine -authority. As a child of imagination she had not been happy but she had been -obedient. In her girlhood she had varied from type through her marriage with a -young man who was a dreamer, an advanced thinker, an impassioned Greek scholar -and a lover of beauty. After he had released her from her terrors of damnation, -they had been profoundly happy. They were young and at ease and they read and -thought together ardently. They explored new creeds and cults and sometimes -found themselves talking nonsense and sometimes discovering untrodden paths of -wisdom. They were youthful enough to be solemn about things at times, and -clever enough to laugh at their solemnity when they awakened to it. Helen Muir -left the reverent gloom of the life at the Manse far behind despite her respect -for certain meanings they beclouded. -</p> - -<p> -“I live in a new structure,” she said to her husband, “but it -is built on a foundation which is like a solid subterranean chamber. I -don’t use the subterranean chamber or go into it. I don’t want to. -But now and then echoes—almost noises—make themselves heard in it. -Sometimes I find I have listened in spite of myself.” -</p> - -<p> -She had always been rather grave about her little son and when her -husband’s early death left him and his dignified but not large estate in -her care she realized that there lay in her hands the power to direct a life as -she chose, in as far as was humanly possible. The pure blood and healthy -tendencies of a long and fine ancestry expressing themselves in the boy’s -splendid body and unusual beauty had set the minds of two imaginative people -working from the first. One of Muir’s deepest interests was the study of -development of the race. It was he who had planted in her mind that daringly -fearless thought of a human perfection as to the Intention of the Creative -Cause. They used to look at the child as he lay asleep and note the beauty of -him—his hands, his feet, his torso, the tint and texture and line of him. -</p> - -<p> -“This is what was <i>meant</i>—in the plan for every human -being—How could there be scamping and inefficiency in Creation. It is we -ourselves who have scamped and been incomplete in our thought and life. Here he -is. Look at him. But he will only develop as he is—if living does not -warp him.” This was what his father said. His mother was at her gravest -as she looked down at the little god in the crib. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s as if some power had thrust a casket of loose jewels into our -hands and said, ‘It is for you to see that not one is lost’,” -she murmured. Then the looked up and smiled. -</p> - -<p> -“Are we being solemn—over a baby?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps,” he was always even readier to smile than she was. -“I’ve an idea, however, that there’s enough to be solemn -about—not too solemn, but just solemn enough. You are a beautiful thing, -Fair Helen! Why shouldn’t he be like you? Neither of us will forget what -we have just said.” -</p> - -<p> -Through her darkest hours of young bereavement she remembered the words many -times and felt as if they were a sort of light she might hold in her hand as -she trod the paths of the “Afterwards” which were in the days -before her. She lived with Donal at Braemarnie and lived <i>for</i> him without -neglecting her duty of being the head of a household and an estate and also a -good and gracious neighbour to things and people. She kept watch over every -jewel in his casket, great and small. He was so much a part of her religion -that sometimes she realized that the echoes from the subterranean chamber were -perhaps making her a little strict but she tried to keep guard over herself. -</p> - -<p> -He was handsome and radiant with glowing health and vitality. He was a -friendly, rejoicing creature and as full of the joy of life as a scampering -moor pony. He was clever enough but not too clever and he was friends with the -world. Braemarnie was picturesquely ancient and beautiful. It would be a home -of sufficient ease and luxury to be a pleasure but no burden. Life in it could -be perfect and also supply freedom. Coombe Court and Coombe Keep were huge and -castellated and demanded great things. Even if the Head of the House had been a -man to like and be proud of—the accession of a beautiful young Marquis -would rouse the hounds of war, so to speak, and set them racing upon his track. -Even the totally unalluring “Henry” had been beset with temptations -from his earliest years. That he promptly succumbed to the first only brought -forth others. It did not seem fair that a creature so different, a splendid -fearless thing, should be dragged from his hills and moors and fair heather and -made to breathe the foul scent of things, of whose poison he could know -nothing. She was not an ignorant childish woman. In her fine aloof way she had -learned much in her stays in London with her husband and in their explorings of -foreign cities. -</p> - -<p> -This was the reason for her views of her boy’s training and surroundings. -She had not asked questions about Coombe himself, but it had not been -necessary. Once or twice she had seen Feather by chance. In spite of herself -she had heard about Henry. Now and then he was furbished up and appeared -briefly at Coombe Court or at The Keep. It was always briefly because he -inevitably began to verge on misbehaving himself after twenty-four hours had -passed. On his last visit to Coombe House in town, where he had turned up -without invitation, he had become so frightfully drunk that he had been barely -rescued from the trifling <i>faux pas</i> of attempting to kiss a very young -royal princess. There were quite definite objections to Henry. -</p> - -<p> -Helen Muir was <i>not</i> proud of the Coombe relationship and with unvaried -and resourceful good breeding kept herself and her boy from all chance of being -drawn into anything approaching an intimacy. Donal knew nothing of his -prospects. There would be time enough for that when he was older, but, in the -meantime, there should be no intercourse if it could be avoided. -</p> - -<p> -She had smiled at herself when the “echo” had prompted her to the -hint of a quaint caution in connection with his little boy flame of delight in -the strange child he had made friends with. But it <i>had</i> been a flame and, -though she, had smiled, she sat very still by the window later that night and -she had felt a touch of weight on her heart as she thought it over. There were -wonderful years when one could give one’s children all the things they -wanted, she was saying to herself—the desires of their child hearts, the -joy of their child bodies, their little raptures of delight. Those were divine -years. They were so safe then. Donal was living through those years now. He did -not know that any happiness could be taken from him. He was hers and she was -his. It would be horrible if there were anything one could not let him -keep—in this early unshadowed time! -</p> - -<p> -She was looking out at the Spring night with all its stars lit and gleaming -over the Park which she could see from her window. Suddenly she left her chair -and rang for Nanny. -</p> - -<p> -“Nanny,” she said when the old nurse came, “tell me something -about the little girl Donal plays with in the Square gardens.” -</p> - -<p> -“She’s a bonny thing and finely dressed, ma’am,” was -the woman’s careful answer, “but I don’t make friends with -strange nurses and I don’t think much of hers. She’s a young -dawdler who sits novel reading and if Master Donal were a young pickpocket with -the measles, the child would be playing with him just the same as far as I can -see. The young woman sits under a tree and reads and the pretty little thing -may do what she likes. I keep my eye on them, however, and they’re in no -mischief. Master Donal reads out of his picture books and shows himself off -before her grandly and she laughs and looks up to him as if he were a king. -Every lad child likes a woman child to look up to him. It’s pretty to see -the pair of them. They’re daft about each other. Just wee things in love -at first sight.” -</p> - -<p> -“Donal has known very few girls. Those plain little things at the Manse -are too dull for him,” his mother said slowly. -</p> - -<p> -“This one’s not plain and she’s not dull,” Nanny -answered. “My word! but she’s like a bit of witch fire -dancing—with her colour and her big silk curls in a heap. Donal stares at -her like a young man at a beauty. I wish, ma’am, we knew more of her -forbears.” -</p> - -<p> -“I must see her,” Mrs. Muir said. “Tomorrow I’ll go -with you both to the Gardens.” -</p> - -<p> -Therefore the following day Donal pranced proudly up the path to his trysting -place and with him walked a tall lady at whom people looked as she passed. She -was fair like Donal and had a small head softly swathed with lovely folds of -hair. Also her eyes were very clear and calm. Donal was plainly proud and happy -to be with her and was indeed prancing though his prance was broken by walking -steps at intervals. -</p> - -<p> -Robin was waiting behind the lilac bushes and her nurse was already deep in the -mystery of Lady Audley. -</p> - -<p> -“There she is!” cried Donal, and he ran to her. “My mother -has come with me. She wants to see you, too,” and he pulled her forward -by her hand. “This is Robin, Mother! This is Robin.” He panted with -elation and stood holding his prize as if she might get away before he had -displayed her; his eyes lifted to his tall mother’s were those of an -exultant owner. -</p> - -<p> -Robin had no desire to run away. To adore anything which belonged to Donal was -only nature. And this tall, fair, wonderful person was a Mother. No wonder -Donal talked of her so much. The child could only look up at her as Donal did. -So they stood hand in hand like little worshippers before a deity. -</p> - -<p> -Andrews’ sister in her pride had attired the small creature like a flower -of Spring. Her exquisiteness and her physical brilliancy gave Mrs. Muir -something not unlike a slight shock. Oh! no wonder—since she was like -that. She stooped and kissed the round cheek delicately. -</p> - -<p> -“Donal wanted me to see his little friend,” she said. “I -always want to see his playmates. Shall we walk round the Garden together and -you shall show me where you play and tell me all about it.” -</p> - -<p> -She took the small hand and they walked slowly. Robin was at first too much -awed to talk but as Donal was not awed at all and continued his prancing and -the Mother lady said pretty things about the flowers and the grass and the -birds and even about the pony at Braemarnie, she began now and then to break -into a little hop herself and presently into sudden ripples of laughter like a -bird’s brief bubble of song. The tall lady’s hand was not like -Andrews, or the hand of Andrews’ sister. It did not pull or jerk and it -had a lovely feeling. The sensation she did not know was happiness again welled -up within her. Just one walk round the Garden and then the tall lady sat down -on a seat to watch them play. It was wonderful. She did not read or work. She -sat and watched them as if she wanted to do that more than anything else. Donal -kept calling out to her and making her smile: he ran backwards and forwards to -her to ask questions and tell her what they were “making up” to -play. When they gathered leaves to prick stars and circles on, they did them on -the seat on which she sat and she helped them with new designs. Several times, -in the midst of her play, Robin stopped and stood still a moment with a sort of -puzzled expression. It was because she did not feel like Robin. Two -people—a big boy and a lady—letting her play and talk to them as if -they liked her and had time! -</p> - -<p> -The truth was that Mrs. Muir’s eyes followed Robin more than they -followed Donal. Their clear deeps yearned over her. Such a glowing vital little -thing! No wonder! No wonder! And as she grew older she would be more vivid and -compelling with every year. And Donal was of her kind. His strength, his -beauty, his fearless happiness-claiming temperament. How could one—with -dignity and delicacy—find out why she had this obvious air of belonging -to nobody? Donal was an exact little lad. He had had foundation for his curious -scraps of her story. No mother—no playthings or books—no one had -ever kissed her! And she dressed and <i>soignée</i> like this! Who was the Lady -Downstairs? -</p> - -<p> -A victoria was driving past the Gardens. It was going slowly because the two -people in it wished to look at the spring budding out of hyacinths and tulips. -Suddenly one of the pair—a sweetly-hued figure whose early season attire -was hyacinth-like itself—spoke to the coachman. -</p> - -<p> -“Stop here!” she said. “I want to get out.” -</p> - -<p> -As the victoria drew up near a gate she made a light gesture. -</p> - -<p> -“What do you think, Starling,” she laughed. “The very woman -we are talking about is sitting in the Gardens there. I know her perfectly -though I only saw her portrait at the Academy years ago. Yes, there she is. -Mrs. Muir, you know.” She clapped her hands and her laugh became a -delighted giggle. “And my Robin is playing on the grass near -her—with a boy! What a joke! It must be <i>the</i> boy! And I wanted to -see the pair together. Coombe said couldn’t be done. And more than -anything I want to speak to <i>her</i>. Let’s get out.” -</p> - -<p> -They got out and this was why Helen Muir, turning her eyes a moment from Robin -whose hand she was holding, saw two women coming towards her with evident -intention. At least one of them had evident intention. She was the one whose -light attire produced the effect of being made of hyacinth petals. -</p> - -<p> -Because Mrs. Muir’s glance turned towards her, Robin’s turned also. -She started a little and leaned against Mrs. Muir’s knee, her eyes -growing very large and round indeed and filling with a sudden worshipping -light. -</p> - -<p> -“It is—” she ecstatically sighed or rather gasped, “the -Lady Downstairs!” -</p> - -<p> -Feather floated near to the seat and paused smiling. -</p> - -<p> -“Where is your nurse, Robin?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -Robin being always dazzled by the sight of her did not of course shine. -</p> - -<p> -“She is reading under the tree,” she answered tremulously. -</p> - -<p> -“She is only a few yards away,” said Mrs. Muir. “She knows -Robin is playing with my boy and that I am watching them. Robin is your little -girl?” amiably. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. So kind of you to let her play with your boy. Don’t let her -bore you. I am Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” -</p> - -<p> -There was a little silence—a delicate little silence. -</p> - -<p> -“I recognized you as Mrs. Muir at once,” said Feather, unperturbed -and smiling brilliantly, “I saw your portrait at the Grosvenor.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” said Mrs. Muir gently. She had risen and was beautifully -tall,—“the line” was perfect, and she looked with a gracious -calm into Feather’s eyes. -</p> - -<p> -Donal, allured by the hyacinth petal colours, drew near. Robin made an -unconscious little catch at his plaid and whispered something. -</p> - -<p> -“Is this Donal?” Feather said. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Are</i> you the Lady Downstairs, please?” Donal put in -politely, because he wanted so to know. -</p> - -<p> -Feather’s pretty smile ended in the prettiest of outright laughs. Her -maid had told her Andrews’ story of the name. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I believe that’s what she calls me. It’s a nice name -for a mother, isn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -Donal took a quick step forward. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Are</i> you her mother?” he asked eagerly. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course I am.” -</p> - -<p> -Donal quite flushed with excitement. -</p> - -<p> -“She doesn’t <i>know</i>,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -He turned on Robin. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s your Mother! You thought you hadn’t one! She’s -your Mother!” -</p> - -<p> -“But I am the Lady Downstairs, too.” Feather was immensely amused. -She was not subtle enough to know why she felt a perverse kind of pleasure in -seeing the Scotch woman standing so still, and that it led her into a touch of -vulgarity. “I wanted very much to see your boy,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” still gently from Mrs. Muir. -</p> - -<p> -“Because of Coombe, you know. We are such old friends. How queer that the -two little things have made friends, too. I didn’t know. I am so glad I -caught a glimpse of you and that I had seen the portrait. <i>Good</i> morning. -Goodbye, children.” -</p> - -<p> -While she strayed airily away they all watched her. She picked up her friend, -the Starling, who, not feeling concerned or needed, had paused to look at -daffodils. The children watched her until her victoria drove away, the chiffon -ruffles of her flowerlike parasol fluttering in the air. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Muir had sat down again and Donal and Robin leaned against her. They saw -she was not laughing any more but they did not know that her eyes had something -like grief in them. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s her Mother!” Donal cried. “She’s lovely, -too. But she’s—her <i>Mother!</i>” and his voice and face -were equally puzzled. -</p> - -<p> -Robin’s little hand delicately touched Mrs. Muir. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Is</i>—she?” she faltered. -</p> - -<p> -Helen Muir took her in her arms and held her quite close. She kissed her. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, she is, my lamb,” she said. “She’s your -mother.” -</p> - -<p> -She was clear as to what she must do for Donal’s sake. It was the only -safe and sane course. But—at this age—the child <i>was</i> a lamb -and she could not help holding her close for a moment. Her little body was -deliciously soft and warm and the big silk curls all in a heap were a fragrance -against her breast. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> - -<p> -Donal talked a great deal as he pranced home. Feather had excited as well as -allured him. Why hadn’t she told Robin she was her mother? Why did she -never show her pictures in the Nursery and hold her on her knee? She was little -enough to be held on knees! Did some mothers never tell their children and did -the children never find out? This was what he wanted to hear explained. He took -the gloved hand near him and held it close and a trifle authoritatively. -</p> - -<p> -“I am glad I know you are my mother,” he said, “I always -knew.” -</p> - -<p> -He was not sure that the matter was explained very clearly. Not as clearly as -things usually were. But he was not really disturbed. He had remembered a book -he could show Robin tomorrow and he thought of that. There was also a game in a -little box which could be easily carried under his arm. His mother was -“thinking” and he was used to that. It came on her sometimes and of -his own volition he always, on such occasion, kept as quiet as was humanly -possible. -</p> - -<p> -After he was asleep, Helen sent for Nanny. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re tired, ma’am,” the woman said when she saw her, -“I’m afraid you’ve a headache.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have had a good deal of thinking to do since this afternoon,” -her mistress answered, “You were right about the nurse. The little girl -might have been playing with any boy chance sent in her way—boys quite -unlike Donal.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, ma’am.” And because she loved her and knew her face and -voice Nanny watched her closely. -</p> - -<p> -“You will be as—startled—as I was. By some queer chance the -child’s mother was driving by and saw us and came in to speak to me. -Nanny—she is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” -</p> - -<p> -Nanny did start; she also reddened and spoke sharply. -</p> - -<p> -“And she came in and spoke to you, ma’am!” -</p> - -<p> -“Things have altered and are altering every day,” Mrs. Muir said. -“Society is not at all inflexible. She has a smart set of her -own—and she is very pretty and evidently well provided for. Easy-going -people who choose to find explanations suggest that her husband was a relation -of Lord Lawdor’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“And him a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my -certie,” offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir’s hands -clasped strongly as they lay on the table before her. -</p> - -<p> -“That doesn’t come within my bailiewick,” she said in her -quiet voice. “Her life is her own and not mine. Words are the wind that -blows.” She stopped just a moment and began again. “We must leave -for Scotland by the earliest train.” -</p> - -<p> -“What’ll he do?” the words escaped from the woman as if -involuntarily. She even drew a quick breath. “He’s a strong feeling -bairn—strong!” -</p> - -<p> -“He’ll be stronger when he is a young man, Nanny!” -desperately. “That is why I must act now. There is no half way. I -don’t want to be hard. Oh, am I hard—am I hard?” she cried -out low as if she were pleading. -</p> - -<p> -“No, ma’am. You are not. He’s your own flesh and -blood.” Nanny had never before seen her mistress as she saw her in the -next curious almost exaggerated moment. -</p> - -<p> -Her hand flew to her side. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s my heart and my soul—” she said, “—he -is the very entrails of me! And it will hurt him so and I cannot explain to him -because he is too young to understand. He is only a little boy who must go -where he is taken. And he cannot help himself. It’s—unfair!” -</p> - -<p> -Nanny was prone to become more Scotch as she became moved. But she still -managed to look grim. -</p> - -<p> -“He canna help himsel,” she said, “an waur still, <i>you</i> -canna.” -</p> - -<p> -There was a moment of stillness and then she said: -</p> - -<p> -“I must go and pack up.” And walked out of the room. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -Donal always slept like a young roe in the bracken, and in deep and rapturous -ease he slept this night. Another perfectly joyful day had passed and his -Mother had liked Robin and kissed her. All was well with the world. As long as -he had remained awake—and it had not been long—he had thought of -delightful things unfeverishly. Of Robin, somehow at Braemarnie, growing bigger -very quickly—big enough for all sorts of games—learning to ride -Chieftain, even to gallop. His mother would buy another pony and they could -ride side by side. Robin would laugh and her hair would fly behind her if they -went fast. She would see how fast he could go—she would see him make -Chieftain jump. They would have picnics—catch sight of deer and fawns -delicately lifting their feet as they stepped. She would always look at him -with that nice look in her eyes and the little smile which came and went in a -second. She was quite different from the minister’s little girls at the -Manse. He liked her—he liked her! -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -He was wakened by a light in his room and by the sound of moving about. He sat -up quickly and found his Mother standing by his bed and Nanny putting things -into a travelling bag. He felt as if his Mother looked taller than she had -looked yesterday—and almost thin—and her face was anxious -and—shy. -</p> - -<p> -“We let you sleep as late as we could, Donal,” she said. “You -must get up quickly now and have breakfast. Something has happened. We are -obliged to go back to Scotland by very early train. There is not a minute to -waste.” -</p> - -<p> -At first he only said: -</p> - -<p> -“Back!” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, dear. Get up.” -</p> - -<p> -“To Braemarnie?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, dear laddie!” -</p> - -<p> -He felt himself grow hot and cold. -</p> - -<p> -“Away! Away!” he said again vaguely. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. Get up, dear.” -</p> - -<p> -He was as she had said only a little boy and accustomed to do as he was told. -He was also a fine, sturdy little Scot with a pride of his own. His breeding -had been of the sort which did not include insubordinate scenes, so he got out -of bed and began to dress. But his mother saw that his hands shook. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall not see Robin,” he said in a queer voice. “She -won’t find me when she goes behind the lilac bushes. She won’t know -why I don’t come.” -</p> - -<p> -He swallowed very hard and was dead still for a few minutes, though he did not -linger over his dressing. His mother felt that the whole thing was horrible. He -was acting almost like a young man even now. She did not know how she could -bear it. She spoke to him in a tone which was actually rather humble. -</p> - -<p> -“If we knew where she lived you—you could write a little letter and -tell her about it. But we do not where she lives.” -</p> - -<p> -He answered her very low. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s it. And she’s little—and she won’t -understand. She’s very little—really.” There was a -harrowingly protective note in his voice. “Perhaps—she’ll -cry.” -</p> - -<p> -Helen looking down at him with anguished eyes—he was buttoning his -shoes—made an unearthly effort to find words, but, as she said them, she -knew they were not the right ones. -</p> - -<p> -“She will be disappointed, of course, but she is so little that she will -not feel it as much as if she were bigger. She will get over it, darling. Very -little girls do not remember things long.” Oh, how coarse and crass and -stupid it sounded—how coarse and crass and stupid to say it to this small -defiant scrap of what seemed the inevitable suffering of the world! -</p> - -<p> -The clear blue of the eyes Robin had dwelt in, lifted itself to her. There was -something almost fierce in it—almost like impotent hatred of something. -</p> - -<p> -“She won’t,” he said, and she actually heard him grind his -little teeth after it. -</p> - -<p> -He did not look like Donal when he was dressed and sat at the breakfast table. -He did not eat much of his porridge, but she saw that he determinedly ate some. -She felt several times as if he actually did not look like anybody she had ever -seen. And at the same time his fair hair, his fair cheeks, and the fair sturdy -knees beneath his swinging kilt made him seem as much a little boy as she had -ever known him. It was his hot blue eyes which were different. -</p> - -<p> -He obeyed her every wish and followed where she led. When the train laboured -out of the big station he had taken a seat in a corner and sat with his face -turned to the window, so that his back was towards her. He stared and stared at -the passing country and she could only see part of his cheek and the side of -his neck. She could not help watching them and presently she saw a hot red glow -under the skin as if a flood had risen. It subsided in a few moments, but -presently she saw it rise again. This happened several times and he was holding -his lip with, his teeth. Once she saw his shoulders move and he coughed -obstinately two or three times. She knew that he would die before he would let -himself cry, but she wished he would descend to it just this once, as the -fields and hedges raced past and he was carried “Away! Away!” It -might be that it was all his manhood she was saving for him. -</p> - -<p> -He really made her heart stand still for a moment just as she was thinking this -and saying it to herself almost fiercely. He suddenly turned on her; the blue -of his eyes was flaming and the tide had risen again in his cheeks and neck. It -was a thing like rage she saw before her—a child’s rage and -impotently fierce. He cried out as if he were ending a sentence he had not -finished when he spoke as he sat on the floor buttoning his shoes. -</p> - -<p> -“She has no one but me to remember!” he said. “No one but me -had ever even kissed her. She didn’t know!” -</p> - -<p> -To her amazement he clenched both his savage young fists and shook them before -him. -</p> - -<p> -“It’ll kill me!” he raged. -</p> - -<p> -She could not hold herself back. She caught at him with her arms and meant to -drag him to her breast. “No! No! Donal!” she cried. “Darling! -No—No!” But, as suddenly as the queer unchildish thing had broken -out, did he remember himself and boy shame at his fantastic emotion overtook -him. He had never spoken like that to anyone before! It was almost as bad as -bursting out crying! The red tide ebbed away and he withdrew himself awkwardly -from her embrace. He said not another word and sat down in his corner with his -back turned toward the world. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -That the Lady Downstairs, who was so fond of laughing and who knew so many -persons who seemed to laugh nearly all the time, might have been joking about -being her mother presented itself to Robin as a vague solution of the problem. -The Lady had laughed when she said it, as people so often laughed at children. -Perhaps she had only been amusing herself as grown-up persons were apparently -entitled to do. Even Donal had not seemed wholly convinced and though his -mother had said the Lady Downstairs <i>was</i>—somehow the subject had -been changed at once. Mrs. Muir had so soon begun to tell them a story. Robin -was not in the least aware that she had swiftly distracted their attention from -a question, any discussion of which would have involved explanations she could -not have produced. It would have been impossible to make it clear to any child. -She herself was helpless before the situation and therefore her only refuge was -to make the two think of other things. She had so well done this that Robin had -gone home later only remembering the brightly transitory episode as she -recalled others as brief and bright, when she had stared at a light and lovely -figure standing on the nursery threshold and asking careless questions of -Andrews, without coming in and risking the freshness of her draperies by -contact with London top-floor grubbiness. The child was, in fact, too full of -the reality of her happiness with Donal and Donal’s mother to be more -than faintly bewildered by a sort of visionary conundrum. -</p> - -<p> -Robin, like Donal, slept perfectly through the night. Her sleep was perhaps -made more perfect by fair dreams in which she played in the Gardens and she and -Donal ran to and from the knees of the Mother lady to ask questions and explain -their games. As the child had often, in the past, looked up at the sky, so she -had looked up into the clear eyes of the Mother lady. There was something in -them which she had never seen before but which she kept wanting to see again. -Then there came a queer bit of a dream about the Lady Downstairs. She came -dancing towards them dressed in hyacinths and with her arms full of daffodils. -She danced before Donal’s Mother—danced and laughed as if she -thought they were all funny. She threw a few daffodils at them and then danced -away. The daffodils lay on the gravel walk and they all looked at them but no -one picked them up. Afterwards—in the dream—Mrs. Muir suddenly -caught her in her arms and kissed her and Robin was glad and felt warm all -over—inside and out. -</p> - -<p> -She wakened smiling at the dingy ceiling of the dingy room. There was but one -tiny shadow in the world, which was the fear that Andrews would get well too -quickly. She was no longer in bed but was well enough to sit up and sew a -little before the tiny fire in the atom of a servant’s room grate. The -doctor would not let her go out yet; therefore, Anne still remained in charge. -Founding one’s hope on previous knowledge of Anne’s habits, she -might be trusted to sit and read and show no untoward curiosity. -</p> - -<p> -From her bed Robin could see the sky was blue. That meant that she would be -taken out. She lay as quiet as a mouse and thought of the joy before her, until -Anne came to dress her and give her her breakfast. -</p> - -<p> -“We’ll put on your rose-coloured smock this morning,” the -girl said, when the dressing began. “I like the hat and socks that -match.” -</p> - -<p> -Anne was not quite like Andrews who was not talkative. She made a -conversational sort of remark after she had tied the white shoes. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve got pretty little aristocratic legs of your own,” she -said amiably. “I like my children to have nice legs.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin was uplifted in spirit by the commendation, but she hoped Anne would put -on her own things quickly. Sometimes she was rather a long time. The one -course, however, towards which discretion pointed as entirely safe was the -continuance of being as quiet as a mouse—even quieter, if such thing -might be—so that nothing might interfere with anything any one wanted to -do. To interfere would have been to attract attention and might lead to delay. -So she stood and watched the sparrows inoffensively until Anne called her. -</p> - -<p> -When she found herself out on the street her step was so light on the pavement -that she was rather like a rose petal blown fluttering along by soft vagrant -puffs of spring air. Under her flopping hat her eyes and lips and cheeks were -so happy that more than one passer-by turned head over shoulder to look after -her. -</p> - -<p> -“Your name ought to be Rose,” Anne giggled involuntarily as she -glanced down at her because someone had stared. She had not meant to speak but -the words said themselves. -</p> - -<p> -Because the time was young June even London sky and air were wonderful. Stray -breaths of fragrance came and went. The green of the trees in the Gardens was -light and fresh and in the bedded-out curves and stars and circles there were -more flowers every hour, so that it seemed as if blooming things with scents -grew thick about one’s feet. It was no wonder one felt light and smiled -back at nurses and governesses who looked up. Robin drew eyes became she was -like a summer bloom suddenly appearing in the Spring Garden. -</p> - -<p> -Nanny was not sitting on the bench near the gate and Donal was not to be seen -amusing himself. But he was somewhere just out of sight, or, if he had chanced -to be late, he would come very soon even if his Mother could not come with -him—though Robin could not believe she would not. To a child thing both -happiness and despair cannot be conceived of except as lasting forever. -</p> - -<p> -Anne sat down and opened her book. She had reached an exciting part and looked -forward to a thoroughly enjoyable morning. -</p> - -<p> -Robin hopped about for a few minutes. Donal had taught her to hop and she felt -it an accomplishment. Entangled in the meshes of the feathery, golden, if -criminal, ringlets of Lady Audley, Anne did not know when she hopped round the -curve of the walk behind the lilac and snowball bushes. -</p> - -<p> -Once safe in her bit of enchanted land, the child stood still and looked about -her. There was no kilted figure to be seen, but it would come towards her soon -with swinging plaid and eagle’s feather standing up grandly in its -Highland bonnet. He would come soon. Perhaps he would come running—and -the Mother lady would walk behind more slowly and smile. Robin waited and -looked—she waited and looked. -</p> - -<p> -She was used to waiting but she had never watched for anyone before. There had -never been any one or anything to watch for. The newness of the suspense gave -it a sort of deep thrill at first. How long was “at first”? She did -not know. She stood—and stood—and stood—and looked at every -creature who entered the gate. She did not see any one who looked in the least -like Donal or his Mother or Nanny. There were nurses and governesses and -children and a loitering lady or two. There were never many people in the -Gardens—only those who had keys. She knew nothing about time but at -length she knew that on other mornings they had been playing together before -this. -</p> - -<p> -The small rose-coloured figure stood so still for so long that it began to look -rigid and a nurse sitting at some distance said to another, -</p> - -<p> -“What is that child waiting for?” -</p> - -<p> -What length of time had passed before she found herself looking slowly down at -her feet because of something. The “something” which had drawn her -eyes downward was that she had stood so long without moving that her tense feet -had begun vaguely to hurt her and the ache attracted her attention. She changed -her position slightly and turned her eyes upon the gate again. He was coming -very soon. He would be sure to run fast now and he would be laughing. Donal! -Donal! She even laughed a little low, quivering laugh herself. -</p> - -<p> -“What is that child waiting for? I should really like to know,” the -distant nurse said again curiously. -</p> - -<p> -If she had been eighteen years old she would have said to herself that she was -waiting hours and hours. She would have looked at a little watch a thousand -times; she would have walked up and down and round and round the garden never -losing sight of the gate—or any other point for that matter—for -more than a minute. Each sound of the church clock striking a few streets away -would have brought her young heart thumping into her throat. -</p> - -<p> -But a child has no watch, no words out of which to build hopes and fears and -reasons, arguments battling against anguish which grows—palliations, -excuses. Robin, could only wait in the midst of a slow dark, rising tide of -something she had no name for. This slow rising of an engulfing flood she felt -when pins and needles began to take possession of her feet, when her legs -ached, and her eyes felt as if they had grown big and tightly strained. Donal! -Donal! Donal! -</p> - -<p> -Who knows but that some echo of the terror against which she had fought and -screamed on the night when she had lain alone in the dark in her cradle and -Feather had hid her head under the pillow—came back and closed slowly -around and over her, filling her inarticulate being with panic which at last -reached its unbearable height? She had not really stood waiting the entire -morning, but she was young enough to think that she had and that at any moment -Anne might come and take her away. He had not come running—he had not -come laughing—he had not come with his plaid swinging and his feather -standing high! There came a moment when her strained eyes no longer seemed to -see clearly! Something like a big lump crawled up into her throat! Something of -the same sort happened the day she had burst into a wail of loneliness and -Andrews had pinched her. Panic seized her; she clutched the breast of her -rose-coloured frock and panic-driven turned and fled into a thick clump of -bushes where there was no path and where even Donal had never pierced. -</p> - -<p> -“That child has run away at last,” the distant nurse remarked, -“I’d like to find out what she <i>was</i> waiting for.” -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -The shrubs were part of the enclosing planting of the Gardens. The children who -came to play on the grass and paths felt as if they formed a sort of forest. -Because of this, Robin had made her frantic dash to their shelter. No one would -come—no one would see her—no one would hear her, beneath them it -was almost dark. Bereft, broken and betrayed, a little mad thing, she pushed -her way into their shadow and threw herself face downward, a small, writhing, -rose-coloured heap, upon the damp mould. She could not have explained what she -was doing or why she had given up all, as if some tidal wave had overwhelmed -her. Suddenly she knew that all her new world had gone—forever and ever. -As it had come so it had gone. As she had not doubted the permanence of its -joy, so she <i>knew</i> that the end had come. Only the wisdom of the occult -would dare to suggest that from her child mate, squaring his sturdy young -shoulders against the world as the flying train sped on its way, some wave of -desperate, inchoate thinking rushed backward. There was nothing more. He would -not come back running. He was <i>gone!</i> -</p> - -<p> -There was no Andrews to hear. Hidden in the shadow under the shrubs, the rattle -and roar of the street outside the railing drowned her mad little cries. All -she had never done before, she did then. Her hands beat on the damp mould and -tore at it—her small feet beat it and dug into it. She cried, she sobbed; -the big lump in her throat almost strangled her—she writhed and did not -know she was writhing. Her tears pouring forth wet her hair, her face, her -dress. She did not cry out, “Donal! Donal!” because he was -nowhere—nowhere. If Andrews had seen her she would have said she was -“in a tantrum,” But she was not. The world had been torn away. -</p> - -<p> -A long time afterwards, as it seemed to her, she crawled out from under the -shrubs, carrying her pretty flopping hat in her earth-stained hand. It was not -pretty any more. She had been lying on it and it was crushed and flat. She -crept slowly round the curve to Anne. -</p> - -<p> -Seeing her, Anne sprang to her feet. The rose was a piteous thing beaten to -earth by a storm. The child’s face was swollen and stained, her hair was -tangled and damp there were dark marks of mould on her dress, her hat, her -hands, her white cheeks; her white shoes were earth-stained also, and the feet -in the rose-coloured socks dragged themselves heavily—slowly. -</p> - -<p> -“My gracious!” the young woman almost shrieked. “What’s -happened! Where have you been? Did you fall down? Ah, my good gracious! Mercy -me!” -</p> - -<p> -Robin caught her breath but did not say a word. -</p> - -<p> -“You fell down on a flower bed where they’d been watering the -plants!” almost wept Anne. “You must have. There isn’t that -much dirt anywhere else in the Gardens.” -</p> - -<p> -And when she took her charge home that was the story she told Andrews. Out of -Robin she could get nothing, and it was necessary to have an explanation. -</p> - -<p> -The truth, of which she knew nothing, was but the story of a child’s -awful dismay and a child’s woe at one of Life’s first betrayals. It -would be left behind by the days which came and went—it would -pass—as all things pass but the everlasting hills—but in this way -it was that it came and wrote itself upon the tablets of a child’s day. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> - -<p> -“The child’s always been well, ma’am,” Andrews was -standing, the image of exact correctness, in her mistress’ bedroom, while -Feather lay in bed with her breakfast on a convenient and decorative little -table. “It’s been a thing I’ve prided myself on. But I should -say she isn’t well now.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I suppose it’s only natural that she should begin -sometime,” remarked Feather. “They always do, of course. I remember -we all had things when we were children. What does the doctor say? I hope it -isn’t the measles, or the beginning of anything worse?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, ma’am, it isn’t. It’s nothing like a child’s -disease. I could have managed that. There’s good private nursing homes -for them in these days. Everything taken care of exactly as it should be and no -trouble of disinfecting and isolating for the family. I know what you’d -have wished to have done, ma’am.” -</p> - -<p> -“You do know your business, Andrews,” was Feather’s amiable -comment. -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you, ma’am,” from Andrews. “Infectious things -are easy managed if they’re taken away quick. But the doctor said you -must be spoken to because perhaps a change was needed.” -</p> - -<p> -“You could take her to Ramsgate or somewhere bracing.” said -Feather. “But what did he <i>say?</i>” -</p> - -<p> -“He seemed puzzled, ma’am. That’s what struck me. When I told -him about her not eating—and lying awake crying all night—to judge -from her looks in the morning—and getting thin and pale—he examined -her very careful and he looked queer and he said, ‘This child -hasn’t had a <i>shock</i> of any kind, has she? This looks like what we -should call shock—if she were older’.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather laughed. -</p> - -<p> -“How could a baby like that have a shock?” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s what I thought myself, ma’am,” answered -Andrews. “A child that’s had her hours regular and is fed and -bathed and sleeps by the clock, and goes out and plays by herself in the -Gardens, well watched over, hasn’t any chance to get shocks. I told him -so and he sat still and watched her quite curious, and then he said very slow: -‘Sometimes little children are a good deal shaken up by a fall when they -are playing. Do you remember any chance fall when she cried a good -deal?’” -</p> - -<p> -“But you didn’t, of course,” said Feather. -</p> - -<p> -“No, ma’am, I didn’t. I keep my eye on her pretty strict and -shouldn’t encourage wild running or playing. I don’t let her play -with other children. And she’s not one of those stumbling, falling -children. I told him the only fall I ever knew of her having was a bit of a -slip on a soft flower bed that had just been watered—to judge from the -state her clothes were in. She had cried because she’s not used to such -things, and I think she was frightened. But there wasn’t a scratch or a -shadow of a bruise on her. Even that wouldn’t have happened if I’d -been with her. It was when I was ill and my sister Anne took my place. Anne -thought at first that she’d been playing with a little boy she had made -friends with—but she found out that the boy hadn’t come that -morning—” -</p> - -<p> -“A boy!” Andrews was sharp enough to detect a new and interested -note. “What boy?” -</p> - -<p> -“She wouldn’t have played with any other child if I’d been -there” said Andrews, “I was pretty sharp with Anne about it. But -she said he was an aristocratic looking little fellow—” -</p> - -<p> -“Was he in Highland costume?” Feather interrupted. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, ma’am. Anne excused herself by saying she thought you must -know something about him. She declares she saw you come into the Gardens and -speak to his Mother quite friendly. That was the day before Robin fell and -ruined her rose-coloured smock and things. But it wasn’t through playing -boisterous with the boy—because he didn’t come that morning, as I -said, and he never has since.” -</p> - -<p> -Andrews, on this, found cause for being momentarily puzzled by the change of -expression in her mistress’ face. Was it an odd little gleam of angry -spite she saw? -</p> - -<p> -“And never has since, has he?” Mrs. Gareth-Lawless said with a half -laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Not once, ma’am,” answered Andrews. “And Anne thinks -it queer the child never seemed to look for him. As if she’d lost -interest. She just droops and drags about and doesn’t try to play at -all.” -</p> - -<p> -“How much did she play with him?” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, he was such a fine little fellow and had such a respectable, -elderly, Scotch looking woman in charge of him that Anne owned up that she -hadn’t thought there was any objections to them playing together. She -says they were as well behaved and quiet as children could be.” Andrews -thought proper to further justify herself by repeating, “She didn’t -think there could be any objection.” -</p> - -<p> -“There couldn’t,” Mrs. Gareth-Lawless remarked. “I do -know the boy. He is a relation of Lord Coombe’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“Indeed, ma’am,” with colourless civility, “Anne said -he was a big handsome child.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather took a small bunch of hothouse grapes from her breakfast tray and, -after picking one off, suddenly began to laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Good gracious, Andrews!” she said. “He was the -‘shock’! How perfectly ridiculous! Robin had never played with a -boy before and she fell in love with him. The little thing’s actually -pining away for him.” She dropped the grapes and gave herself up to -delicate mirth. “He was taken away and disappeared. Perhaps she fainted -and fell into the wet flower bed and spoiled her frock, when she first realized -that he wasn’t coming.” -</p> - -<p> -“It did happen that morning,” admitted Andrews, smiling a little -also. “It does seem funny. But children take to each other in a queer way -now and then. I’ve seen it upset them dreadful when they were -parted.” -</p> - -<p> -“You must tell the doctor,” laughed Feather. “Then -he’ll see there’s nothing to be anxious about. She’ll get -over it in a week.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s five weeks since it happened, ma’am,” remarked -Andrews, with just a touch of seriousness. -</p> - -<p> -“Five! Why, so it must be! I remember the day I spoke to Mrs. Muir. If -she’s that sort of child you had better keep her away from boys. -<i>How</i> ridiculous! How Lord Coombe—how people will laugh when I tell -them!” -</p> - -<p> -She had paused a second because—for that second—she was not quite -sure that Coombe <i>would</i> laugh. Frequently she was of the opinion that he -did not laugh at things when he should have done so. But she had had a brief -furious moment when she had realized that the boy had actually been whisked -away. She remembered the clearness of the fine eyes which had looked directly -into hers. The woman had been deciding then that she would have nothing to do -with her—or even with her child. -</p> - -<p> -But the story of Robin worn by a bereft nursery passion for a little boy, whose -mamma snatched him away as a brand from the burning, was far too edifying not -to be related to those who would find it delicious. -</p> - -<p> -It was on the occasion, a night or so later, of a gathering at dinner of -exactly the few elect ones, whose power to find it delicious was the most -highly developed, that she related it. It was a very little dinner—only -four people. One was the long thin young man, with the good looking narrow face -and dark eyes peering through a <i>pince nez</i>—the one who had said -that Mrs. Gareth-Lawless “got her wondrous clothes from Hélène” but -that he couldn’t. His name was Harrowby. Another was the Starling who was -a Miss March who had, some years earlier, led the van of the girls who -prostrated their relatives by becoming what was then called -“emancipated”; the sign thereof being the demanding of latchkeys -and the setting up of bachelor apartments. The relatives had astonishingly -settled down, with the unmoved passage of time, and more modern emancipation -had so far left latchkeys and bachelor apartments behind it that they began to -seem almost old-fogeyish. Clara March, however, had progressed with her day. -The third diner was an adored young actor with a low, veiled voice which, -combining itself with almond eyes and a sentimental and emotional curve of -cheek and chin, made the most commonplace “lines” sound yearningly -impassioned. He was not impassioned at all—merely fond of his pleasures -and comforts in a way which would end by his becoming stout. At present his -figure was perfect—exactly the thing for the uniforms of royal persons of -Ruritania and places of that ilk—and the name by which programmes -presented him was Gerald Vesey. -</p> - -<p> -Feather’s house pleased him and she herself liked being spoken to in the -veiled voice and gazed at by the almond eyes, as though insuperable obstacles -alone prevented soul-stirring things from being said. That she knew this was -not true did not interfere with her liking it. Besides he adored and understood -her clothes. -</p> - -<p> -Over coffee in the drawing-room, Coombe joined them. He had not known of the -little dinner and arrived just as Feather was on the point of beginning her -story. -</p> - -<p> -“You are just in time,” she greeted him, “I was going to tell -them something to make them laugh.” -</p> - -<p> -“Will it make me laugh?” he inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“It ought to. Robin is in love. She is five years old and she has been -deserted, and Andrews came to tell me that she can neither eat nor sleep. The -doctor says she has had a shock.” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe did not join in the ripple of amused laughter but, as he took his cup of -coffee, he looked interested. -</p> - -<p> -Harrowby was interested too. His dark eyes quite gleamed. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose she is in bed by now,” he said. “If it were not so -late, I should beg you to have her brought down so that we might have a look at -her. I’m by way of taking a psychological interest.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m psychological myself,” said the Starling. “But -what do you mean, Feather? Are you in earnest?” -</p> - -<p> -“Andrews is,” Feather answered. “She could manage measles but -she could not be responsible for shock. But she didn’t find out about the -love affair. I found that out—by mere chance. Do you remember the day we -got out of the victoria and went into the Gardens, Starling?” -</p> - -<p> -“The time you spoke to Mrs. Muir?” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe turned slightly towards them. -</p> - -<p> -Feather nodded, with a lightly significant air. -</p> - -<p> -“It was her boy,” she said, and then she laughed and nodded at -Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“He was quite as handsome as you said he was. No wonder poor Robin fell -prostrate. He ought to be chained and muzzled by law when he grows up.” -</p> - -<p> -“But so ought Robin,” threw in the Starling in her brusque, young -mannish way. -</p> - -<p> -“But Robin’s only a girl and she’s not a parti,” -laughed Feather. Her eyes, lifted to Coombe’s, held a sort of childlike -malice. “After his mother knew she was Miss Gareth-Lawless, he was not -allowed to play in the Gardens again. Did she take him back to Scotland?” -</p> - -<p> -“They went back to Scotland,” answered Coombe, “and, of -course, the boy was not left behind.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have <i>you</i> a child five years old?” asked Vesey in his low -voice of Feather. “You?” -</p> - -<p> -“It seems absurd to <i>me</i>,” said Feather, “I never quite -believe in her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t,” said Vesey. “She’s impossible.” -</p> - -<p> -“Robin is a stimulating name,” put in Harrowby. “<i>Is</i> it -too late to let us see her? If she’s such a beauty as Starling hints, she -ought to be looked at.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather actually touched the bell by the fireplace. A sudden caprice moved her. -The love story had not gone off quite as well as she had thought it would. And, -after all, the child was pretty enough to show off. She knew nothing in -particular about her daughter’s hours, but, if she was asleep, she could -be wakened. -</p> - -<p> -“Tell Andrews,” she said to the footman when he appeared, “I -wish Miss Robin to be brought downstairs.” -</p> - -<p> -“They usually go to bed at seven, I believe,” remarked Coombe, -“but, of course, I am not an authority.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin was not asleep though she had long been in bed. Because she kept her eyes -shut Andrews had been deceived into carrying on a conversation with her sister -Anne, who had come to see her. Robin had been lying listening to it. She had -begun to listen because they had been talking about the day she had spoiled her -rose-coloured smock and they had ended by being very frank about other things. -</p> - -<p> -“As sure as you saw her speak to the boy’s mother the day before, -just so sure she whisked him back to Scotland the next morning,” said -Andrews. “She’s one of the kind that’s particular. Lord -Coombe’s the reason. She does not want her boy to see or speak to him, if -it can be helped. She won’t have it—and when she found -out—” -</p> - -<p> -“Is Lord Coombe as bad as they say?” put in Anne with bated breath. -“He must be pretty bad if a boy that’s eight years old has to be -kept out of sight and sound of him.” -</p> - -<p> -So it was Lord Coombe who had somehow done it. He had made Donal’s mother -take him away. It was Lord Coombe. Who was Lord Coombe? It was because he was -wicked that Donal’s mother would not let him play with her—because -he was wicked. All at once there came to her a memory of having heard his name -before. She had heard it several times in the basement Servants’ Hall -and, though she had not understood what was said about him, she had felt the -atmosphere of cynical disapproval of something. They had said “him” -and “her” as if he somehow belonged to the house. On one occasion -he had been “high” in the manner of some reproof to Jennings, who, -being enraged, freely expressed his opinions of his lordship’s character -and general reputation. The impression made on Robin then had been that he was -a person to be condemned severely. That the condemnation was the mere outcome -of the temper of an impudent young footman had not conveyed itself to her, and -it was the impression which came back to her now with a new significance. He -was the cause—not Donal, not Donal’s Mother—but this man who -was so bad that servants were angry because he was somehow connected with the -house. -</p> - -<p> -“As to his badness,” she heard Andrews answer, “there’s -some that can’t say enough against him. Badness is smart these days. -He’s bad enough for the boy’s mother to take him away from. -It’s what he is in this house that does it. She won’t have her boy -playing with a child like Robin.” -</p> - -<p> -Then—even as there flashed upon her bewilderment this strange revelation -of her own unfitness for association with boys whose mothers took care of -them—Jennings, the young footman, came to the door. -</p> - -<p> -“Is she awake, Miss Andrews?” he said, looking greatly edified by -Andrews’ astonished countenance. -</p> - -<p> -“What on earth—?” began Andrews. -</p> - -<p> -“If she is,” Jennings winked humorously, “she’s to be -dressed up and taken down to the drawing-room to be shown off. I don’t -know whether it’s Coombe’s idea or not. He’s there.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin’s eyes flew wide open. She forgot to keep them shut. She was to go -downstairs! Who wanted her—who? -</p> - -<p> -Andrews had quite gasped. -</p> - -<p> -“Here’s a new break out!” she exclaimed. “I never heard -such a thing in my life. She’s been in bed over two hours. I’d like -to know—” -</p> - -<p> -She paused here because her glance at the bed met the dark liquidity of eyes -wide open. She got up and walked across the room. -</p> - -<p> -“You are awake!” she said. “You look as if you hadn’t -been asleep at all. You’re to get up and have your frock put on. The Lady -Downstairs wants you in the drawing-room.” -</p> - -<p> -Two months earlier such a piece of information would have awakened in the child -a delirium of delight. But now her vitality was lowered because her previously -unawakened little soul had soared so high and been so dashed down to cruel -earth again. The brilliancy of the Lady Downstairs had been dimmed as a candle -is dimmed by the light of the sun. -</p> - -<p> -She felt only a vague wonder as she did as Andrews told her—wonder at the -strangeness of getting up to be dressed, as it seemed to her, in the middle of -the night. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s just the kind of thing that would happen in a house like -this,” grumbled Andrews, as she put on her frock. “Just anything -that comes into their heads they think they’ve a right to do. I suppose -they have, too. If you’re rich and aristocratic enough to have your own -way, why not take it? I would myself.” -</p> - -<p> -The big silk curls, all in a heap, fell almost to the child’s hips. The -frock Andrews chose for her was a fairy thing. -</p> - -<p> -“She <i>is</i> a bit thin, to be sure,” said the girl Anne. -“But it points her little face and makes her eyes look bigger.” -</p> - -<p> -“If her mother’s got a Marquis, I wonder what she’ll -get,” said Andrews. “She’s got a lot before her: this -one!” -</p> - -<p> -When the child entered the drawing-room, Andrews made her go in alone, while -she held herself, properly, a few paces back like a lady in waiting. The room -was brilliantly lighted and seemed full of colour and people who were laughing. -There were pretty things crowding each other everywhere, and there were flowers -on all sides. The Lady Downstairs, in a sheathlike sparkling dress, and only a -glittering strap seeming to hold it on over her fair undressed shoulders, was -talking to a tall thin man standing before the fireplace with a gold cup of -coffee in his hand. -</p> - -<p> -As the little thing strayed in, with her rather rigid attendant behind her, -suddenly the laughing ceased and everybody involuntarily drew a half startled -breath—everybody but the tall thin man, who quietly turned and set his -coffee cup down on the mantel piece behind him. -</p> - -<p> -“Is <i>this</i> what you have been keeping up your sleeve!” said -Harrowby, settling his <i>pince nez</i>. -</p> - -<p> -“I told you!” said the Starling. -</p> - -<p> -“You couldn’t tell us,” Vesey’s veiled voice dropped in -softly. “It must be seen to be believed. But still—” aside to -Feather, “I don’t believe it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Enter, my only child!” said Feather. “Come here, Robin. Come -to your mother.” -</p> - -<p> -Now was the time! Robin went to her and took hold of a very small piece of her -sparkling dress. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Are</i> you my Mother?” she said. And then everybody burst into -a peal of laughter, Feather with the rest. -</p> - -<p> -“She calls me the Lady Downstairs,” she said. “I really -believe she doesn’t know. She’s rather a stupid little -thing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Amazing lack of filial affection,” said Lord Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -He was not laughing like the rest and he was looking down at Robin. She thought -him ugly and wicked looking. Vesey and Harrowby were beautiful by contrast. -Before she knew who he was, she disliked him. She looked at him askance under -her eyelashes, and he saw her do it before her mother spoke his name, taking -her by the tips of her fingers and leading her to him. -</p> - -<p> -“Come and let Lord Coombe look at you,” she said. So it revealed -itself to her that it was he—this ugly one—who had done it, and -hatred surged up in her soul. It was actually in the eyes she raised to his -face, and Coombe saw it as he had seen the sidelong glance and he wondered what -it meant. -</p> - -<p> -“Shake hands with Lord Coombe,” Feather instructed. -</p> - -<p> -“If you can make a curtsey, make one.” She turned her head over her -shoulders, “Have you taught her to curtsey, Andrews?” -</p> - -<p> -But Andrews had not and secretly lost temper at finding herself made to figure -as a nurse who had been capable of omission. Outwardly she preserved rigid -calm. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid not, ma’am. I will at once, if you wish -it.” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe was watching the inner abhorrence in the little face. Robin had put her -hand behind her back—she who had never disobeyed since she was born! She -had crossed a line of development when she had seen glimpses of the new world -through Donal’s eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you doing, you silly little thing,” Feather reproved her. -“Shake hands with Lord Coombe.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin shook her head fiercely. -</p> - -<p> -“No! No! No! No!” she protested. -</p> - -<p> -Feather was disgusted. This was not the kind of child to display. -</p> - -<p> -“Rude little thing! Andrews, come and make her do it—or take her -upstairs,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe took his gold coffee cup from the mantel. -</p> - -<p> -“She regards me with marked antipathy, as she did when she first saw -me,” he summed the matter up. “Children and animals don’t -hate one without reason. It is some remote iniquity in my character which the -rest of us have not yet detected.” To Robin he said, “I do not want -to shake hands with you if you object. I prefer to drink my coffee out of this -beautiful cup.” -</p> - -<p> -But Andrews was seething. Having no conscience whatever, she had instead the -pride of a female devil in her perfection in her professional duties. That the -child she was responsible for should stamp her with ignominious -fourth-ratedness by conducting herself with as small grace as an infant -costermonger was more than her special order of flesh and blood could -bear—and yet she must outwardly control the flesh and blood. -</p> - -<p> -In obedience to her mistress’ command, she crossed the room and bent down -and whispered to Robin. She intended that her countenance should remain -non-committal, but, when she lifted her head, she met Coombe’s eyes and -realized that perhaps it had not. She added to her whisper nursery instructions -in a voice of sugar. -</p> - -<p> -“Be pretty mannered, Miss Robin, my dear, and shake hands with his -lordship.” -</p> - -<p> -Each person in the little drawing-room saw the queer flame in the -child-face—Coombe himself was fantastically struck by the sudden thought -that its expression might have been that of an obstinate young martyr staring -at the stake. Robin shrilled out her words: -</p> - -<p> -“Andrews will pinch me—Andrews will pinch me! -But—No!—No!” and she kept her hand behind her back. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, Miss Robin, you naughty child!” cried Andrews, with pathos. -“Your poor Andrews that takes such care of you!” -</p> - -<p> -“Horrid little thing!” Feather pettishly exclaimed. “Take her -upstairs, Andrews. She shall not come down again.” -</p> - -<p> -Harrowby, settling his <i>pince nez</i> a little excitedly in the spurred -novelty of his interest, murmured, -</p> - -<p> -“If she doesn’t want to go, she will begin to shriek. This looks as -if she were a little termagant.” -</p> - -<p> -But she did not shriek when Andrews led her towards the door. The ugly one with -the wicked face was the one who had done it. He filled her with horror. To have -touched him would have been like touching some wild beast of prey. That was -all. She went with Andrews quite quietly. -</p> - -<p> -“Will you shake hands with me?” said the Starling, goodnaturedly, -as she passed, “I hope she won’t snub me,” she dropped aside -to Harrowby. -</p> - -<p> -Robin put out her hand prettily. -</p> - -<p> -“Shake mine,” suggested Harrowby, and she obeyed him. -</p> - -<p> -“And mine?” smiled Vesey, with his best allure. She gave him her -hand, and, as a result of the allure probably, a tiny smile flickered about the -corners of her mouth. He did not look wicked. -</p> - -<p> -“I remain an outcast,” remarked Coombe, as the door closed behind -the little figure. -</p> - -<p> -“I detest an ill-mannered child,” said Feather. “She ought to -be slapped. We used to be slapped if we were rude.” -</p> - -<p> -“She said Andrews would pinch her. Is pinching the customary -discipline?” -</p> - -<p> -“It ought to be. She deserves it.” Feather was quite out of temper. -“But Andrews is too good to her. She is a perfect creature and conducts -herself like a clock. There has never been the slightest trouble in the -Nursery. You see how the child looks—though her face <i>isn’t</i> -quite as round as it was.” She laughed disagreeably and shrugged her -white undressed shoulders. “I think it’s a little horrid, -myself—a child of that age fretting herself thin about a boy.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> - -<p> -But though she had made no protest on being taken out of the drawing-room, -Robin had known that what Andrews’ soft-sounding whisper had promised -would take place when she reached the Nursery. She was too young to feel more -than terror which had no defense whatever. She had no more defense against -Andrews than she had had against the man who had robbed her of Donal. They were -both big and powerful, and she was nothing. But, out of the wonders she had -begun to know, there had risen in her before almost inert little being a -certain stirring. For a brief period she had learned happiness and love and -woe, and, this evening, inchoate rebellion against an enemy. Andrews led by the -hand up the narrow, top-story staircase something she had never led before. She -was quite unaware of this and, as she mounted each step, her temper mounted -also, and it was the temper of an incensed personal vanity abnormally strong in -this particular woman. When they were inside the Nursery and the door was shut, -she led Robin to the middle of the small and gloomy room and released her hand. -</p> - -<p> -“Now, my lady,” she said. “I’m going to pay you out for -disgracing me before everybody in the drawing-room.” She had taken the -child below stairs for a few minutes before bringing her up for the night. She -had stopped in the kitchen for something she wanted for herself. She laid her -belongings on a chest of drawers and turned about. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m going to teach you a lesson you won’t forget,” she -said. -</p> - -<p> -What happened next turned the woman quite sick with the shock of amazement. The -child had, in the past, been a soft puppet. She had been automatic obedience -and gentleness. Privately Andrews had somewhat looked down on her lack of -spirit, though it had been her own best asset. The outbreak downstairs had been -an abnormality. -</p> - -<p> -And now she stood before her with hands clenched, her little face wild with -defiant rage. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll scream! I’ll scream! I’ll <i>scream!</i>” -she shrieked. Andrews actually heard herself gulp; but she sprang up and -forward. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll <i>scream!</i>” she could scarcely believe her own -feelings—not to mention the evidence of her ears, -“<i>you’ll</i> scream!” -</p> - -<p> -The next instant was more astonishing still. Robin threw herself on her knees -and scrambled like a cat. She was under the bed and in the remotest corner -against the wall. She was actually unreachable, and she lay on her back kicking -madly, hammering her heels against the floor and uttering piercing shrieks. As -something had seemed to let itself go when she writhed under the bushes in the -Gardens, so did something let go now. In her overstrung little mind there ruled -for this moment the feeling that if she was to be pinched, she would be pinched -for a reason. -</p> - -<p> -Andrews knelt by the side of the bed. She had a long, strong, thin arm and it -darted beneath and clutched. But it was not long enough to attain the corner -where the kicking and screaming was going on. Her temper became fury before her -impotence and her hideous realization of being made ridiculous by this baby of -six. Two floors below the afterglow of the little dinner was going on. Suppose -even far echoes of the screams should be heard and make her more ridiculous -still. She knew how they would laugh and her mistress would make some silly -joke about Robin’s being too much for her. Her fury rose so high that she -had barely sense to realize that she must not let herself go too far when she -got hold of the child. Get hold of her she would and pay her out—My word! -She would pay her out! -</p> - -<p> -“You little devil!” she said between her teeth, “Wait till I -get hold of you.” And Robin shrieked and hammered more insanely still. -</p> - -<p> -The bed was rather a low one and it was difficult for any one larger than a -child to find room beneath it. The correct and naturally rigid Andrews lay flat -upon her stomach and wriggled herself partly under the edge. Just far enough -for her long and strong arm, and equally long and strong clutching fingers to -do their work. In her present state of mind, Andrews would have broken her back -rather than not have reached the creature who so defied her. The strong fingers -clenched a flying petticoat and dragged at it fiercely—the next moment -they clutched a frantic foot, with a power which could not be broken away from. -A jerk and a remorseless dragging over the carpet and Robin was out of the -protecting darkness and in the gas light again, lying tumbled and in an untidy, -torn little heap on the nursery floor. Andrews was panting, but she did not -loose her hold as she scrambled, without a rag of professional dignity, to her -feet. -</p> - -<p> -“My word!” she breathlessly gave forth. “I’ve got you -now! I’ve got you now.” -</p> - -<p> -She so looked that to Robin she seemed—like the ugly man -downstairs—a sort of wicked wild beast, whose mere touch would have been -horror even if it did not hurt. And the child knew what was coming. She felt -herself dragged up from the floor and also dragged between Andrew’s -knees, which felt bony and hard as iron. There was no getting away from them. -Andrews had seated herself firmly on a chair. -</p> - -<p> -Holding her between the iron knees, she put her large hand over her mouth. It -was a hand large enough to cover more than her mouth. Only the panic-stricken -eyes seemed to flare wide and lustrous above it. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>You’ll</i> scream!” she said, “<i>you’ll</i> -hammer on the floor with your heels! <i>You’ll</i> behave like a -wildcat—you that’s been like a kitten! You’ve never done it -before and you’ll never do it again! If it takes me three days, -I’ll make you remember!” -</p> - -<p> -And then her hand dropped—and her jaw dropped, and she sat staring with a -furious, sick, white face at the open door—which she had shut as she came -in. The top floor had always been so safe. The Nursery had been her own -autocratic domain. There had been no human creature to whom it would have -occurred to interfere. That was it. She had been actually <i>safe</i>. -</p> - -<p> -Unheard in the midst of the struggle, the door had been opened without a knock. -There on the threshold, as stiff as a ramrod, and with his hateful eyes -uncovering their gleam, Lord Coombe was standing—no other than Lord -Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -Having a sharp working knowledge of her world, Andrews knew that it was all up. -He had come upstairs deliberately. She knew what he had come for. He was as -clever as he was bad, and he had seen something when he glanced at her in the -drawing-room. Now he had heard and seen her as she dragged Robin from under the -bed. He’d come up for that—for some queer evil reason of his own. -The promptings of a remote gutter training made her feel a desire to use -language such as she still had wisdom enough to restrain. -</p> - -<p> -“You are a very great fool, young woman,” he said. “You have -nothing but your character as a nurse to live on. A scene in a police court -would ruin you. There is a Society which interferes with nursery -torture.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin, freed from the iron grasp, had slunk behind a chair. He was there again. -</p> - -<p> -Andrews’ body, automatically responsive to rule and habit, rose from its -seat and stood before this member of a class which required an upright -position. She knew better than to attempt to excuse or explain. She had heard -about the Society and she knew publicity would spell ruin and starvation. She -had got herself into an appalling mess. Being caught—there you were. But -that this evil-reputationed swell should actually have been awakened by some -whim to notice and follow her up was “past her,” as she would have -put it. -</p> - -<p> -“You were going to pinch her—by instalments, I suppose,” he -said. “You inferred that it might last three days. When she said you -would—in the drawing-room—it occurred to me to look into it. What -are your wages?” -</p> - -<p> -“Thirty pounds a year, my lord.” -</p> - -<p> -“Go tomorrow morning to Benby, who engaged you for Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. -He will be at his office by nine and will pay you what is owed to you—and -a month’s wages in lieu of notice.” -</p> - -<p> -“The mistress—” began Andrews. -</p> - -<p> -“I have spoken to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless.” It was a lie, serenely -told. Feather was doing a new skirt dance in the drawing-room. “She is -engaged. Pack your box. Jennings will call a cab.” -</p> - -<p> -It was the utter idiotic hopelessness of saying anything to him which finished -her. You might as well talk to a front door or a street lamp. Any silly thing -you might try wouldn’t even reach his ears. He had no ears for you. You -didn’t matter enough. -</p> - -<p> -“Shall I leave her here—as she is?” she said, denoting Robin. -</p> - -<p> -“Undress her and put her to bed before you pack your box,” -absolutely certain, fine cold modulations in the voice, which stood for his -special plane of breeding, had their effect on her grovelling though raging -soul. He was so exactly what he was and what she was not and could never -attain. “I will stay here while you do it. Then go.” -</p> - -<p> -No vocabulary of the Servants’ Hall could have encompassed the fine -phrase <i>grand seigneur</i>, but, when Mrs. Blayne and the rest talked of him -in their least resentful and more amiable moods, they unconsciously made -efforts to express the quality in him which these two words convey. He had ways -of his own. Men that paid a pretty woman’s bills and kept her going in -luxury, Jennings and Mrs. Blayne and the others knew something about. They -sometimes began well enough but, as time went on, they forgot themselves and -got into the way of being familiar and showing they realized that they paid for -things and had their rights. Most of them began to be almost like -husbands—speak slighting and sharp and be a bit stiff about -accounts—even before servants. They ran in and out or—after a -while—began to stay away and not show up for weeks. “He” was -different—so different that it was queer. Queer it certainly was that he -really came to the place very seldom. Wherever they met, it didn’t -noticeably often happen in the slice of a house. He came as if he were a -visitor. He took no liberties. Everything was punctiliously referred to Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless. Mr. Benby, who did everything, conducted himself outwardly as -if he were a sort of man of business in Mrs. Gareth-Lawlesss’ employ. It -was open to the lenient to believe that she depended on some mysterious private -income. There were people who preferred to try to believe this, but there were -those who, in some occult way, knew exactly where her income came from. There -were, in fact, hypercritical persons who did not know or notice her, but she -had quite an entertaining, smart circle which neither suspicions nor beliefs -prevented from placing her in their visiting lists. Coombe <i>did</i> keep it -up in the most perfect manner, some of them said admiringly among themselves. -He showed extraordinarily perfect taste. Many fashionable open secrets, -accepted by a brilliant world, were not half so fastidiously managed. Andrews -knew he had unswervingly lied when he said he had “spoken to Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless.” But he never failed to place her in the position of -authority. That he should have presented himself on the nursery floor was -amazingly abnormal enough to mean some state of mind unregulated by all natural -rules. “Him,” Andrews thought, “that never steps out of a -visitor’s place in the drawing-room turning up on the third floor without -a word!” One thing she knew, and that came first. Behind all the polite -show he was the head of everything. And he was one that you’d better not -give back a sound to if you knew what was good for yourself. Whatever people -said against his character, he was one of the grand and high ones. A word from -him—ever so quiet—and you’d be done for. -</p> - -<p> -She was shaking with fear inwardly, but she undressed Robin and put her in bed, -laying everything away and making things tidy for the night. -</p> - -<p> -“This is the Night Nursery, I suppose,” Coombe had said when she -began. He put up his glasses and looked the uninviting little room over. He -scrutinized it and she wondered what his opinion of it might be. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, my lord. The Day Nursery is through that door.” He walked -through the door in question and she could see that he moved slowly about it, -examining the few pieces of furniture curiously, still with his glass in his -eye. She had finished undressing Robin and had put her in her bed before he -came back into the sleeping apartment. By that time, exhausted by the unknown -tempest she had passed through, the child had dropped asleep in spite of -herself. She was too tired to remember that her enemy was in the next room. -</p> - -<p> -“I have seen the child with you several times when you have not been -aware of it,” Coombe said to her before he went downstairs. “She -has evidently been well taken care of as far as her body is concerned. If you -were not venomous—if you had merely struck her, when you lost your -temper, you might have had another trial. I know nothing about children, but I -know something about the devil, and if ever the devil was in a woman’s -face and voice the devil was in yours when you dragged the little creature from -under the bed. If you had dared, you would have killed her. Look after that -temper, young woman. Benby shall keep an eye on you if you take another place -as nurse, and I shall know where you are.” -</p> - -<p> -“My lord!” Andrews gasped. “You wouldn’t overlook a -woman and take her living from her and send her to starvation!” -</p> - -<p> -“I would take her living from her and send her to starvation without a -shadow of compunction,” was the reply made in the fine gentleman’s -cultivated voice, “—if she were capable of what you were capable of -tonight. You are, I judge, about forty, and, though you are lean, you are a -powerful woman; the child is, I believe, barely six.” And then, looking -down at her through his glass, he added—to her quite shuddering -astonishment—in a tone whose very softness made it really awful to her, -“Damn you! Damn you!” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll—I swear I’ll never let myself go again, my -lord!” the woman broke out devoutly. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t think you will. It would cost you too much,” he -said. -</p> - -<p> -Then he went down the steep, crooked little staircase quite soundlessly and -Andrews, rather white and breathless, went and packed her trunk. -Robin—tired baby as she was—slept warm and deeply. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> - -<p> -It was no custom of his to outstay other people; in fact, he usually went away -comparatively early. Feather could not imagine what his reason could be, but -she was sure there was a reason. She was often disturbed by his reasons, and -found it difficult to adjust herself to them. How—even if one had a -logically brilliant mind—could one calculate on a male being, who seemed -not exactly to belong to the race of men. -</p> - -<p> -As a result of the skirt dancing, the furniture of the empty drawing-room was a -little scattered and untidy, but Feather had found a suitable corner among -cushions on a sofa, after everyone had gone leaving Coombe alone with her. She -wished he would sit down, but he preferred to stand in his still, uncomfortable -way. -</p> - -<p> -“I know you are going to tell me something,” she broke the silence. -</p> - -<p> -“I am. When I went out of the room, I did not drive round to my club as I -said I found myself obliged to. I went upstairs to the third floor—to the -Nursery.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather sat quite upright. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>You</i> went up to the Nursery!” If this was the reason for his -staying, what on earth had he come upon in the region of the third floor, and -how ridiculously unlike him to allow himself to interfere. Could it be Andrews -and Jennings? Surely Andrews was too old.—This passed across her mind in -a flash. -</p> - -<p> -“You called Andrews to use her authority with the child when she would -not shake hands with me. The little creature, for some reason of her own, -evidently feels an antipathy to me. That interested me and I watched her as -Andrews whispered in her ear. The woman’s vanity was stung. I realized -that she whispered a threat. A hint of actual ferocity showed in her eyes in -spite of herself. Robin turned pale.” -</p> - -<p> -“Andrews was quite right. Children must be punished when they are -rude.” Feather felt this at once silly and boring. What did he know about -such matters? -</p> - -<p> -“The child said, ‘Andrews will pinch me!’ and I caught -Andrews’ eye and knew it was true—also that she had done it before. -I looked at the woman’s long, thin, strong fingers. They were cruel -fingers. I do not take liberties, as a rule, but I took a liberty. I excused -myself and climbed three flights of stairs.” -</p> - -<p> -Never had Feather been so surprised in her life. She looked like a bewildered -child. -</p> - -<p> -“But—what <i>could</i> it matter to <i>you?</i>” she said in -soft amaze. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know,” his answer came after a moment’s pause. -“I have caprices of mood. Certain mental images made my temperature rise. -Momentarily it did matter. One is like that at times. Andrews’ feline -face and her muscular fingers—and the child’s extraordinarily -exquisite flesh—gave me a second’s furious shudder.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather quite broke in upon him. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you—are you <i>fond</i> of children?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” he was really abrupt. “I never thought of such a thing -in my life—as being <i>fond</i> of things.” -</p> - -<p> -“That was what—I mean I thought so.” Feather faltered, as if -in polite acquiescence with a quite natural fact. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe proceeded: -</p> - -<p> -“As I went up the stairs I heard screams and I thought that the pinching -had begun. I got up quickly and opened the door and found the woman lying flat -on the floor by the bed, dragging out the child who had hidden under it. The -woman’s face was devilish, and so was her voice. I heard her threats. She -got on her feet and dragged the child up and held her between her knees. She -clapped her hand over mouth to stifle her shrieks. There I stopped her. She had -a fright at sight of me which taught her something.” He ended rather -slowly. “I took the great liberty of ordering her to pack her box and -leave the house—course,” with a slight bow, “using you as my -authority.” -</p> - -<p> -“Andrews!” cried Feather, aghast. “Has she—gone?” -</p> - -<p> -“Would you have kept her?” he inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s true that—that <i>pinching</i>” Feather’s -voice almost held tears, “—really <i>hard</i> pinching is—is -not proper. But Andrews has been invaluable. Everyone says Robin is better -dressed and better kept than other children. And she is never allowed to make -the least noise—” -</p> - -<p> -“One wouldn’t if one were pinched by those devilish, sinewy fingers -every time one raised one’s voice. Yes. She has gone. I ordered her to -put her charge to bed before she packed. I did not leave her alone with Robin. -In fact, I walked about the two nurseries and looked them over.” -</p> - -<p> -He had walked about the Night Nursery and the Day Nursery! He—the Head of -the House of Coombe, whose finely acrid summing up of things, they were all -secretly afraid of, if the truth were known. “They” stood for her -smart, feverishly pleasure-chasing set. In their way, they half unconsciously -tried to propitiate something in him, always without producing the least -effect. Her mental vision presented to her his image as he had walked about the -horrid little rooms, his somewhat stiffly held head not much below the low -ceilings. He had taken in shabby carpets, furniture, faded walls, general dim -dinginess. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s an unholy den for anything to spend its days in—that -third floor,” he made the statement detachedly, in a way. “If -she’s six, she has lived six years there—and known nothing -else.” -</p> - -<p> -“All London top floors are like it,” said Feather, “and they -are all nurseries and school rooms—where there are children.” -</p> - -<p> -His faintly smiling glance took in her girl-child slimness in its glittering -sheath—the zephyr scarf floating from the snow of her bared -loveliness—her delicate soft chin deliciously lifted as she looked up at -him. -</p> - -<p> -“How would <i>you</i> like it?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“But I am not a child,” in pretty protest. “Children -are—are different!” -</p> - -<p> -“You look like a child,” he suddenly said, queerly—as if the -aspect of her caught him for an instant and made him absent-minded. -“Sometimes—a woman does. Not often.” -</p> - -<p> -She bloomed into a kind of delighted radiance. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t often pay me compliments,” she said. “That -is a beautiful one. Robin—makes it more beautiful.” -</p> - -<p> -“It isn’t a compliment,” he answered, still watching her in -the slightly absent manner. “It is—a tragic truth.” -</p> - -<p> -He passed his hand lightly across his eyes as if he swept something away, and -then both looked and spoke exactly as before. -</p> - -<p> -“I have decided to buy the long lease of this house. It is for -sale,” he said, casually. “I shall buy it for the child.” -</p> - -<p> -“For Robin!” said Feather, helplessly. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, for Robin.” -</p> - -<p> -“It—it would be an income—whatever happened. It is in the -very heart of Mayfair,” she said, because, in her -astonishment—almost consternation—she could think of nothing else. -He would not buy it for her. He thought her too silly to trust. But, if it were -Robin’s—it would be hers also. A girl couldn’t turn her own -mother into the street. Amid the folds of her narrow being hid just one spark -of shrewdness which came to life where she herself was concerned. -</p> - -<p> -“Two or three rooms—not large ones—can be added at the -back,” he went on. “I glanced out of a window to see if it could be -done.” -</p> - -<p> -Incomprehensible as he was, one might always be sure of a certain princeliness -in his inexplicable methods. He never was personal or mean. An addition to the -slice of a house! That really <i>was</i> generous! Entrancement filled her. -</p> - -<p> -“That really is kind of you,” she murmured, gratefully. “It -seems too much to ask!” -</p> - -<p> -“You did not ask it,” was his answer. -</p> - -<p> -“But I shall benefit by it. Nothing <i>could be</i> nicer. These rooms -are so much too small,” glancing about her in flushed rapture, “And -my bedroom is dreadful. I’m obliged to use Rob’s for a -dressing-room.” -</p> - -<p> -“The new rooms will be for Robin,” he said. An excellent method he -had discovered, of entirely detaching himself from the excitements and emotions -of other persons, removed the usual difficulties in the way of -disappointing—speaking truths to—or embarrassing people who -deserved it. It was this method which had utterly cast down the defences of -Andrews. Feather was so wholly left out of the situation that she was actually -almost saved from its awkwardness. “When one is six,” he explained, -“one will soon be seven—nine—twelve. Then the teens begin to -loom up and one cannot be concealed in cupboards on a top floor. Even before -that time a governess is necessary, and, even from the abyss of my ignorance, I -see that no respectable woman would stand either the Night or the Day Nursery. -Your daughter—” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, don’t call her <i>that!</i>” cried Feather. “My -daughter! It sounds as if she were eighteen!” She felt as if she had a -sudden hideous little shock. Six years <i>had</i> passed since Bob died! A -daughter! A school girl with long hair and long legs to keep out of the way. A -grown-up girl to drag about with one. Never would she do it! -</p> - -<p> -“Three sixes are eighteen,” Coombe continued, “as was -impressed upon one in early years by the multiplication table.” -</p> - -<p> -“I never saw you so interested in anything before,” Feather -faltered. “Climbing steep, narrow, horrid stairs to her nursery! -Dismissing her nurse!” She paused a second, because a very ugly little -idea had clutched at her. It arose from and was complicated with many -fantastic, half formed, secret resentments of the past. It made her laugh a -shade hysterical. -</p> - -<p> -“Are you going to see that she is properly brought up and educated, so -that if—anyone important falls in love with her she can make a good -match?” -</p> - -<p> -Hers was quite a hideous little mind, he was telling himself—fearful in -its latter day casting aside of all such small matters as taste and feeling. -People stripped the garments from things in these days. He laughed inwardly at -himself and his unwitting “these days.” Senile severity mouthed -just such phrases. Were they not his own days and the outcome of a past which -had considered itself so much more decorous? Had not boldly questionable -attitudes been held in those other days? How long was it since the Prince -Regent himself had flourished? It was only that these days brought it all close -against one’s eyes. But this exquisite creature had a hideous little mind -of her own whatsoever her day. -</p> - -<p> -Later, he confessed to himself that he was unprepared to see her spring to her -feet and stand before him absurdly, fantastically near being impassioned. -</p> - -<p> -“You think I as too silly to <i>see</i> anything,” she broke forth. -“But I do see—a long way sometimes. I can’t bear it but I -do—I do! I shall have a grown-up daughter. She will be the kind of girl -everyone will look at—and someone—important—may want to marry -her. But, Oh!—” He was reminded of the day when she had fallen at -his feet, and clasped his rigid and reluctant knees. This was something of the -same feeble desperation of mood. “Oh, <i>why</i> couldn’t someone -like that have wanted to marry <i>me!</i> See!” she was like a pathetic -fairy as she spread her nymphlike arms, “how <i>pretty</i> I am!” -</p> - -<p> -His gaze held her a moment in the singular fashion with which she had become -actually familiar, because—at long intervals—she kept seeing it -again. He quite gently took her fingers and returned her to her sofa. -</p> - -<p> -“Please sit down again,” he requested. “It will be -better.” -</p> - -<p> -She sat down without another imbecile word to say. As for him, he changed the -subject. -</p> - -<p> -“With your permission, Benby will undertake the business of the lease and -the building,” he explained. “The plans will be brought to you. We -will go over them together, if you wish. There will be decent rooms for Robin -and her governess. The two nurseries can be made fit for human beings to live -in and used for other purposes. The house will be greatly improved.” -</p> - -<p> -It was nearly three o’clock when Feather went upstairs to her dozing -maid, because, after he had left her, she sat some time in the empty, untidy -little drawing-room and gazed straight before her at a painted screen on which -shepherdesses and swains were dancing in a Watteau glade infested by flocks of -little Loves. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> - -<p> -When, from Robin’s embarrassed young consciousness, there had welled up -the hesitating confession, “She—doesn’t like me,” she -could not, of course, have found words in which to make the reasons for her -knowledge clear, but they had for herself no obscurity. The fair being who, at -rare intervals, fluttered on the threshold of her world had a way of looking at -her with a shade of aloof distaste in her always transient gaze. -</p> - -<p> -The unadorned fact was that Feather did <i>not</i> like her. She had been -outraged by her advent. A baby was absurdly “out of the picture.” -So far as her mind encompassed a future, she saw herself flitting from flower -to flower of “smart” pleasures and successes, somehow, with more -money and more exalted invitations—“something” -vaguely—having happened to the entire Lawdor progeny, and she, therefore, -occupying a position in which it was herself who could gracefully condescend to -others. There was nothing so “stodgy” as children in the vision. -When the worst came to the worst, she had been consoled by the thought that she -had really managed the whole thing very cleverly. It was easier, of course, to -so arrange such things in modern days and in town. The Day Nursery and the -Night Nursery on the third floor, a smart-looking young woman who knew her -business, who even knew what to buy for a child and where to buy it, without -troubling any one simplified the situation. Andrews had been quite wonderful. -Nobody can bother one about a healthy, handsome child who is seen meticulously -cared for and beautifully dressed, being pushed or led or carried out in the -open air every day. -</p> - -<p> -But there had arrived the special morning when she had seen a child who so -stood out among a dozen children that she had been startled when she recognized -that it was Robin. Andrews had taken her charge to Hyde Park that day and -Feather was driving through the Row on her way to a Knightsbridge shop. First -her glance had been caught by the hair hanging to the little -hips—extraordinary hair in which Andrews herself had a pride. Then she -had seen the slender, exquisitely modeled legs, and the dancing sway of the -small body. A wonderfully cut, stitched, and fagotted smock and hat she had, of -course, taken in at a flash. When the child suddenly turned to look at some -little girls in a pony cart, the amazing damask of her colour, and form and -depth of eye had given her another slight shock. She realized that what she had -thrust lightly away in a corner of her third floor produced an unmistakable -effect when turned out into the light of a gay world. The creature was tall -too—for six years old. Was she really six? It seemed incredible. Ten more -years and she would be sixteen. -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Heppel-Bevill had a girl of fifteen, who was a perfect catastrophe. She -read things and had begun to talk about her “right to be a woman.” -Emily Heppel-Bevill was only thirty-seven—three years from forty. Feather -had reached the stage of softening in her disdain of the women in their -thirties. She had found herself admitting that—in these days—there -were women of forty who had not wholly passed beyond the pale into that outer -darkness where there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. But there -was no denying that this six year old baby, with the dancing step, gave -one—almost hysterically—“to think.” Her imagination -could not—never had and never would she have allowed it to—grasp -any belief that she herself could change. A Feather, No! But a creature of -sixteen, eighteen—with eyes that shape—with lashes an inch -long—with yards of hair—standing by one’s side in ten years! -It was ghastly! -</p> - -<p> -Coombe, in his cold perfunctory way, climbing the crooked, narrow stairs, -dismissing Andrews—looking over the rooms—dismissing them, so to -speak, and then remaining after the rest had gone to reveal to her a new -abnormal mood—that, in itself alone, was actually horrible. It was -abnormal and yet he had always been more or less like that in all things. -Despite everything—everything—he had never been in love with her at -all. At first she had believed he was—then she had tried to make him care -for her. He had never failed her, he had done everything in his <i>grand -seigneur</i> fashion. Nobody dare make gross comment upon her, but, while he -saw her loveliness as only such a man could—she had gradually realized -that she had never had even a chance with him. She could not even think that if -she had not been so silly and frightened that awful day six years ago, and had -not lost her head, he might have admired her more and more and in the end asked -her to marry him. He had said there must be no mistakes, and she had not been -allowed to fall into making one. The fact that she had not, had, finally, made -her feel the power of a certain fascination in him. She thought it was a result -of his special type of looks, his breeding, the wonderful clothes he -wore—but it was, in truth, his varieties of inaccessibility. -</p> - -<p> -“A girl might like him,” she had said to herself that -night—she sat up late after he left her. “A girl who—who had -up-to-date sense might. Modern people don’t grow old as they used to. At -fifty-five he won’t be fat, or bald and he won’t have lost his -teeth. People have found out they needn’t. He will be as thin and -straight as he is today—and nothing can alter his nose. He will be ten -years cleverer than he is now. Buying the house for a child of that -age—building additional rooms for her!” -</p> - -<p> -In the fevered, rapid, deep-dipping whirl of the life which was the only one -she knew, she had often seen rather trying things happen—almost unnatural -changes in situations. People had overcome the folly of being afraid to alter -their minds and their views about what they had temporarily believed were -permanent bonds and emotions. Bonds had become old fogeyish. Marriages went to -pieces, the parties in love affairs engaged in a sort of “dance down the -middle” and turn other people’s partners. The rearrangement of -figures sometimes made for great witticism. Occasionally people laughed at -themselves as at each other. The admirers of engaging matrons had been known to -renew their youth at the coming-out balls of lovely daughters in their early -teens, and to end by assuming the flowery chains of a new allegiance. Time had, -of course, been when such a <i>volte face</i> would have aroused condemnation -and indignant discussion, but a humorous leniency spent but little time in -selecting terms of severity. Feather had known of several such -<i>contretemps</i> ending in quite brilliant matches. The enchanting mothers -usually consoled themselves with great ease, and, if the party of each part was -occasionally wittily pungent in her comments on the other, everybody laughed -and nobody had time to criticize. A man who had had much to bestow and who -preferred in youth to bestow it upon himself was not infrequently more in the -mood for the sharing of marriage when years had revealed to him the distressing -fact that he was not, and had never been, the centre of the universe, which -distressing fact is one so unfairly concealed from youth in bloom. -</p> - -<p> -It was, of course, but as a vaguely outlined vision that these recognitions -floated through what could only be alleged to be Feather’s mind because -there was no other name for it. The dark little staircase, the rejected and -despised third floor, and Coombe detachedly announcing his plans for the house, -had set the—so to speak—rather malarious mist flowing around her. A -trying thing was that it did not really dispel itself altogether, but continued -to hang about the atmosphere surrounding other and more cheerful things. Almost -impalpably it added to the familiar feeling—or lack of feeling—with -regard to Robin. She had not at all hated the little thing; it had merely been -quite true that, in an inactive way, she had not <i>liked</i> her. In the folds -of the vague mist quietly floated the truth that she now liked her less. -</p> - -<p> -Benby came to see and talk to her on the business of the structural changes to -be made. He conducted himself precisely as though her views on the matter were -of value and could not, in fact, be dispensed with. He brought the -architect’s plans with him and explained them with care. They were clever -plans which made the most of a limited area. He did not even faintly smile when -it revealed itself to him, as it unconsciously did, that Mrs. Gareth-Lawless -regarded their adroit arrangement as a singular misuse of space which could -have been much better employed for necessities of her own. She was much -depressed by the ground floor addition which might have enlarged her -dining-room, but which was made into a sitting-room for Robin and her future -governess. -</p> - -<p> -“And that is in <i>addition</i> to her schoolroom which might have been -thrown into the drawing-room—besides the new bedrooms which I needed so -much,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“The new nurse, who is a highly respectable person,” explained -Benby, “could not have been secured if she had not known that -improvements were being made. The reconstruction of the third floor will -provide suitable accommodations.” -</p> - -<p> -The special forte of Dowson, the new nurse, was a sublimated respectability far -superior to smartness. She had been mystically produced by Benby and her -bonnets and jackets alone would have revealed her selection from almost occult -treasures. She wore bonnets and “jackets,” not hats and coats. -</p> - -<p> -“In the calm days of Her Majesty, nurses dressed as she does. I do not -mean in the riotous later years of her reign—but earlier—when -England dreamed in terms of Crystal Palaces and Great Exhibitions. She can only -be the result of excavation,” Coombe said of her. -</p> - -<p> -She was as proud of her respectability as Andrews had been of her smartness. -This had, in fact, proved an almost insuperable obstacle to her engagement. The -slice of a house, with its flocking in and out of chattering, smart people in -marvellous clothes was not the place for her, nor was Mrs. Gareth-Lawless the -mistress of her dreams. But her husband had met with an accident and must be -kept in a hospital, and an invalid daughter must live by the seaside—and -suddenly, when things were at their worst with her, had come Benby with a firm -determination to secure her with wages such as no other place would offer. -Besides which she had observed as she had lived. -</p> - -<p> -“Things have changed,” she reflected soberly. “You’ve -got to resign yourself and not be too particular.” -</p> - -<p> -She accepted the third floor, as Benby had said, because it was to be -rearranged and the Night and Day Nurseries, being thrown into one, repainted -and papered would make a decent place to live in. At the beautiful little girl -given into her charge she often looked in a puzzled way, because she knew a -good deal about children, and about this one there was something odd. Her -examination of opened drawers and closets revealed piles of exquisite garments -of all varieties, all perfectly kept. In these dingy holes, which called -themselves nurseries, she found evidence that money had been spent like water -so that the child, when she was seen, might look like a small princess. But she -found no plaything—no dolls or toys, and only one picture book, and that -had “Donal” written on the fly leaf and evidently belonged to -someone else. -</p> - -<p> -What exactly she would have done when she had had time to think the matter -over, she never knew, because, a few days after her arrival, a tall, thin -gentleman, coming up the front steps as she was going out with Robin, stopped -and spoke to her as if he knew who she was. -</p> - -<p> -“You know the kind of things children like to play with, nurse?” he -said. -</p> - -<p> -She respectfully replied that she had had long experience with young desires. -She did not know as yet who he was, but there was that about him which made her -feel that, while there was no knowing what height his particular exaltation in -the matter of rank might reach, one would be safe in setting it high. -</p> - -<p> -“Please go to one of the toy shops and choose for the child what she will -like best. Dolls—games—you will know what to select. Send the bill -to me at Coombe House. I am Lord Coombe.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you, my lord,” Dowson answered, with a sketch of a curtsey, -“Miss Robin, you must hold out your little hand and say ‘thank -you’ to his lordship for being so kind. He’s told Dowson to buy you -some beautiful dolls and picture books as a present.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin’s eyelashes curled against her under brows in her wide, still -glance upward at him. Here was “the one” again! She shut her hand -tightly into a fist behind her back. -</p> - -<p> -Lord Coombe smiled a little—not much. -</p> - -<p> -“She does not like me,” he said. “It is not necessary that -she should give me her hand. I prefer that she shouldn’t, if she -doesn’t want to. Good morning, Dowson.” -</p> - -<p> -To the well-regulated mind of Dowson, this seemed treating too lightly a matter -as serious as juvenile incivility. She remonstrated gravely and at length with -Robin. -</p> - -<p> -“Little girls must behave prettily to kind gentlemen who are friends of -their mammas. It is dreadful to be rude and not say ‘thank -you’,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -But as she talked she was vaguely aware that her words passed by the -child’s ears as the summer wind passed. Perhaps it was all a bit of -temper and would disappear and leave no trace behind. At the same time, there -<i>was</i> something queer about the little thing. She had a listless way of -sitting staring out of the window and seeming to have no desire to amuse -herself. She was too young to be listless and she did not care for her food. -Dowson asked permission to send for the doctor and, when he came, he ordered -sea air. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course, you can take her away for a few weeks,” Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless said. Here she smiled satirically and added, “But I can -tell you what it is all about. The little minx actually fell in love with a -small boy she met in the Square Gardens and, when his mother took him from -London, she began to mope like a tiresome girl in her teens. It’s -ridiculous, but is the real trouble.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” said Dowson, the low and respectful interjection expressing a -shade of disapproval, “Children do have fancies, ma’am. -She’ll get over it if we give her something else to think of.” -</p> - -<p> -The good woman went to one of the large toy shops and bought a beautiful doll, -a doll’s house, and some picture books. When they were brought up to the -Day Nursery, Robin was asleep after a rather long walk, which Dowson had -decided would be good for her. When she came later into the room, after the -things had been unpacked, she regarded them with an expression of actual -dislike. -</p> - -<p> -“Isn’t that a beautiful doll?” said Dowson, good-humouredly. -“And did you ever see such a lovely house? It was kind Lord Coombe who -gave them to you. Just you look at the picture books.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin put her hands behind her back and would not touch them. Dowson, who was a -motherly creature with a great deal of commonsense, was set thinking. She began -to make guesses, though she was not yet sufficiently familiar with the -household to guess from any firm foundation of knowledge of small things. -</p> - -<p> -“Come here, dear,” she said, and drew the small thing to her knee. -“Is it because you don’t love Lord Coombe?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she answered. -</p> - -<p> -“But why?” said Dowson. “When he is such a kind -gentleman?” -</p> - -<p> -But Robin would not tell her why and never did. She never told any one, until -years had passed, how this had been the beginning of a hatred. The toys were -left behind when she was taken to the seaside. Dowson tried to persuade her to -play with them several times, but she would not touch them, so they were put -away. Feeling that she was dealing with something unusual, and, being a kindly -person, Dowson bought her some playthings on her own account. They were simple -things, but Robin was ready enough to like them. -</p> - -<p> -“Did <i>you</i> give them to me?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, I did, Miss Robin.” -</p> - -<p> -The child drew near her after a full minute of hesitation. -</p> - -<p> -“I will <i>kiss</i> you!” she said solemnly, and performed the rite -as whole-souledly as Donal had done. -</p> - -<p> -“Dear little mite!” exclaimed the surprised Dowson. “Dear -me!” And there was actual moisture in her eyes as she squeezed the small -body in her arms. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s the strangest mite I ever nursed,” was her comment to -Mrs. Blayne below stairs. “It was so sudden, and she did it as if -she’d never done it before. I’d actually been thinking she -hadn’t any feeling at all.” -</p> - -<p> -“No reason why she should have. She’s been taken care of by the -clock and dressed like a puppet, but she’s not been treated human!” -broke forth Mrs. Blayne. -</p> - -<p> -Then the whole story was told—the “upstairs” story with much -vivid description, and the mentioning of many names and the dotting of many -“i’s”. Dowson had heard certain things only through vague -rumour, but now she knew and began to see her way. She had not heard names -before, and the definite inclusion of Lord Coombe’s suggested something -to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think the child could be <i>jealous</i> of his lordship?” -she suggested. -</p> - -<p> -“She might if she knew anything about him—but she never saw him -until the night she was taken down into the drawing-room. She’s lived -upstairs like a little dog in its kennel.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well,” Dowson reflected aloud, “it sounds almost silly to -talk of a child’s hating any one, but that bit of a thing’s eyes -had fair hate in them when she looked up at him where he stood. That was what -puzzled me.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> - -<p> -Before Robin had been taken to the seaside to be helped by the bracing air of -the Norfolk coast to recover her lost appetite and forget her small tragedy, -she had observed that unaccustomed things were taking place in the house. -Workmen came in and out through the mews at the back and brought ladders with -them and tools in queer bags. She heard hammerings which began very early in -the morning and went on all day. As Andrews had trained her not to ask tiresome -questions, she only crept now and then to a back window and peeped out. But in -a few days Dowson took her away. -</p> - -<p> -When she came back to London, she was not taken up the steep dark stairs to the -third floor. Dowson led her into some rooms she had never seen before. They -were light and airy and had pretty walls and furniture. A sitting-room on the -ground floor had even a round window with plants in it and a canary bird -singing in a cage. -</p> - -<p> -“May we stay here?” she asked Dowson in a whisper. -</p> - -<p> -“We are going to live here,” was the answer. -</p> - -<p> -And so they did. -</p> - -<p> -At first Feather occasionally took her intimates to see the additional -apartments. -</p> - -<p> -“In perfect splendour is the creature put up, and I with a bedroom like a -coalhole and such drawing-rooms as you see each time you enter the -house!” she broke forth spitefully one day when she forgot herself. -</p> - -<p> -She said it to the Starling and Harrowby, who had been simply gazing about them -in fevered mystification, because the new development was a thing which must -invoke some more or less interesting explanation. At her outbreak, all they -could do was to gaze at her with impartial eyes, which suggested question, and -Feather shrugged pettish shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“You knew <i>I</i> didn’t do it. How could I?” she said. -“It is a queer whim of Coombe’s. Of course, it is not the least -like him. I call it morbid.” -</p> - -<p> -After which people knew about the matter and found it a subject for edifying -and quite stimulating discussion. There was something fantastic in the -situation. Coombe was the last man on earth to have taken the slightest notice -of the child’s existence! It was believed that he had never seen -her—except in long clothes—until she had glared at him and put her -hand behind her back the night she was brought into the drawing-room. She had -been adroitly kept tucked away in an attic somewhere. And now behold an -addition of several wonderful, small rooms built, furnished and decorated for -her alone, where she was to live as in a miniature palace attended by -servitors! Coombe, as a purveyor of nursery appurtenances, was regarded with -humour, the general opinion being that the eruption of a volcano beneath his -feet alone could have awakened his somewhat chill self-absorption to the -recognition of any child’s existence. -</p> - -<p> -“To be exact we none of us really know anything in particular about his -mental processes.” Harrowby pondered aloud. “He’s capable of -any number of things we might not understand, if he condescended to tell us -about them—which he would never attempt. He has a remote, brilliantly -stored, cynical mind. He owns that he is of an inhuman selfishness. I -haven’t a suggestion to make, but it sets one searching through the -purlieus of one’s mind for an approximately reasonable -explanation.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why ‘purlieus’?” was the Starling’s inquiry. -Harrowby shrugged his shoulders ever so lightly. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, one isn’t searching for reasons founded on copy-book -axioms,” he shook his head. “Coombe? No.” -</p> - -<p> -There was a silence given to occult thought. -</p> - -<p> -“Feather is really in a rage and is too Feathery to be able to conceal -it,” said Starling. -</p> - -<p> -“Feather would be—inevitably,” Harrowby lifted his -near-sighted eyes to her curiously. “Can you see Feather in the -future—when Robin is ten years older?” -</p> - -<p> -“I can,” the Starling answered. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -The years which followed were changing years—growing years. Life and -entertainment went on fast and furiously in all parts of London, and in no part -more rapidly than in the slice of a house whose front always presented an air -of having been freshly decorated, in spite of summer rain and winter soot and -fog. The plants in the window boxes seemed always in bloom, being magically -replaced in the early morning hours when they dared to hint at flagging. Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless, it was said, must be renewed in some such mysterious morning -way, as she merely grew prettier as she neared thirty and passed it. Women did -in these days! Which last phrase had always been a useful one, probably from -the time of the Flood. Old fogeys, male and female, had used it in the past as -a means of scathingly unfavourable comparison, growing flushed and almost -gobbling like turkey cocks in their indignation. Now, as a phrase, it was a -support and a mollifier. “In these days” one knew better how to -amuse oneself, was more free to snatch at agreeable opportunity, less in -bondage to old fancies which had called themselves beliefs; everything whirled -faster and more lightly—danced, two-stepped, instead of marching. -</p> - -<p> -Robin vaguely connected certain changes in her existence with the changes which -took place in the fashion of sleeves and skirts which appeared to produce -radical effects in the world she caught glimpses of. Sometimes sleeves were -closely fitted to people’s arms, then puffs sprang from them and grew -until they were enormous and required delicate manipulation when coats were put -on; then their lavishness of material fell from the shoulder to the wrists and -hung there swaying until some sudden development of skirt seemed to distract -their attention from themselves and they shrank into unimportance and skirts -changed instead. Afterwards, sometimes figures were slim and encased in -sheathlike draperies, sometimes folds rippled about feet, -“fullness” crept here or there or disappeared altogether, trains -grew longer or shorter or wider or narrower, cashmeres, grosgrain silks and -heavy satins were suddenly gone and chiffon wreathed itself about the world and -took possession of it. Bonnets ceased to exist and hats were immense or tiny, -tall or flat, tilted at the back, at the side, at the front, worn over the face -or dashingly rolled back from it; feathers drooped or stood upright at heights -which rose and fell and changed position with the changing seasons. No garment -or individual wore the same aspect for more than a month’s time. It was -necessary to change all things with a rapidity matching the change of moods and -fancies which altered at the rate of the automobiles which dashed here and -there and everywhere, through country roads, through town, through remote -places with an unsparing swiftness which set a new pace for the world. -</p> - -<p> -“I cannot hark back regretfully to stage coaches,” said Lord -Coombe. “Even I was not born early enough for that. But in the days of my -youth and innocence express trains seemed almost supernatural. One could drive -a pair of horses twenty miles to make a country visit, but one could not drive -back the same day. One’s circle had its limitations and degrees of -intimacy. Now it is possible motor fifty miles to lunch and home to dine with -guests from the remotest corners of the earth. Oceans are crossed in six days, -and the eager flit from continent to continent. Engagements can be made by -cable and the truly enterprising can accept an invitation to dine in America on -a fortnight’s notice. Telephones communicate in a few seconds and no one -is secure from social intercourse for fifteen minutes. Acquaintances and -correspondence have no limitations because all the inhabitants of the globe can -reach one by motor or electricity. In moments of fatigue I revert to the days -of Queen Anne with pleasure.” -</p> - -<p> -While these changes went on, Robin lived in her own world in her own quarters -at the rear of the slice of a house. During the early years spent with Dowson, -she learned gradually that life was a better thing than she had known in the -dreary gloom of the third floor Day and Night Nurseries. She was no longer left -to spend hours alone, nor was she taken below stairs to listen blankly to -servants talking to each other of mysterious things with which she herself and -the Lady Downstairs and “him” were somehow connected, her discovery -of this fact being based on the dropping of voices and sidelong glances at her -and sudden warning sounds from Andrews. She realized that Dowson would never -pinch her, and the rooms she lived in were pretty and bright. -</p> - -<p> -Gradually playthings and picture books appeared in them, which she gathered -Dowson presented her with. She gathered this from Dowson herself. -</p> - -<p> -She had never played with the doll, and, by chance a day arriving when Lord -Coombe encountered Dowson in the street without her charge, he stopped her -again and spoke as before. -</p> - -<p> -“Is the little girl well and happy, Nurse?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Quite well, my lord, and much happier than she used to be.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did she,” he hesitated slightly, “like the playthings you -bought her?” -</p> - -<p> -Dowson hesitated more than slightly but, being a sensible woman and at the same -time curious about the matter, she spoke the truth. -</p> - -<p> -“She wouldn’t play with them at all, my lord. I couldn’t -persuade her to. What her child’s fancy was I don’t know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Neither do I—except that it is founded on a distinct -dislike,” said Coombe. There was a brief pause. “Are you fond of -toys yourself, Dowson?” he inquired coldly. -</p> - -<p> -“I am that—and I know how to choose them, your lordship,” -replied Dowson, with a large, shrewd intelligence. -</p> - -<p> -“Then oblige me by throwing away the doll and its accompaniments and -buying some toys for yourself, at my expense. You can present them to Miss -Robin as a personal gift. She will accept them from you.” -</p> - -<p> -He passed on his way and Dowson looked after him interestedly. -</p> - -<p> -“If she was his,” she thought, “I shouldn’t be puzzled. -But she’s not—that I’ve ever heard of. He’s got some -fancy of his own the same as Robin has, though you wouldn’t think it to -look at him. I’d like to know what it is.” -</p> - -<p> -It was a fancy—an old, old fancy—it harked back nearly thirty -years—to the dark days of youth and passion and unending tragedy whose -anguish, as it then seemed, could never pass—but which, nevertheless, had -faded with the years as they flowed by. And yet left him as he was and had -been. He was not sentimental about it, he smiled at himself -drearily—though never at the memory—when it rose again and, through -its vague power, led him to do strange things curiously verging on the -emotional and eccentric. But even the child—who quite loathed him for -some fantastic infant reason of her own—even the child had her part in -it. His soul oddly withdrew itself into a far remoteness as he walked away and -Piccadilly became a shadow and a dream. -</p> - -<p> -Dowson went home and began to pack neatly in a box the neglected doll and the -toys which had accompanied her. Robin seeing her doing it, asked a question. -</p> - -<p> -“Are they going back to the shop?” -</p> - -<p> -“No. Lord Coombe is letting me give them to a little girl who is very -poor and has to lie in bed because her back hurts her. His lordship is so kind -he does not want you to be troubled with them. He is not angry. He is too good -to be angry.” -</p> - -<p> -That was not true, thought Robin. He had done <i>that thing</i> she remembered! -Goodness could not have done it. Only badness. -</p> - -<p> -When Dowson brought in a new doll and other wonderful things, a little hand -enclosed her wrist quite tightly as she was unpacking the boxes. It was -Robin’s and the small creature looked at her with a questioning, half -appealing, half fierce. -</p> - -<p> -“Did he send them, Dowson?” -</p> - -<p> -“They are a present from me,” Dowson answered comfortably, and -Robin said again, -</p> - -<p> -“I want to kiss you. I like to kiss you. I do.” -</p> - -<p> -To those given to psychical interests and speculations, it might have suggested -itself that, on the night when the creature who had seemed to Andrews a soft -tissued puppet had suddenly burst forth into defiance and fearless shrillness, -some cerebral change had taken place in her. From that hour her softness had -become a thing of the past. Dowson had not found a baby, but a brooding, -little, passionate being. She was neither insubordinate nor irritable, but -Dowson was conscious of a certain intensity of temperament in her. She knew -that she was always thinking of things of which she said almost nothing. Only a -sensible motherly curiosity, such as Dowson’s could have made -discoveries, but a rare question put by the child at long intervals sometimes -threw a faint light. There were questions chiefly concerning mothers and their -habits and customs. They were such as, in their very unconsciousness, revealed -a strange past history. Lights were most unconsciously thrown by Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless herself. Her quite amiable detachment from all shadow of -responsibility, her brilliantly unending occupations, her goings in and out, -the flocks of light, almost noisy, intimates who came in and out with her -revealed much to a respectable person who had soberly watched the world. -</p> - -<p> -“The Lady Downstairs is my mother, isn’t she?” Robin inquired -gravely once. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, my dear,” was Dowson’s answer. -</p> - -<p> -A pause for consideration of the matter and then from Robin: -</p> - -<p> -“All mothers are not alike, Dowson, are they?” -</p> - -<p> -“No, my dear,” with wisdom. -</p> - -<p> -Though she was not yet seven, life had so changed for her that it was a far cry -back to the Spring days in the Square Gardens. She went back, however, back -into that remote ecstatic past. -</p> - -<p> -“The Lady Downstairs is not—alike,” she said at last, -“Donal’s mother loved him. She let him sit in the same chair with -her and read in picture books. She kissed him when he was in bed.” -</p> - -<p> -Jennings, the young footman who was a humourist, had, of course, heard witty -references to Robin’s love affair while in attendance, and he had -equally, of course, repeated them below stairs. Therefore, -</p> - -<p> -Dowson had heard vague rumours but had tactfully refrained from mentioning the -subject to her charge. -</p> - -<p> -“Who was Donal?” she said now, but quite quietly. Robin did not -know that a confidante would have made her first agony easier to bear. She was -not really being confidential now, but, realizing Dowson’s comfortable -kindliness, she knew that it would be safe to speak to her. -</p> - -<p> -“He was a big boy,” she answered keeping her eyes on Dowson’s -face. “He laughed and ran and jumped. His eyes—” she stopped -there because she could not explain what she had wanted to say about these -joyous young eyes, which were the first friendly human ones she had known. -</p> - -<p> -“He lives in Scotland,” she began again. “His mother loved -him. He kissed me. He went away. Lord Coombe sent him.” -</p> - -<p> -Dawson could not help her start. -</p> - -<p> -“Lord Coombe!” she exclaimed. -</p> - -<p> -Robin came close to her and ground her little fist into her knee, until its -plumpness felt almost bruised. -</p> - -<p> -“He is bad—bad—bad!” and she looked like a little -demon. -</p> - -<p> -Being a wise woman, Dowson knew at once that she had come upon a hidden child -volcano, and it would be well to let it seethe into silence. She was not a -clever person, but long experience had taught her that there were occasions -when it was well to leave a child alone. This one would not answer if she were -questioned. She would only become stubborn and furious, and no child should be -goaded into fury. Dowson had, of course, learned that the boy was a relative of -his lordship’s and had a strict Scottish mother who did not approve of -the slice of a house. His lordship might have been concerned in the -matter—or he might not. But at least Dowson had gained a side light. And -how the little thing had cared! Actually as if she had been a grown girl, -Dowson found herself thinking uneasily. -</p> - -<p> -She was rendered even a trifle more uneasy a few days later when she came upon -Robin sitting in a corner on a footstool with a picture book on her knee, and -she recognized it as the one she had discovered during her first exploitation -of the resources of the third floor nursery. It was inscribed -“Donal” and Robin was not looking at it alone, but at something she -held in her hand—something folded in a crumpled, untidy bit of paper. -</p> - -<p> -Making a reason for nearing her corner, Dowson saw what the paper held. The -contents looked like the broken fragments of some dried leaves. The child was -gazing at them with a piteous, bewildered face—so piteous that Dowson was -sorry. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you want to keep those?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” with a caught breath. “Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will make you a little silk bag to hold them in,” Dowson said, -actually feeling rather piteous herself. The poor, little lamb with her picture -book and her bits of broken dry leaves—almost like senna. -</p> - -<p> -She sat down near her and Robin left her footstool and came to her. She laid -the picture book on her lap and the senna like fragments of leaves on its open -page. -</p> - -<p> -“Donal brought it to show me,” she quavered. “He made pretty -things on the leaves—with his dirk.” She recalled too -much—too much all at once. Her eyes grew rounder and larger with -inescapable woe; “Donal did! Donal!” And suddenly she hid her face -deep in Dowson’s skirts and the tempest broke. She was so small a -thing—so inarticulate—and these were her dead! Dowson could only -catch her in her arms, drag her up on her knee, and rock her to and fro. -</p> - -<p> -“Good Lord! Good Lord!” was her inward ejaculation. “And she -not seven! What’ll she do when she’s seventeen! She’s one of -them there’s no help for!” -</p> - -<p> -It was the beginning of an affection. After this, when Dowson tucked Robin in -bed each night, she kissed her. She told her stories and taught her to sew and -to know her letters. Using some discretion she found certain little playmates -for her in the Gardens. But there were occasions when all did not go well, and -some pretty, friendly child, who had played with Robin for a few days, suddenly -seemed to be kept strictly by her nurse’s side. Once, when she was about -ten years old, a newcomer, a dramatic and too richly dressed little person, -after a day of wonderful imaginative playing appeared in the Gardens the -morning following to turn an ostentatious cold shoulder. -</p> - -<p> -“What is the matter?” asked Robin. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, we can’t play with you any more,” with quite a flounce -superiority. -</p> - -<p> -“Why not?” said Robin, becoming haughty herself. -</p> - -<p> -“We can’t. It’s because of Lord Coombe.” The little -person had really no definite knowledge of how Lord Coombe was concerned, but -certain servants’ whisperings of names and mysterious phrases had -conveyed quite an enjoyable effect of unknown iniquity connected with his -lordship. -</p> - -<p> -Robin said nothing to Dowson, but walked up and down the paths reflecting and -building a slow fire which would continue to burn in her young heart. She had -by then passed the round, soft baby period and had entered into that phase when -bodies and legs grow long and slender and small faces lose their first curves -and begin to show sharper modeling. -</p> - -<p> -Accepting the situation in its entirety, Dowson had seen that it was well to -first reach Lord Coombe with any need of the child’s. Afterwards, the -form of presenting it to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless must be gone through, but if she -were first spoken to any suggestion might be forgotten or intentionally -ignored. -</p> - -<p> -Dowson became clever in her calculations as to when his lordship might be -encountered and where—as if by chance, and therefore, quite respectfully. -Sometimes she remotely wondered if he himself did not make such encounters easy -for her. But his manner never altered in its somewhat stiff, expressionless -chill of indifference. He never was kindly in his manner to the child if he met -her. Dowson felt him at once casual and “lofty.” Robin might have -been a bit of unconsidered rubbish, the sight of which slightly bored him. Yet -the singular fact remained that it was to him one must carefully appeal. -</p> - -<p> -One afternoon Feather swept him, with one or two others, into the sitting-room -with the round window in which flowers grew. Robin was sitting at a low table -making pothooks with a lead pencil on a piece of paper Dowson had given her. -Dowson had, in fact, set her at the task, having heard from Jennings that his -lordship and the other afternoon tea drinkers were to be brought into the -“Palace” as Feather ironically chose to call it. Jennings rather -liked Dowson, and often told her little things she wanted to know. It was -because Lord Coombe would probably come in with the rest that Dowson had set -the low, white table in the round windows and suggested the pothooks. -</p> - -<p> -In course of time there was a fluttering and a chatter in the corridor. Feather -was bringing some new guests, who had not seen the place before. -</p> - -<p> -“This is where my daughter lives. She is much grander than I am,” -she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Stand up, Miss Robin, and make your curtsey,” whispered Dowson. -Robin did as she was told, and Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ pretty brows ran up. -</p> - -<p> -“Look at her legs,” she said. “She’s growing like Jack -and the Bean Stalk—though, I suppose, it was only the Bean Stalk that -grew. She’ll stick through the top of the house soon. Look at her legs, I -ask you.” -</p> - -<p> -She always spoke as if the child were an inanimate object and she had, by this -time and by this means, managed to sweep from Robin’s mind all the old, -babyish worship of her loveliness and had planted in its place another feeling. -At this moment the other feeling surged and burned. -</p> - -<p> -“They are beautiful legs,” remarked a laughing young man jocularly, -“but perhaps she does not particularly want us to look at them. Wait -until she begins skirt dancing.” And everybody laughed at once and the -child stood rigid—the object of their light ridicule—not herself -knowing that her whole little being was cursing them aloud. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe stepped to the little table and bestowed a casual glance on the pencil -marks. -</p> - -<p> -“What is she doing?” he asked as casually of Dowson. -</p> - -<p> -“She is learning to make pothooks, my lord,” Dowson answered. -“She’s a child that wants to be learning things. I’ve taught -her her letters and to spell little words. She’s quick—and old -enough, your lordship.” -</p> - -<p> -“Learning to read and write!” exclaimed Feather. -</p> - -<p> -“Presumption, I call it. I don’t know how to read and -write—least I don’t know how to spell. Do you know how to spell, -Collie?” to the young man, whose name was Colin. “Do you, -Genevieve? Do you, Artie?” -</p> - -<p> -“You can’t betray me into vulgar boasting,” said Collie. -“Who does in these days? Nobody but clerks at Peter -Robinson’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lord Coombe does—but that’s his tiresome superior -way,” said Feather. -</p> - -<p> -“He’s nearly forty years older than most of you. That is the -reason,” Coombe commented. “Don’t deplore your youth and -innocence.” -</p> - -<p> -They swept through the rooms and examined everything in them. The truth was -that the—by this time well known—fact that the unexplainable Coombe -had built them made them a curiosity, and a sort of secret source of jokes. The -party even mounted to the upper story to go through the bedrooms, and, it was -while they were doing this, that Coombe chose to linger behind with Dowson. -</p> - -<p> -He remained entirely expressionless for a few moments. Dowson did not in the -least gather whether he meant to speak to her or not. But he did. -</p> - -<p> -“You meant,” he scarcely glanced at her, “that she was old -enough for a governess.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes, my lord,” rather breathless in her hurry to speak before she -heard the high heels tapping on the staircase again. “And one -that’s a good woman as well as clever, if I may take the liberty. A good -one if—” -</p> - -<p> -“If a good one would take the place?” -</p> - -<p> -Dowson did not attempt refutation or apology. She knew better. -</p> - -<p> -He said no more, but sauntered out of the room. -</p> - -<p> -As he did so, Robin stood up and made the little “charity bob” of a -curtsey which had been part of her nursery education. She was too old now to -have refused him her hand, but he never made any advances to her. He -acknowledged her curtsey with the briefest nod. -</p> - -<p> -Not three minutes later the high heels came tapping down the staircase and the -small gust of visitors swept away also. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> - -<p> -The interview which took place between Feather and Lord Coombe a few days later -had its own special character. -</p> - -<p> -“A governess will come here tomorrow at eleven o’clock,” he -said. “She is a Mademoiselle Vallé. She is accustomed to the educating of -young children. She will present herself for your approval. Benby has done all -the rest.” -</p> - -<p> -Feather flushed to her fine-spun ash-gold hair. -</p> - -<p> -“What on earth can it matter!” she cried. -</p> - -<p> -“It does not matter to you,” he answered; “it -chances—for the time being—to matter to <i>me</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Chances!” she flamed forth—it was really a queer little -flame of feeling. “That’s it. You don’t really care! -It’s a caprice—just because you see she is going to be -pretty.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll own,” he admitted, “that has a great deal to do -with it.” -</p> - -<p> -“It has everything to do with it,” she threw out. “If she had -a snub nose and thick legs you wouldn’t care for her at all.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t say that I do care for her,” without emotion. -“The situation interests me. Here is an extraordinary little being thrown -into the world. She belongs to nobody. She will have to fight for her own hand. -And she will have to <i>fight</i>, by God! With that dewy lure in her eyes and -her curved pomegranate mouth! She will not know, but she will draw -disaster!” -</p> - -<p> -“Then she had better not be taught anything at all,” said Feather. -“It would be an amusing thing to let her grow up without learning to read -or write at all. I know numbers of men who would like the novelty of it. Girls -who know so much are a bore.” -</p> - -<p> -“There are a few minor chances she ought to have,” said Coombe. -“A governess is one. Mademoiselle Vallé will be here at eleven.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t see that she promises to be such a beauty,” fretted -Feather. “She’s the kind of good looking child who might grow up -into a fat girl with staring black eyes like a barmaid.” -</p> - -<p> -“Occasionally pretty women do abhor their growing up daughters,” -commented Coombe letting his eyes rest on her interestedly. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t abhor her,” with pathos touched with venom. -“But a big, lumping girl hanging about ogling and wanting to be ogled -when she is passing through that silly age! And sometimes you speak to me as a -man speaks to his wife when he is tired of her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I beg your pardon,” Coombe said. “You make me feel like a -person who lives over a shop at Knightsbridge, or in bijou mansion off -Regent’s Park.” -</p> - -<p> -But he was deeply aware that, as an outcome of the anomalous position he -occupied, he not infrequently felt exactly this. -</p> - -<p> -That a governess chosen by Coombe—though he would seem not to appear in -the matter—would preside over the new rooms, Feather knew without a -shadow of doubt. -</p> - -<p> -A certain almost silent and always high-bred dominance over her existence she -accepted as the inevitable, even while she fretted helplessly. Without him, she -would be tossed, a broken butterfly, into the gutter. She knew her London. No -one would pick her up unless to break her into smaller atoms and toss her away -again. The freedom he allowed her after all was wonderful. It was because he -disdained interference. -</p> - -<p> -But there was a line not to be crossed—there must not even be an attempt -at crossing it. Why he cared about that she did not know. -</p> - -<p> -“You must be like Cæsar’s wife,” he said rather grimly, -after an interview in which he had given her a certain unsparing warning. -</p> - -<p> -“And I am nobody’s wife. What did Cæsar’s wife do?” -she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing.” And he told her the story and, when she had heard him -tell it, she understood certain things clearly. -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Vallé was an intelligent, mature Frenchwoman. She presented -herself to Mrs. Gareth-Lawless for inspection and, in ten minutes, realized -that the power to inspect and sum up existed only on her own side. This pretty -woman neither knew what inquiries to make nor cared for such replies as were -given. Being swift to reason and practical in deduction, Mademoiselle Vallé did -not make the blunder of deciding that this light presence argued that she would -be under no supervision more serious. The excellent Benby, one was made aware, -acted and the excellent Benby, one was made aware, acted under clearly defined -orders. Milord Coombe—among other things the best dressed and perhaps the -least comprehended man in London—was concerned in this, though on what -grounds practical persons could not explain to themselves. His connection with -the narrow house on the right side of the right street was entirely -comprehensible. The lenient felt nothing blatant or objectionable about it. -Mademoiselle Vallé herself was not disturbed by mere rumour. The education, -manner and morals of the little girl she could account for. These alone were to -be her affair, and she was competent to undertake their superintendence. -</p> - -<p> -Therefore, she sat and listened with respectful intelligence to the birdlike -chatter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. (What a pretty woman! The silhouette of a -<i>jeune fille!</i>) -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Gareth-Lawless felt that, on her part, she had done all that was required -of her. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m afraid she’s rather a dull child, Mademoiselle,” -she said in farewell. “You know children’s ways and you’ll -understand what I mean. She has a trick of staring and saying nothing. I -confess I wish she wasn’t dull.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is impossible, madame, that she should be dull,” said -Mademoiselle, with an agreeably implicating smile. “Oh, but quite -impossible! We shall see.” -</p> - -<p> -Not many days had passed before she had seen much. At the outset, she -recognized the effect of the little girl with the slender legs and feet and the -dozen or so of points which go to make a beauty. The intense eyes first and the -deeps of them. They gave one furiously to think before making up one’s -mind. Then she noted the perfection of the rooms added to the smartly -inconvenient little house. Where had the child lived before the addition had -been built? Thought and actual architectural genius only could have done this. -Light and even as much sunshine as London will vouchsafe, had been arranged -for. Comfort, convenience, luxury, had been provided. Perfect colour and -excellent texture had evoked actual charm. Its utter unlikeness to the quarters -London usually gives to children, even of the fortunate class, struck -Mademoiselle Vallé at once. Madame Gareth-Lawless had not done this. Who then, -had? -</p> - -<p> -The good Dowson she at once affiliated with. She knew the excellence of her -type as it had revealed itself to her in the best peasant class. Trustworthy, -simple, but of kindly, shrewd good sense and with the power to observe. Dowson -was not a chatterer or given to gossip, but, as a silent observer, she would -know many things and, in time, when they had become friendly enough to be fully -aware that each might trust the other, gentle and careful talk would end in -unconscious revelation being made by Dowson. -</p> - -<p> -That the little girl was almost singularly attached to her nurse, she had -marked early. There was something unusual in her manifestations of her feeling. -The intense eyes followed the woman often, as if making sure of her presence -and reality. The first day of Mademoiselle’s residence in the place she -saw the little thing suddenly stop playing with her doll and look at Dowson -earnestly for several moments. Then she left her seat and went to the kind -creature’s side. -</p> - -<p> -“I want to <i>kiss</i> you, Dowie,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“To be sure, my lamb,” answered Dowson, and, laying down her -mending, she gave her a motherly hug. After which Robin went back contentedly -to her play. -</p> - -<p> -The Frenchwoman thought it a pretty bit of childish affectionateness. But it -happened more than once during the day, and at night Mademoiselle commented -upon it. -</p> - -<p> -“She has an affectionate heart, the little one,” she remarked. -“Madame, her mother, is so pretty and full of gaieties and pleasures that -I should not have imagined she had much time for caresses and the -nursery.” -</p> - -<p> -Even by this time Dowson had realized that with Mademoiselle she was upon safe -ground and was in no danger of betraying herself to a gossip. She quietly laid -down her sewing and looked at her companion with grave eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Her mother has never kissed her in her life that I am aware of,” -she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Has never—!” Mademoiselle ejaculated. “Never!” -</p> - -<p> -“Just as you see her, she is, Mademoiselle,” Dowson said. -“Any sensible woman would know, when she heard her talk about her child. -I found it all out bit by bit when first I came here. I’m going to talk -plain and have done with it. Her first six years she spent in a sort of dog -kennel on the top floor of this house. No sun, no real fresh air. Two little -holes that were dingy and gloomy to dull a child’s senses. Not a toy or a -bit of colour or a picture, but clothes fine enough for Buckingham Palace -children—and enough for six. Fed and washed and taken out every day to be -shown off. And a bad nurse, Miss—a bad one that kept her quiet by -pinching her black and blue.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!</i> That little angel!” cried Mademoiselle, -covering her eyes. -</p> - -<p> -Dowson hastily wiped her own eyes. She had shed many a motherly tear over the -child. It was a relief to her to open her heart to a sympathizer. -</p> - -<p> -“Black and blue!” she repeated. “And laughing and dancing and -all sorts of fast fun going on in the drawing-rooms.” She put out her -hand and touched Mademoiselle’s arm quite fiercely. “The little -thing didn’t know she <i>had</i> a mother! She didn’t know what the -word meant. I found that out by her innocent talk. She used to call <i>her</i> -‘The Lady Downstairs’.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” cried the Frenchwoman again. “What a -woman!” -</p> - -<p> -“She first heard of mothers from a little boy she met in the Square -Gardens. He was the first child she had been allowed to play with. He was a -nice child and he had a good mother. I only got it bit by bit when she -didn’t know how much she was telling me. He told her about mothers and he -kissed her—for the first time in her life. She didn’t understand -but it warmed her little heart. She’s never forgotten.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle even started slightly in her chair. Being a clever Frenchwoman she -felt drama and all its subtle accompaniments. -</p> - -<p> -“Is that why——” she began. -</p> - -<p> -“It is,” answered Dowson, stoutly. “A kiss isn’t an -ordinary thing to her. It means something wonderful. She’s got into the -way of loving me, bless her, and every now and then, it’s my opinion, she -suddenly remembers her lonely days when she didn’t know what love was. -And it just wells up in her little heart and she wants to kiss me. She always -says it that way, ‘Dowie, I want to <i>kiss</i> you,’ as if it was -something strange and, so to say, <i>sacred</i>. She doesn’t know it -means almost nothing to most people. That’s why I always lay down my work -and hug her close.” -</p> - -<p> -“You have a good heart—a <i>good</i> one!” said Mademoiselle -with strong feeling. -</p> - -<p> -Then she put a question: -</p> - -<p> -“Who was the little boy?” -</p> - -<p> -“He was a relation of—his lordship’s.” -</p> - -<p> -“His lordship’s?” cautiously. -</p> - -<p> -“The Marquis. Lord Coombe.” -</p> - -<p> -There was a few minutes’ silence. Both women were thinking of a number of -things and each was asking herself how much it would be wise to say. -</p> - -<p> -It was Dowson who made her decision first, and this time, as before, she laid -down her work. What she had to convey was the thing which, above all others, -the Frenchwoman must understand if she was to be able to use her power to its -best effect. -</p> - -<p> -“A woman in my place hears enough talk,” was her beginning. -“Servants are given to it. The Servants’ Hall is their theatre. It -doesn’t matter whether tales are true or not, so that they’re -spicy. But it’s been my way to credit just as much as I see and know and -to say little about that. If a woman takes a place in a house, let her go or -stay as suits her best, but don’t let her stay and either complain or -gossip. My business here is Miss Robin, and I’ve found out for myself -that there’s just one person that, in a queer, unfeeling way of his own, -has a fancy for looking after her. I say ‘unfeeling’ because he -never shows any human signs of caring for the child himself. But if -there’s a thing that ought to be done for her and a body can contrive to -let him know it’s needed, it’ll be done. Downstairs’ talk -that I’ve seemed to pay no attention to has let out that it was him that -walked quietly upstairs to the Nursery, where he’d never set foot before, -and opened the door on Andrews pinching the child. She packed her box and left -that night. He inspected the nurseries and, in a few days, an architect was -planning these rooms,—for Miss Robin and for no one else, though there -was others wanted them. It was him that told me to order her books and -playthings—and not let her know it because she hates him. It was him I -told she needed a governess. And he found you.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Vallé had listened with profound attention. Here she spoke. -</p> - -<p> -“You say continually ‘he’ or ‘him’. He -is—?” -</p> - -<p> -“Lord Coombe. I’m not saying I’ve seen much of him. -Considering—” Dowson paused—“it’s queer how -seldom he comes here. He goes abroad a good deal. He’s mixed up with the -highest and it’s said he’s in favour because he’s satirical -and clever. He’s one that’s gossiped about and he cares nothing for -what’s said. What business of mine is it whether or not he has all sorts -of dens on the Continent where he goes to racket. He might be a bishop for all -I see. And he’s the only creature in this world of the Almighty’s -that remembers that child’s a human being. Just him—Lord Coombe. -There, Mademoiselle,—I’ve said a good deal.” -</p> - -<p> -More and more interestedly had the Frenchwoman listened and with an increasing -hint of curiosity in her intelligent eyes. She pressed Dowson’s -needle-roughened fingers warmly. -</p> - -<p> -“You have not said too much. It is well that I should know this of this -gentleman. As you say, he is a man who is much discussed. I myself have heard -much of him—but of things connected with another part of his character. -It is true that he is in favour with great personages. It is because they are -aware that he has observed much for many years. He is light and ironic, but he -tells truths which sometimes startle those who hear them.” -</p> - -<p> -“Jennings tells below stairs that he says things it’s queer for a -lord to say. Jennings is a sharp young snip and likes to pick up things to -repeat. He believes that his lordship’s idea is that there’s a time -coming when the high ones will lose their places and thrones and kings will be -done away with. I wouldn’t like to go that far myself,” said -Dowson, gravely, “but I must say that there’s not that serious -respect paid to Royalty that there was in my young days. My word! When Queen -Victoria was in her prime, with all her young family around her,—their -little Royal Highnesses that were princes in their Highland kilts and the -princesses in their crinolines and hats with drooping ostrich feathers and -broad satin streamers—the people just went wild when she went to a place -to unveil anything!” -</p> - -<p> -“When the Empress Eugenie and the Prince Imperial appeared, it was the -same thing,” said Mademoiselle, a trifle sadly. “One recalls it now -as a dream passed away—the Champs Élysées in the afternoon -sunlight—the imperial carriage and the glittering escort trotting -gaily—the beautiful woman with the always beautiful costumes—her -charming smile—the Emperor, with his waxed moustache and saturnine face! -It meant so much and it went so quickly. One moment,” she made a little -gesture, “and it is gone—forever! An Empire and all the splendour -of it! Two centuries ago it could not have disappeared so quickly. But now the -world is older. It does not need toys so much. A Republic is the -people—and there are more people than kings.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s things like that his lordship says, according to -Jennings,” said Dowson. “Jennings is never quite sure he’s in -earnest. He has a satirical way—And the company always laugh.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle had spoken thoughtfully and as if half to her inner self instead -of to Dowson. She added something even more thoughtfully now. -</p> - -<p> -“The same kind of people laughed before the French Revolution,” she -murmured. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m not scholar enough to know much about that—that was a -long time ago, wasn’t it?” Dowson remarked. -</p> - -<p> -“A long time ago,” said Mademoiselle. -</p> - -<p> -Dowson’s reply was quite free from tragic reminiscence. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I must say, I like a respectable Royal Family myself,” she -observed. “There’s something solid and comfortable about -it—besides the coronations and weddings and procession with all the -pictures in the <i>Illustrated London News</i>. Give me a nice, well-behaved -Royal Family.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> - -<p> -“A nice, well-behaved Royal Family.” There had been several of them -in Europe for some time. An appreciable number of them had prided themselves, -even a shade ostentatiously, upon their domesticity. The moral views of a few -had been believed to border upon the high principles inscribed in copy books. -Some, however, had not. A more important power or so had veered from the exact -following of these commendable axioms—had high-handedly behaved according -to their royal will and tastes. But what would you? With a nation making proper -obeisance before one from infancy; with trumpets blaring forth joyous strains -upon one’s mere appearance on any scene; with the proudest necks bowed -and the most superb curtseys swept on one’s mere passing by, with all the -splendour of the Opera on gala night rising to its feet to salute one’s -mere entry into the royal or imperial box, while the national anthem bursts -forth with adulatory and triumphant strains, only a keen and subtle sense of -humour, surely, could curb errors of judgment arising from naturally mistaken -views of one’s own importance and value to the entire Universe. Still -there remained the fact that a number of them <i>were</i> well-behaved and -could not be complained of as bearing any likeness to the bloodthirsty tyrants -and oppressors of past centuries. -</p> - -<p> -The Head of the House of Coombe had attended the Court Functions and been -received at the palaces and castles of most of them. For in that aspect of his -character of which Mademoiselle Vallé had heard more than Dowson, he was -intimate with well-known and much-observed personages and places. A man born -among those whose daily life builds, as it passes, at least a part of that -which makes history and so records itself, must needs find companions, -acquaintances, enemies, friends of varied character, and if he be, by chance, a -keen observer of passing panoramas, can lack no material for private reflection -and the accumulation of important facts. -</p> - -<p> -That part of his existence which connected itself with the slice of a house on -the right side of the Mayfair street was but a small one. A feature of the -untranslatableness of his character was that he was seen there but seldom. His -early habit of crossing the Channel frequently had gradually reestablished -itself as years passed. Among his acquaintances his “Saturday to Monday -visits” to continental cities remote or unremote were discussed with -humour. Possibly, upon these discussions, were finally founded the rumours of -which Dowson had heard but which she had impartially declined to -“credit”. Lively conjecture inevitably figured largely in their -arguments and, when persons of unrestrained wit devote their attention to airy -persiflage, much may be included in their points of view. -</p> - -<p> -Of these conjectural discussions no one was more clearly aware than Coombe -himself, and the finished facility—even felicity—of his evasion of -any attempt at delicately valued cross examination was felt to be inhumanly -exasperating. -</p> - -<p> -In one of the older Squares which still remained stately, through the splendour -of modern fashion had waned in its neighbourhood, there was among the gloomy, -though imposing, houses one in particular upon whose broad -doorsteps—years before the Gareth-Lawlesses had appeared in -London—Lord Coombe stood oftener than upon any other. At times his -brougham waited before it for hours, and, at others, he appeared on foot and -lifted the heavy knocker with a special accustomed knock recognized at once by -any footman in waiting in the hall, who, hearing it, knew that his -mistress—the old Dowager Duchess of Darte—would receive this -visitor, if no other. -</p> - -<p> -The interior of the house was of the type which, having from the first been -massive and richly sombre, had mellowed into a darker sombreness and richness -as it had stood unmoved amid London years and fogs. The grandeur of decoration -and furnishing had been too solid to depreciate through decay, and its owner -had been of no fickle mind led to waver in taste by whims of fashion. The rooms -were huge and lofty, the halls and stairways spacious, the fireplaces furnished -with immense grates of glittering steel, which held in winter beds of scarlet -glowing coal, kept scarlet glowing by a special footman whose being, so to -speak, depended on his fidelity to his task. -</p> - -<p> -There were many rooms whose doors were kept closed because they were apparently -never used; there were others as little used but thrown open, warmed and -brightened with flowers each day, because the Duchess chose to catch glimpses -of their cheerfulness as she passed them on her way up or downstairs. The house -was her own property, and, after her widowhood, when it was emptied of her -children by their admirable marriages, and she herself became Dowager and, -later, a confirmed rheumatic invalid, it became doubly her home and was -governed by her slightest whim. She was not indeed an old woman of caprices, -but her tastes, not being those of the later day in which she now lived, were -regarded as a shade eccentric being firmly defined. -</p> - -<p> -“I will not have my house glaring with electricity as if it were a shop. -In my own rooms I will be lighted by wax candles. Large ones—as many as -you please,” she said. “I will not be ‘rung up’ by -telephone. My servants may if they like. It is not my affair to deprive them of -the modern inconveniences, if they find them convenient. My senility does not -take the form of insisting that the world shall cease to revolve upon its axis. -It formed that habit without my assistance, and it is to be feared that it -would continue it in the face of my protests.” -</p> - -<p> -It was, in fact, solely that portion of the world affecting herself alone which -she preferred to retain as it had been in the brilliant early years of her -life. She had been a great beauty and also a wit in the Court over which Queen -Victoria had reigned. She had possessed the delicate high nose, the soft full -eyes, the “polished forehead,” the sloping white shoulders from -which scarves floated or India shawls gracefully drooped in the Books of Beauty -of the day. Her carriage had been noble, her bloom perfect, and, when she had -driven through the streets “in attendance” on her Royal Mistress, -the populace had always chosen her as “the pick of ’em all”. -Young as she had then been, elderly statesmen had found her worth talking to, -not as a mere beauty in her teens, but as a creature of singular brilliance and -clarity of outlook upon a world which might have dazzled her youth. The most -renowned among them had said of her, before she was twenty, that she would live -to be one of the cleverest women in Europe, and that she had already the -logical outlook of a just man of fifty. -</p> - -<p> -She married early and was widowed in middle life. In her later years rheumatic -fever so far disabled her as to confine her to her chair almost entirely. Her -sons and daughter had homes and families of their own to engage them. She would -not allow them to sacrifice themselves to her because her life had altered its -aspect. -</p> - -<p> -“I have money, friends, good servants and a house I particularly -like,” she summed the matter up; “I may be condemned to sit by the -fire, but I am not condemned to be a bore to my inoffensive family. I can still -talk and read, and I shall train myself to become a professional listener. This -will attract. I shall not only read myself, but I will be read to. A strong -young man with a nice voice shall bring magazines and books to me every day, -and shall read the best things aloud. Delightful people will drop in to see me -and will be amazed by my fund of information.” -</p> - -<p> -It was during the first years of her enforced seclusion that Coombe’s -intimacy with her began. He had known her during certain black days of his -youth, and she had comprehended things he did not tell her. She had not spoken -of them to him but she had silently given him of something which vaguely drew -him to her side when darkness seemed to overwhelm him. The occupations of her -life left her in those earlier days little leisure for close intimacies, but, -when she began to sit by her fire letting the busy world pass by, he gradually -became one of those who “dropped in”. -</p> - -<p> -In one of the huge rooms she had chosen for her own daily use, by the -well-tended fire in its shining grate, she had created an agreeable corner -where she sat in a chair marvellous for ease and comfort, enclosed from -draughts by a fire screen of antique Chinese lacquer, a table by her side and -all she required within her reach. Upon the table stood a silver bell and, at -its sound, her companion, her reader, her maid or her personally trained -footman, came and went quietly and promptly as if summoned by magic. Her life -itself was simple, but a certain almost royal dignity surrounded her -loneliness. Her companion, Miss Brent, an intelligent, mature woman who had -known a hard and pinched life, found at once comfort and savour in it. -</p> - -<p> -“It is not I who am expensive,”—this in one of her talks with -Coombe, “but to live in a house of this size, well kept by excellent -servants who are satisfied with their lot, is not a frugal thing. A cap of tea -for those of my friends who run in to warm themselves by my fire in the -afternoon; a dinner or so when I am well enough to sit at the head of my table, -represent almost all I now do for the world. Naturally, I must see that my tea -is good and that my dinners cannot be objected to. Nevertheless, I sit here in -my chair and save money—for what?” -</p> - -<p> -Among those who “warmed themselves by her fire” this man had -singularly become her friend and intimate. When they had time to explore each -other’s minds, they came upon curious discoveries of hidden sympathies -and mutual comprehensions which were rich treasures. They talked of absorbing -things with frankness. He came to sit with her when others were not admitted -because she was in pain or fatigued. He added to neither her fatigue nor her -pain, but rather helped her to forget them. -</p> - -<p> -“For what?” he answered on this day. “Why not for your -grandchildren?” -</p> - -<p> -“They will have too much money. There are only four of them. They will -make great marriages as their parents did,” she said. She paused a second -before she added, “Unless our World Revolution has broken into flame by -that time—And there are no longer any great marriages to make.” -</p> - -<p> -For among the many things they dwelt on in their talks along, was the -Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, over which he had watched for many -years certain hands hover in tentative experimenting as to the possibilities of -the removal of the pieces from one square to another. She, too, from her youth -had watched the game with an interest which had not waned in her maturity, and -which, in her days of sitting by the fire, had increased with every move the -hovering hands made. She had been familiar with political parties and their -leaders, she had met heroes and statesmen; she had seen an unimportant prince -become an emperor, who, from his green and boastful youth, aspired to rule the -world and whose theatrical obsession had been the sly jest of unwary nations, -too carelessly sure of the advance of civilization and too indifferently -self-indulgent to realize that a monomaniac, even if treated as a source of -humour, is a perilous thing to leave unwatched. She had known France in all the -glitter of its showy Empire, and had seen its imperial glories dispersed as -mist. Russia she had watched with curiosity and dread. On the day when the -ruler, who had bestowed freedom on millions of his people, met his reward in -the shattering bomb which tore him to fragments, she had been in St. -Petersburg. A king, who had been assassinated, she had known well and had well -liked; an empress, whom a frenzied madman had stabbed to the heart, had been -her friend. -</p> - -<p> -Her years had been richly full of varied events, giving a strong and far-seeing -mind reason for much unspoken thought of the kind which leaps in advance of its -day’s experience and exact knowledge. She had learned when to speak and -when to be silent, and she oftener chose silence. But she had never ceased -gazing on the world with keen eyes, and reflecting upon its virtues and -vagaries, its depths and its shallows, with the help of a clear and temperate -brain. -</p> - -<p> -By her fire she sat, an attracting presence, though only fine, strong lines -remained of beauty ravaged by illness and years. The “polished -forehead” was furrowed by the chisel of suffering; the delicate high nose -springing from her waxen, sunken face seemed somewhat eaglelike, but the face -was still brilliant in its intensity of meaning and the carriage of her head -was still noble. Not able to walk except with the assistance of a cane, her -once exquisite hands stiffened almost to uselessness, she held her court from -her throne of mere power and strong charm. On the afternoons when people -“ran in to warm themselves” by her fire, the talk was never dull -and was often wonderful. There were those who came quietly into the room fresh -from important scenes where subjects of weight to nations were being argued -closely—perhaps almost fiercely. Sometimes the argument was continued -over cups of perfect tea near the chair of the Duchess, and, howsoever far it -led, she was able brilliantly to follow. With the aid of books and pamphlets -and magazines, and the strong young man with the nice voice, who was her -reader, she kept pace with each step of the march of the world. -</p> - -<p> -It was, however, the modern note in her recollections of her world’s -march in days long past, in which Coombe found mental food and fine flavour. -The phrase, “in these days” expressed in her utterance neither -disparagement nor regret. She who sat in state in a drawing-room lighted by wax -candles did so as an affair of personal preference, and denied no claim of -higher brilliance to electric illumination. Driving slowly through Hyde Park on -sunny days when she was able to go out, her high-swung barouche hinted at no -lofty disdain of petrol and motor power. At the close of her youth’s -century, she looked forward with thrilled curiosity to the dawning wonders of -the next. -</p> - -<p> -“If the past had not held so much, one might not have learned to expect -more,” was her summing up on a certain afternoon, when he came to report -himself after one of his absences from England. “The most important -discovery of the last fifty years has been the revelation that no man may any -longer assume to speak the last word on any subject. The next man—almost -any next man—may evolve more. Before that period all elderly persons were -final in their dictum. They said to each other—and particularly to the -young—‘It has not been done in my time—it was not done in my -grandfather’s time. It has never been done. It never can be -done’.” -</p> - -<p> -“The note of today is ‘Since it has never been done, it will surely -be done soon’,” said Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah! we who began life in the most assured and respectable of reigns and -centuries,” she answered him, “have seen much. But these others -will see more. Crinolines, mushroom hats and large families seemed to promise a -decorum peaceful to dullness; but there have been battles, murders and sudden -deaths; there have been almost supernatural inventions and -discoveries—there have been marvels of new doubts and faiths. When one -sits and counts upon one’s fingers the amazements the 19th century has -provided, one gasps and gazes with wide eyes into the future. I, for one, feel -rather as though I had seen a calm milch cow sauntering—at first -slowly—along a path, gradually evolve into a tiger—a genie with a -hundred heads containing all the marvels of the world—a flying dragon -with a thousand eyes! Oh, we have gone fast and far!” -</p> - -<p> -“And we shall go faster and farther,” Coombe added. -</p> - -<p> -“That is it,” she answered. “Are we going too fast?” -</p> - -<p> -“At least so fast that we forget things it would be well for us to -remember.” He had come in that day with a certain preoccupied grimness of -expression which was not unknown to her. It was generally after one of his -absences that he looked a shade grim. -</p> - -<p> -“Such as—?” she inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“Such as catastrophes in the history of the world, which forethought and -wisdom might have prevented. The French Revolution is the obvious type of -figure which lies close at hand so one picks it up. The French -Revolution—its Reign of Terror—the orgies of carnage—the -cataclysms of agony—need not have been, but they <i>were</i>. To put it -in words of one syllable.” -</p> - -<p> -“What!” was her involuntary exclamation. “You are seeking -such similes as the French Revolution!” -</p> - -<p> -“Who knows how far a madness may reach and what Reign of Terror may take -form?” He sat down and drew an atlas towards him. It always lay upon the -table on which all the Duchess desired was within reach. It was fat, convenient -of form, and agreeable to look at in its cover of dull, green leather. -Coombe’s gesture of drawing it towards him was a familiar one. It was -frequently used as reference. -</p> - -<p> -“The atlas again?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. Just now I can think of little else. I have realized too -much.” -</p> - -<p> -The continental journey had lasted a month. He had visited more countries than -one in his pursuit of a study he was making of the way in which the wind was -blowing particular straws. For long he had found much to give thought to in the -trend of movement in one special portion of the Chessboard. It was that portion -of it dominated by the ruler of whose obsession too careless nations made sly -jest. This man he had known from his arrogant and unendearing youth. He had -looked on with unbiassed curiosity at his development into arrogance so much -greater than its proportions touched the grotesque. The rest of the world had -looked on also, but apparently, merely in the casual way which good-naturedly -smiles and leaves to every man—even an emperor—the privilege of his -own eccentricities. Coombe had looked on with a difference, so also had his -friend by her fireside. This man’s square of the Chessboard had long been -the subject of their private talks and a cause for the drawing towards them of -the green atlas. The moves he made, the methods of his ruling, the significance -of these methods were the evidence they collected in their frequent arguments. -Coombe had early begun to see the whole thing as a process—a life-long -labour which was a means to a monstrous end. -</p> - -<p> -There was a certain thing he believed of which they often spoke as -“It”. He spoke of it now. -</p> - -<p> -“Through three weeks I have been marking how It grows,” he said; -“a whole nation with the entire power of its commerce, its education, its -science, its religion, guided towards one aim is a curious study. The very -babes are born and bred and taught only that one thought may become an integral -part of their being. The most innocent and blue eyed of them knows, without a -shadow of doubt, that the world has but one reason for existence—that it -may be conquered and ravaged by the country that gave them birth.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have both heard and seen it,” she said. “One has smiled in -spite of oneself, in listening to their simple, everyday talk.” -</p> - -<p> -“In little schools—in large ones—in little churches, and in -imposing ones, their Faith is taught and preached,” Coombe answered. -“Sometimes one cannot believe one’s hearing. It is all so -ingenuously and frankly unashamed—the mouthing, boasting, and threats of -their piety. There exists for them no God who is not the modest henchman of -their emperor, and whose attention is not rivetted on their prowess with -admiration and awe. Apparently, they are His business, and He is well paid by -being allowed to retain their confidence.” -</p> - -<p> -“A lack of any sense of humour is a disastrous thing,” commented -the Duchess. “The people of other nations may be fools—doubtless we -all are—but there is no other which proclaims the fact abroad with such -guileless outbursts of raucous exultation.” -</p> - -<p> -“And even we—you and I who have thought more than others” he -said, restlessly, “even we forget and half smile. There has been too much -smiling.” -</p> - -<p> -She picked up an illustrated paper and opened it at a page filled by an ornate -picture. -</p> - -<p> -“See!” she said. “It is because he himself has made it so -easy, with his amazing portraits of his big boots, and swords, and eruption of -dangling orders. How can one help but smile when one finds him glaring at one -from a newspaper in his superwarlike attitude, defying the Universe, with his -comic moustachios and their ferocious waxed and bristling ends. No! One can -scarcely believe that a man can be stupid enough not to realize that he looks -as if he had deliberately made himself up to represent a sort of terrific -military bogey intimating that, at he may pounce and say ‘Boo?” -</p> - -<p> -“There lies the peril. His pretensions seem too grotesque to be treated -seriously. And, while he should be watched as a madman is watched, he is given -a lifetime to we attack on a world that has ceased to believe in the sole thing -which is real to himself.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are fresh from observation.” There was new alertness in her -eyes, though she had listened before. -</p> - -<p> -“I tell you it <i>grows!</i>” he gave back and lightly struck the -table in emphasis. “Do you remember Carlyle—?” -</p> - -<p> -“The French Revolution again?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. Do you recall this? ‘Do not fires, fevers, seeds, chemical -mixtures, <i>go on growing</i>. Observe, too, that <i>each grows</i> with a -rapidity proportioned to the madness and unhealthiness there is in it.’ A -ruler who, in an unaggressive age such as this, can concentrate his life and -his people’s on the one ambition of plunging the world in an ocean of -blood, in which his own monomania can bathe in triumph—Good God! there is -madness and unhealthiness to flourish in!” -</p> - -<p> -“The world!” she said. “Yes—it will be the -world.” -</p> - -<p> -“See,” he said, with a curve of the finger which included most of -the Map of Europe. “Here are countries engaged—like the -Bandarlog—in their own affairs. Quarrelling, snatching things from each -other, blustering or amusing themselves with transitory pomps and displays of -power. Here is a huge empire whose immense, half-savage population has seethed -for centuries in its hidden, boiling cauldron of rebellion. Oh! it has seethed! -And only cruelties have repressed it. Now and then it has boiled over in -assassination in high places, and one has wondered how long its autocratic -splendour could hold its own. Here are small, fierce, helpless nations overrun -and outraged into a chronic state of secret ever-ready hatred. Here are -innocent, small countries, defenceless through their position and size. Here is -France rich, careless, super-modern and cynic. Here is England comfortable to -stolidity, prosperous and secure to dullness in her own half belief in a world -civilization, which no longer argues in terms of blood and steel. And -here—in a well-entrenched position in the midst of it all—within -but a few hundreds of miles of weakness, complicity, disastrous unreadiness and -panic-stricken uncertainty of purpose, sits this Man of One Dream—who -believes God Himself his vassal. Here he sits.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes his One Dream. He has had no other.” The Duchess was poring -over the map also. They were as people pondering over a strange and terrible -game. -</p> - -<p> -“It is his monomania. It possessed him when he was a boy. What Napoleon -hoped to accomplish he has BELIEVED he could attain by concentrating all the -power of people upon preparation for it—and by not flinching from pouring -forth their blood as if it were the refuse water of his gutters.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—the blood—the blood!” the Duchess shuddered. -“He would pour it forth without a qualm.” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe touched the map first at one point and then at another. -</p> - -<p> -“See!” he said again, and this time savagely. “This empire -flattered and entangled by cunning, this country irritated, this deceived, this -drawn into argument, this and this and this treated with professed friendship, -these tricked and juggled with—And then, when his plans are ripe and he -is made drunk with belief in himself—just one sodden insult or monstrous -breach of faith, which all humanity must leap to resent—And there is our -World Revolution.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess sat upright in her chair. -</p> - -<p> -“Why did you let your youth pass?” she said. “If you had -begun early enough, you could hare made the country listen to you. Why did you -do it?” -</p> - -<p> -“For the same reason that all selfish grief and pleasure and indifference -let the world go by. And I am not sure they would have listened. I speak freely -enough now in some quarters. They listen, but they do nothing. There is a -warning in the fact that, as he has seen his youth leave him without giving him -his opportunity, he has been a disappointed man inflamed and made desperate. At -the outset, he felt that he must provide the world with some fiction of excuse. -As his obsession and arrogance have swollen, he sees himself and his ambition -as reason enough. No excuse is needed. Deutschland uber alles—is -sufficient.” -</p> - -<p> -He pushed the map away and his fire died down. He spoke almost in his usual -manner. -</p> - -<p> -“The conquest of the world,” he said. “He is a great fool. -What would he <i>do</i> with his continents if he got them?” -</p> - -<p> -“What, indeed,” pondered her grace. “Continents—even -kingdoms are not like kittens in a basket, or puppies to be trained to come to -heel.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is part of his monomania that he can persuade himself that they are -little more.” Coombe’s eye-glasses had been slowly swaying from the -ribbon in his fingers. He let them continue to sway a moment and then closed -them with a snap. -</p> - -<p> -“He is a great fool,” he said. “But we,—oh, my -friend—and by ‘we’ I mean the rest of the Map of -Europe—we are much greater fools. A mad dog loose among us and we -sit—and smile.” -</p> - -<p> -And this was in the days before the house with the cream-coloured front had put -forth its first geraniums and lobelias in Feather’s window boxes. Robin -was not born. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> - -<p> -In the added suite of rooms at the back of the house, Robin grew through the -years in which It was growing also. On the occasion when her mother saw her, -she realized that she was not at least going to look like a barmaid. At no -period of her least refulgent moment did she verge upon this type. Dowie took -care of her and Mademoiselle Vallé educated her with the assistance of certain -masters who came to give lessons in German and Italian. -</p> - -<p> -“Why only German and Italian and French,” said Feather, “why -not Latin and Greek, as well, if she is to be so accomplished?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is modern languages one needs at this period. They ought to be taught -in the Board Schools,” Coombe replied. “They are not -accomplishments but workman’s tools. Nationalities are not separated as -they once were. To be familiar with the language of one’s -friends—and one’s enemies—is a protective measure.” -</p> - -<p> -“What country need one protect oneself against? When all the kings and -queens are either married to each other’s daughters or cousins or take -tea with each other every year or so. Just think of the friendliness of Germany -for instance——” -</p> - -<p> -“I do,” said Coombe, “very often. That is one of the reasons -I choose German rather than Latin and Greek. Julius Cæsar and Nero are no -longer reasons for alarm.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is the Kaiser with his seventeen children and his respectable -Frau?” giggled Feather. “All that he cares about is that women -shall be made to remember that they are born for nothing but to cook and go to -church and have babies. One doesn’t wonder at the clothes they -wear.” -</p> - -<p> -It was not a month after this, however, when Lord Coombe, again warming himself -at his old friend’s fire, gave her a piece of information. -</p> - -<p> -“The German teacher, Herr Wiese, has hastily returned to his own -country,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -She lifted her eyebrows inquiringly. -</p> - -<p> -“He found himself suspected of being a spy,” was his answer. -“With most excellent reason. Some first-rate sketches of fortifications -were found in a box he left behind him in his haste. The country—all -countries—are sown with those like him. Mild spectacled students and -clerks in warehouses and manufactories are weighing and measuring resources; -round-faced, middle-aged governesses are making notes of conversation and of -any other thing which may be useful. In time of war—if they were caught -at what are now their simple daily occupations—they would be placed -against a wall and shot. As it is, they are allowed to play about among us and -slip away when some fellow worker’s hint suggests it is time.” -</p> - -<p> -“German young men are much given to spending a year or so here in -business positions,” the Duchess wore a thoughtful air. “That has -been going on for a decade or so. One recognizes their Teuton type in shops and -in the streets. They say they come to learn the language and commercial -methods.” -</p> - -<p> -“Not long ago a pompous person, who is the owner of a big shop, pointed -out to me three of them among his salesmen,” Coombe said. “He -plumed himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they worked for low -wages and cared for very little else but finding out how things were done in -England. It wasn’t only business knowledge they were after, he said; they -went about everywhere—into factories and dock yards, and public -buildings, and made funny little notes and sketches of things they didn’t -understand—so that they could explain them in Germany. In his fatuous, -insular way, it pleased him to regard them rather as a species of aborigines -benefiting by English civilization. The English Ass and the German Ass are -touchingly alike. The shade of difference is that the English Ass’s -sublime self-satisfaction is in the German Ass self-glorification. The English -Ass smirks and plumes himself; the German Ass blusters and bullies and -defies.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think of engaging another German Master for the little -girl?” the Duchess asked the question casually. -</p> - -<p> -“I have heard of a quiet young woman who has shown herself thorough and -well-behaved in a certain family for three years. Perhaps she also will -disappear some day, but, for the present, she will serve the purpose.” -</p> - -<p> -As he had not put into words to others any explanation of the story of the -small, smart establishment in the Mayfair street, so he had put into words no -explanation to her. That she was aware of its existence he knew, but what she -thought of it, or imagined he himself thought of it, he had not at any period -inquired. Whatsoever her point of view might be, he knew it would be unbiassed, -clear minded and wholly just. She had asked no question and made no comment. -The rapid, whirligig existence of the well-known fashionable groups, including -in their circles varieties of the Mrs. Gareth-Lawless type, were to be seen at -smart functions and to be read of in newspapers and fashion reports, if -one’s taste lay in the direction of a desire to follow their movements. -The time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by severities of -opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown their dice daringly to -gain. The worldly old axiom, “Be virtuous and you will be happy,” -had been ironically paraphrased too often. “Please yourself and you will -be much happier than if you were virtuous,” was a practical reading. -</p> - -<p> -But for a certain secret which she alone knew and which no one would in the -least have believed, if she had proclaimed it from the housetops, Feather would -really have been entirely happy. And, after all, the fly in her ointment was -merely an odd sting a fantastic Fate had inflicted on her vanity and did not in -any degree affect her pleasures. So many people lived in glass houses that the -habit of throwing stones had fallen out of fashion as an exercise. There were -those, too, whose houses of glass, adroitly given the air of being respectable -conservatories, engendered in the dwellers therein a leniency towards other -vitreous constructions. As a result of this last circumstance, there were times -when quite stately equipages drew up before Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ door and -visiting cards bearing the names of acquaintances much to be desired were left -upon the salver presented by Jennings. Again, as a result of this circumstance, -Feather employed some laudable effort in her desire to give her own glass house -the conservatory aspect. Her little parties became less noisy, if they still -remained lively. She gave an “afternoon” now and then to which -literary people and artists, and persons who “did things” were -invited. She was pretty enough to allure an occasional musician to “do -something”, some new poet to read or recite. Fashionable people were -asked to come and hear and talk to them, and, in this way, she threw out -delicate fishing lines here and there, and again and again drew up a desirable -fish of substantial size. Sometimes the vague rumour connected with the name of -the Head of the House of Coombe was quite forgotten and she was referred to -amiably as “That beautiful creature, Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. She was left a -widow when she was nothing but a girl. If she hadn’t had a little money -of her own, and if her husband’s relatives hadn’t taken care of -her, she would have had a hard time of it. She is amazingly clever at managing -her, small income,” they added. “Her tiny house is one of the -jolliest little places in London—always full of good looking people and -amusing things.” -</p> - -<p> -But, before Robin was fourteen, she had found out that the house she lived in -was built of glass and that any chance stone would break its panes, even if -cast without particular skill in aiming. She found it out in various ways, but -the seed from which all things sprang to the fruition of actual knowledge was -the child tragedy through which she had learned that Donal had been taken from -her—because his mother would not let him love and play with a little girl -whose mother let Lord Coombe come to her house—because Lord Coombe was so -bad that even servants whispered secrets about him. Her first interpretation of -this had been that of a mere baby, but it had filled her being with detestation -of him, and curious doubts of her mother. Donal’s mother, who was good -and beautiful, would not let him come to see her and kept Donal away from him. -If the Lady Downstairs was good, too, then why did she laugh and talk to him -and seem to like him? She had thought this over for hours—sometimes -wakening in the night to lie and puzzle over it feverishly. Then, as time went -by, she had begun to remember that she had never played with any of the -children in the Square Gardens. It had seemed as though this had been because -Andrews would not let her. But, if she was not fit to play with Donal, perhaps -the nurses and governesses and mothers of the other children knew about it and -would not trust their little girls and boys to her damaging society. She did -not know what she could have done to harm them—and Oh! how <i>could</i> -she have harmed Donal!—but there must be something dreadful about a child -whose mother knew bad people—something which other children could -“catch” like scarlet fever. From this seed other thoughts had -grown. She did not remain a baby long. A fervid little brain worked for her, -picked up hints and developed suggestions, set her to singularly alert -reasoning which quickly became too mature for her age. The quite horrid little -girl, who flouncingly announced that she could not be played with any more -“because of Lord Coombe” set a spark to a train. After that time -she used to ask occasional carefully considered questions of Dowson and -Mademoiselle Vallé, which puzzled them by their vagueness. The two women were -mutually troubled by a moody habit she developed of sitting absorbed in her own -thoughts, and with a concentrated little frown drawing her brows together. They -did not know that she was silently planning a subtle cross examination of them -both, whose form would be such that neither of them could suspect it of being -anything but innocent. She felt that she was growing cunning and deceitful, but -she did not care very much. She possessed a clever and determined, though very -young brain. She loved both Dowson and Mademoiselle, but she must find out -about things for herself, and she was not going to harm or trouble them. They -would never know she had found out: Whatsoever she discovered, she would keep -to herself. -</p> - -<p> -But one does not remain a baby long, and one is a little girl only a few years, -and, even during the few years, one is growing and hearing and seeing all the -time. After that, one is beginning to be a rather big girl and one has seen -books and newspapers, and overheard scraps of things from servants. If one is -brought up in a convent and allowed to read nothing but literature selected by -nuns, a degree of aloofness from knowledge may be counted upon—though -even convent schools, it is said, encounter their difficulties in perfect -discipline. -</p> - -<p> -Robin, in her small “Palace” was well taken care of but her library -was not selected by nuns. It was chosen with thought, but it was the library of -modern youth. Mademoiselle Vallé’s theories of a girl’s education -were not founded on a belief that, until marriage, she should be led about by a -string blindfolded, and with ears stopped with wax. -</p> - -<p> -“That results in a bleating lamb’s being turned out of its fold to -make its way through a jungle full of wild creatures and pitfalls it has never -heard of,” she said in discussing the point with Dowson. She had learned -that Lord Coombe agreed with her. He, as well as she, chose the books and his -taste was admirable. Its inclusion of an unobtrusive care for girlhood did not -preclude the exercise of the intellect. An early developed passion for reading -led the child far and wide. Fiction, history, poetry, biography, opened up -vistas to a naturally quick and eager mind. Mademoiselle found her a clever -pupil and an affection-inspiring little being even from the first. -</p> - -<p> -She always felt, however, that in the depths of her something held itself -hidden—something she did not speak of. It was some thought which perhaps -bewildered her, but which something prevented her making clear to herself by -the asking of questions. Mademoiselle Vallé finally became convinced that she -never would ask the questions. -</p> - -<p> -Arrived a day when Feather swept into the Palace with some visitors. They were -two fair and handsome little girls of thirteen and fourteen, whose mother, -having taken them shopping, found it would suit her extremely well to drop then -somewhere for an hour while she went to her dressmaker. Feather was quite -willing that they should be left with Robin and Mademoiselle until their own -governess called for them. -</p> - -<p> -“Here are Eileen and Winifred Erwyn, Robin,” she said, bringing -them in. “Talk to them and show them your books and things until the -governess comes. Dowson, give them some cakes and tea.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Erwyn was one of the most treasured of Feather’s circle. Her little -girls’ governess was a young Frenchwoman, entirely unlike Mademoiselle -Vallé. Eileen and Winifred saw Life from their schoolroom windows as an open -book. Why not, since their governess and their mother’s French maid -conversed freely, and had rather penetrating voices even when they were under -the impression that they lowered them out of deference to blameless youth. -Eileen and Winifred liked to remain awake to listen as long as they could after -they went to bed. They themselves had large curious eyes and were given to -whispering and giggling. -</p> - -<p> -They talked a good deal to Robin and assumed fashionable little grown up airs. -They felt themselves mature creatures as compared to her, since she was not yet -thirteen. They were so familiar with personages and functions that Robin felt -that they must have committed to memory every morning the column in the -<i>Daily Telegraph</i> known as “London Day by Day.” She sometimes -read it herself, because it was amusing to her to read about parties and -weddings and engagements. But it did not seem easy to remember. Winifred and -Eileen were delighted to display themselves in the character of instructresses. -They entertained Robin for a short time, but, after that, she began to dislike -the shared giggles which so often broke out after their introduction of a name -or an incident. It seemed to hint that they were full of amusing information -which they held back. Then they were curious and made remarks and asked -questions. She began to think them rather horrid. -</p> - -<p> -“We saw Lord Coombe yesterday,” said Winifred at last, and the -unnecessary giggle followed. -</p> - -<p> -“We think he wears the most beautiful clothes we ever saw! You remember -his overcoat, Winnie?” said Eileen. “He <i>matches</i> so—and -yet you don’t know exactly how he matches,” and she giggled also. -</p> - -<p> -“He is the best dressed man in London,” Winifred stated quite -grandly. “I think he is handsome. So do Mademoiselle and Florine.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin said nothing at all. What Dowson privately called “her secret -look” made her face very still. Winifred saw the look and, not -understanding it or her, became curious. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” Robin answered. “He has a wicked face. And he’s -old, too.” -</p> - -<p> -“You think he’s old because you’re only about twelve,” -inserted Eileen. “Children think everybody who is grown-up must be old. I -used to. But now people don’t talk and think about age as they used to. -Mademoiselle says that when a man has distinction he is always young—and -nicer than boys.” -</p> - -<p> -Winifred, who was persistent, broke in. -</p> - -<p> -“As to his looking wicked, I daresay he <i>is</i> wicked in a sort of -interesting way. Of course, people say all sorts of things about him. When he -was quite young, he was in love with a beautiful little royal Princess—or -she was in love with him—and her husband either killed her or she died of -a broken heart—I don’t know which.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Vallé had left them for a short time feeling that they were safe -with their tea and cakes and would feel more at ease relieved of her presence. -She was not long absent, but Eileen and Winifred, being avid of gossip and -generally eliminated subjects, “got in their work” with quite -fevered haste. They liked the idea of astonishing Robin. -</p> - -<p> -Eileen bent forward and lowered her voice. -</p> - -<p> -“They do say that once Captain Thorpe was fearfully jealous of him and -people wonder that he wasn’t among the co-respondents.” The word -“co-respondent” filled her with self-gratulation even though she -only whispered it. -</p> - -<p> -“Co-respondents?” said Robin. -</p> - -<p> -They both began to whisper at once—quite shrilly in their haste. They -knew Mademoiselle might return at any moment. -</p> - -<p> -“The great divorce case, you know! The Thorpe divorce case the papers are -so full of. We get the under housemaid to bring it to us after Mademoiselle has -done with it. It’s so exciting! Haven’t you been reading it? -Oh!” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I haven’t,” answered Robin. “And I don’t -know about co-respondents, but, if they are anything horrid, I daresay he -<i>was</i> one of them.” -</p> - -<p> -And at that instant Mademoiselle returned and Dowson brought in fresh cakes. -The governess, who was to call for her charges, presented herself not long -afterwards and the two enterprising little persons were taken away. -</p> - -<p> -“I believe she’s <i>jealous</i> of Lord Coombe,” Eileen -whispered to Winifred, after they reached home. -</p> - -<p> -“So do I,” said Winifred wisely. “She can’t help but -know how he <i>adores</i> Mrs. Gareth-Lawless because she’s so lovely. He -pays for all her pretty clothes. It’s silly of her to be -jealous—like a baby.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin sometimes read newspapers, though she liked books better. Newspapers were -not forbidden her. She been reading an enthralling book and had not seen a -paper for some days. She at once searched for one and, finding it, sat down and -found also the Thorpe Divorce Case. It was not difficult of discovery, as it -filled the principal pages with dramatic evidence and amazing revelations. -</p> - -<p> -Dowson saw her bending over the spread sheets, hot-eyed and intense in her -concentration. -</p> - -<p> -“What are you reading, my love?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -The little flaming face lifted itself. It was unhappy, obstinate, resenting. It -wore no accustomed child look and Dowson felt rather startled. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m reading the Thorpe Divorce Case, Dowie,” she answered -deliberately and distinctly. -</p> - -<p> -Dowie came close to her. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s an ugly thing to read, my lamb,” she faltered. -“Don’t you read it. Such things oughtn’t to be allowed in -newspapers. And you’re a little girl, my own dear.” Robin’s -elbow rested firmly on the table and her chin firmly in her hand. Her eyes were -not like a bird’s. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m nearly thirteen,” she said. “I’m growing up. -Nobody can stop themselves when they begin to grow up. It makes them begin to -find out things. I want to ask you something, Dowie.” -</p> - -<p> -“Now, lovey—!” Dowie began with tremor. Both she and -Mademoiselle had been watching the innocent “growing up” and -fearing a time would come when the widening gaze would see too much. Had it -come as soon as this? -</p> - -<p> -Robin suddenly caught the kind woman’s wrists in her hands and held them -while she fixed her eyes on her. The childish passion of dread and shyness in -them broke Dowson’s heart because it was so ignorant and young. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m growing up. There’s something—I <i>must</i> know -something! I never knew how to ask about it before.” It was so plain to -Dowson that she did not know how to ask about it now. “Someone said that -Lord Coombe might have been a co-respondent in the Thorpe -case——” -</p> - -<p> -“These wicked children!” gasped Dowie. “They’re not -children at all!” -</p> - -<p> -“Everybody’s horrid but you and Mademoiselle,” cried Robin, -brokenly. She held the wrists harder and ended in a sort of outburst. “If -my father were alive—could he bring a divorce suit——And would -Lord Coombe——” -</p> - -<p> -Dowson burst into open tears. And then, so did Robin. She dropped -Dowson’s wrists and threw her arms around her waist, clinging to it in -piteous repentance. -</p> - -<p> -“No, I won’t!” she cried out. “I oughtn’t to try -to make you tell me. You can’t. I’m wicked to you. Poor -Dowie—darling Dowie! I want to <i>kiss</i> you, Dowie! Let me—let -me!” -</p> - -<p> -She sobbed childishly on the comfortable breast and Dowie hugged her close and -murmured in a choked voice, -</p> - -<p> -“My lamb! My pet lamb!” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Vallé and Dowson together realized that after this the growing up -process was more rapid. It always seems incredibly rapid to lookers on, after -thirteen. But these two watchers felt that, in Robin’s case, it seemed -unusually so. Robin had always been interested in her studies and clever at -them, but, suddenly, she developed a new concentration and it was of an order -which her governess felt denoted the secret holding of some object in view. She -devoted herself to her lessons with a quality of determination which was new. -She had previously been absorbed, but not determined. She made amazing strides -and seemed to aspire to a thoroughness and perfection girls did not commonly -aim at—especially at the frequently rather preoccupied hour of -blossoming. Mademoiselle encountered in her an eagerness that she—who -knew girls—would have felt it optimistic to expect in most cases. She -wanted to work over hours; she would have read too much if she had not been -watched and gently coerced. -</p> - -<p> -She was not distracted by the society of young people of her own age. She, -indeed, showed a definite desire to avoid such companionship. What she said to -Mademoiselle Vallé one afternoon during a long walk they took together, held -its own revelation for the older woman. -</p> - -<p> -They had come upon the two Erwyns walking with their attendant in Kensington -Gardens, and, seeing them at some distance, Robin asked her companion to turn -into another walk. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want to meet them,” she said, hurriedly. “I -don’t think I like girls. Perhaps it’s horrid of me—but I -don’t. I don’t like those two.” A few minutes later, after -they had walked in an opposite direction, she said thoughtfully. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps the kind of girls I should like to know would not like to know -me.” -</p> - -<p> -From the earliest days of her knowledge of Lord Coombe, Mademoiselle Vallé had -seen that she had no cause to fear lack of comprehension on his part. With a -perfection of method, they searched each other’s intelligence. It had -become understood that on such occasions as there was anything she wished to -communicate or inquire concerning, Mr. Benby, in his private room, was at -Mademoiselle’s service, and there his lordship could also be met -personally by appointment. -</p> - -<p> -“There have been no explanations,” Mademoiselle Vallé said to -Dowson. “He does not ask to know why I turn to him and I do not ask to -know why he cares about this particular child. It is taken for granted that is -his affair and not mine. I am paid well to take care of Robin, and he knows -that all I say and do is part of my taking care of her.” -</p> - -<p> -After the visit of the Erwyn children, she had a brief interview with Coombe, -in which she made for him a clear sketch. It was a sketch of unpleasant little -minds, avid and curious on somewhat exotic subjects, little minds, awake to -rather common claptrap and gossipy pinchbeck interests. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—unpleasant, luckless, little persons. I quite understand. They -never appeared before. They will not appear again. Thank you, -Mademoiselle,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -The little girls did not appear again; neither did any others of their type, -and the fact that Feather knew little of other types was a sufficient reason -for Robin’s growing up without companions of her own age. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s a lonely child, after all,” Mademoiselle said. -</p> - -<p> -“She always was,” answered Dowie. “But she’s fond of -us, bless her heart, and it isn’t loneliness like it was before we -came.” -</p> - -<p> -“She is not unhappy. She is too blooming and full of life,” -Mademoiselle reflected. “We adore her and she has many interests. It is -only that she does not know the companionship most young people enjoy. Perhaps, -as she has never known it, she does not miss it.” -</p> - -<p> -The truth was that if the absence of intercourse with youth produced its subtle -effect on her, she was not aware of any lack, and a certain uncompanioned habit -of mind, which gave her much time for dreams and thought, was accepted by her -as a natural condition as simply as her babyhood had accepted the limitations -of the Day and Night Nurseries. -</p> - -<p> -She was not a self-conscious creature, but the time came when she became rather -disturbed by the fact that people looked at her very often, as she walked in -the streets. Sometimes they turned their heads to look after her; occasionally -one person walking with another would say something quietly to his or her -companion, and they even paused a moment to turn quite round and look. The -first few times she noticed this she flushed prettily and said nothing to -Mademoiselle Vallé who was generally with her. But, after her attention had -been attracted by the same thing on several different days, she said uneasily: -</p> - -<p> -“Am I quite tidy, Mademoiselle?” -</p> - -<p> -“Quite,” Mademoiselle answered—just a shade uneasy herself. -</p> - -<p> -“I began to think that perhaps something had come undone or my hat was -crooked,” she explained. “Those two women stared so. Then two men -in a hansom leaned forward and one said something to the other, and they both -laughed a little, Mademoiselle!” hurriedly, “Now, there are three -young men!” quite indignantly. “Don’t let them see you notice -them—but I think it <i>rude!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -They were carelessly joyous and not strictly well-bred youths, who were taking -a holiday together, and their rudeness was quite unintentional and without -guile. They merely stared and obviously muttered comments to each other as they -passed, each giving the hasty, unconscious touch to his young moustache, which -is the automatic sign of pleasurable observation in the human male. -</p> - -<p> -“If she had had companions of her own age she would have known all about -it long ago,” Mademoiselle was thinking. -</p> - -<p> -Her intelligent view of such circumstances was that the simple fact they arose -from could—with perfect taste—only be treated simply. It was a mere -fact; therefore, why be prudish and affected about it. -</p> - -<p> -“They did not intend any rudeness,” she said, after they had gone -by. “They are not much more than boys and not perfectly behaved. People -often stare when they see a very pretty girl. I am afraid I do it myself. You -are very pretty,” quite calmly, and as one speaking without prejudice. -</p> - -<p> -Robin turned and looked at her, and the colour, which was like a Jacqueminot -rose, flooded her face. She was at the flushing age. Her gaze was interested, -speculative, and a shade startled—merely a shade. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh,” she said briefly—not in exclamation exactly, but in a -sort of acceptance. Then she looked straight before her and went on walking, -with the lovely, slightly swaying, buoyant step which in itself drew attracted -eyes after her. -</p> - -<p> -“If I were a model governess, such as one read of long before you were -born,” Mademoiselle Vallé continued, “I should feel it my duty to -tell you that beauty counts for nothing. But that is nonsense. It counts a -great deal—with some women it counts for everything. Such women are not -lucky. One should thank Heaven for it and make the best of it, without -exaggerated anxiety. Both Dowie and I, who love you, are <i>grateful</i> to -<i>le bon Dieu</i> that you are pretty.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have sometimes thought I was pretty, when I saw myself in the -glass,” said Robin, with unexcited interest. “It seemed to me that -I <i>looked</i> pretty. But, at the same time, I couldn’t help knowing -that everything is a matter of taste and that it might be because I was -conceited.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are not conceited,” answered the Frenchwoman. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want to be,” said Robin. “I want to be—a -serious person with—with a strong character.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle’s smile was touched with affectionate doubt. It had not -occurred to her to view this lovely thing in the light of a -“strong” character. Though, after all, what exactly was strength? -She was a warm, intensely loving, love compelling, tender being. Having seen -much of the world, and of humanity and inhumanity, Mademoiselle Vallé had had -moments of being afraid for her—particularly when, by chance, she -recalled the story Dowson had told her of the bits of crushed and broken -leaves. -</p> - -<p> -“A serious person,” she said, “and strong?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because I must earn my own living,” said Robin. “I must be -strong enough to take care of myself. I am going to be a governess—or -something.” -</p> - -<p> -Here, it was revealed to Mademoiselle as in a flash, was the reason why she had -applied herself with determination to her studies. This had been the object in -view. For reasons of her own, she intended to earn her living. With touched -interest, Mademoiselle Vallé waited, wondering if she would be frank about the -reason. She merely said aloud: -</p> - -<p> -“A governess?” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps there may be something else I can do. I might be a secretary or -something like that. Girls and women are beginning to do so many new -things,” her charge explained herself. “I do not want to -be—supported and given money. I mean I do not want—other -people—to buy my clothes and food—and things. The newspapers are -full of advertisements. I could teach children. I could translate business -letters. Very soon I shall be old enough to begin. Girls in their teens do -it.” -</p> - -<p> -She had laid some of her cards on the table, but not all, poor child. She was -not going into the matter of her really impelling reasons. But Mademoiselle -Vallé was not dull, and her affection added keenness to her mental -observations. Also she had naturally heard the story of the Thorpe lawsuit from -Dowson. Inevitably several points suggested themselves to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Mrs. Gareth-Lawless——” she began, reasonably. -</p> - -<p> -But Robin stopped her by turning her face full upon her once more, and this -time her eyes were full of clear significance. -</p> - -<p> -“She will let me go,” she said. “You <i>know</i> she will let -me go, Mademoiselle, darling. You <i>know</i> she will.” There was a -frank comprehension and finality in the words which made a full revelation of -facts Mademoiselle herself had disliked even to allow to form themselves into -thoughts. The child knew all sorts of things and felt all sorts of things. She -would probably never go into details, but she was extraordinarily, harrowingly, -<i>aware</i>. She had been learning to be aware for years. This had been the -secret she had always kept to herself. -</p> - -<p> -“If you are planning this,” Mademoiselle said, as reasonably as -before, “we must work very seriously for the next few years.” -</p> - -<p> -“How long do you think it will take?” asked Robin. She was nearing -sixteen—bursting into glowing blossom—a radiant, touching thing -whom one only could visualize in flowering gardens, in charming, enclosing -rooms, figuratively embraced by every mature and kind arm within reach of her. -This presented itself before Mademoiselle Vallé with such vividness that it was -necessary for her to control a sigh. -</p> - -<p> -“When I feel that you are ready, I will tell you,” she answered. -“And I will do all I can to help you—before I leave you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” Robin gasped, in an involuntarily childish way, -“I—hadn’t thought of that! How could I <i>live</i> without -you—and Dowie?” -</p> - -<p> -“I know you had not thought of it,” said Mademoiselle, -affectionately. “You are only a dear child yet. But that will be part of -it, you know. A governess or a secretary, or a young lady in an office -translating letters cannot take her governess and maid with her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” said Robin again, and her eyes became suddenly so dewy that -the person who passed her at the moment thought he had never seen such -wonderful eyes in his life. So much of her was still child that the shock of -this sudden practical realization thrust the mature and determined part of her -being momentarily into the background, and she could scarcely bear her alarmed -pain. It was true that she had been too young to face her plan as she must. -</p> - -<p> -But, after the long walk was over and she found herself in her bedroom again, -she was conscious of a sense of being relieved of a burden. She had been -wondering when she could tell Mademoiselle and Dowie of her determination. She -had not liked to keep it a secret from them as if she did not love them, but it -had been difficult to think of a way in which to begin without seeming as if -she thought she was quite grown up—which would have been silly. She had -not thought of speaking today, but it had all come about quite naturally, as a -result of Mademoiselle’s having told her that she was really very -pretty—so pretty that it made people turn to look at her in the street. -She had heard of girls and women who were like that, but she had never thought -it possible that she——! She had, of course, been looked at when she -was very little, but she had heard Andrews say that people looked because she -had so much hair and it was like curled silk. -</p> - -<p> -She went to the dressing table and looked at herself in the glass, leaning -forward that she might see herself closely. The face which drew nearer and -nearer had the effect of some tropic flower, because it was so alive with -colour which seemed to palpitate instead of standing still. Her soft mouth was -warm and brilliant with it, and the darkness of her eyes was—as it had -always been—like dew. Her brow were a slender black velvet line, and her -lashes made a thick, softening shadow. She saw they were becoming. She cupped -her round chin in her hands and studied herself with a desire to be sure of the -truth without prejudice or self conceit. The whole effect of her was glowing, -and she felt the glow as others did. She put up a finger to touch the velvet -petal texture of her skin, and she saw how prettily pointed and slim her hand -was. Yes, that was pretty—and her hair—the way it grew about her -forehead and ears and the back of her neck. She gazed at her young curve and -colour and flame of life’s first beauty with deep curiosity, singularly -impersonal for her years. -</p> - -<p> -She liked it; she began to be grateful as Mademoiselle had said she and Dowie -were. Yes, if other people liked it, there was no use in pretending it would -not count. -</p> - -<p> -“If I am going to earn my living,” she thought, with entire -gravity, “it may be good for me. If I am a governess, it will be useful -because children like pretty people. And if I am a secretary and work in an -office, I daresay men like one to be pretty because it is more cheerful.” -</p> - -<p> -She mentioned this to Mademoiselle Vallé, who was very kind about it, though -she looked thoughtful afterwards. When, a few days later, Mademoiselle had an -interview with Coombe in Benby’s comfortable room, he appeared thoughtful -also as he listened to her recital of the incidents of the long walk during -which her charge had revealed her future plans. -</p> - -<p> -“She is a nice child,” he said. “I wish she did not dislike -me so much. I understand her, villain as she thinks me. I am not a genuine -villain,” he added, with his cold smile. But he was saying it to himself, -not to Mademoiselle. -</p> - -<p> -This, she saw, but—singularly, perhaps—she spoke as if in reply. -</p> - -<p> -“Of that I am aware.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned his head slightly, with a quick, unprepared movement. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Would your lordship pardon me if I should say that otherwise I should -not ask your advice concerning a very young girl?” -</p> - -<p> -He slightly waved his hand. -</p> - -<p> -“I should have known that—if I had thought of it. I do know -it.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Vallé bowed. -</p> - -<p> -“The fact,” she said, “that she seriously thinks that perhaps -beauty may be an advantage to a young person who applies for work in the office -of a man of business because it may seem bright and cheerful to him when he is -tired and out of spirits—that gives one furiously to think. Yes, to me -she said it, milord—with the eyes of a little dove brooding over her -young. I could see her—lifting them like an angel to some elderly -<i>vaurien</i>, who would merely think her a born <i>cocotte</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -Here Coombe’s rigid face showed thought indeed. -</p> - -<p> -“Good God!” he muttered, quite to himself, “Good God!” -in a low, breathless voice. Villain or saint, he knew not one world but many. -</p> - -<p> -“We must take care of her,” he said next. “She is not an -insubordinate child. She will do nothing yet?” -</p> - -<p> -“I have told her she is not yet ready,” Mademoiselle Vallé -answered. “I have also promised to tell her when she is—And to help -her.” -</p> - -<p> -“God help her if we do not!” he said. “She is, on the whole, -as ignorant as a little sheep—and butchers are on the lookout for such as -she is. They suit them even better than the little things whose tendencies are -perverse from birth. An old man with an evil character may be able to watch -over her from a distance.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle regarded him with grave eyes, which took in his tall, thin -erectness of figure, his bearing, the perfection of his attire with its -unfailing freshness, which was not newness. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you call yourself an old man, milord?” she asked. -</p> - -<p> -“I am not decrepit—years need not bring that,” was his -answer. “But I believe I became an old man before I was thirty. I have -grown no older—in that which is really age—since then.” -</p> - -<p> -In the moment’s silence which followed, his glance met Mademoiselle -Vallé’s and fixed itself. -</p> - -<p> -“I am not old enough—or young enough—to be enamoured of Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless’ little daughter,” he said. “<i>You</i> need -not be told that. But you have heard that there are those who amuse themselves -by choosing to believe that I am.” -</p> - -<p> -“A few light and not too clean-minded fools,” she admitted without -flinching. -</p> - -<p> -“No man can do worse for himself than to explain and deny,” he -responded with a smile at once hard and fine. “Let them continue to -believe it.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> - -<p> -Sixteen passed by with many other things much more disturbing and important to -the world than a girl’s birthday; seventeen was gone, with passing events -more complicated still and increasingly significant, but even the owners of the -hands hovering over the Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, did not keep a -watch on all of them as close as might have been kept with advantage. Girls in -their teens are seldom interested in political and diplomatic conditions, and -Robin was not fond of newspapers. She worked well and steadily under -Mademoiselle’s guidance, and her governess realized that she was not -losing sight of her plans for self support. She was made aware of this by an -occasional word or so, and also by a certain telepathic union between them. -Little as she cared for the papers, the child had a habit of closely examining -the advertisements every day. She read faithfully the columns devoted to those -who “Want” employment or are “Wanted” by employers. -</p> - -<p> -“I look at all the paragraphs which begin ‘Wanted, a young -lady’ or a ‘young woman’ or a ‘young person,’ and -those which say that ‘A young person’ or ‘a young -woman’ or ‘a young lady’ desires a position. I want to find -out what is oftenest needed.” -</p> - -<p> -She had ceased to be disturbed by the eyes which followed her, or opened a -little as she passed. She knew that nothing had come undone or was crooked and -that untidiness had nothing to do with the matter. She accepted being looked at -as a part of everyday life. A certain friendliness and pleasure in most of the -glances she liked and was glad of. Sometimes men of the flushed, middle-aged or -elderly type displeased her by a sort of boldness of manner and gaze, but she -thought that they were only silly, giddy, old things who ought to go home to -their families and stay with them. Mademoiselle or Dowie was nearly always with -her, but, as she was not a French <i>jeune fille</i>, this was not because it -was supposed that she could not be trusted out alone, but because she enjoyed -their affectionate companionship. -</p> - -<p> -There was one man, however, whom she greatly disliked, as young girls will -occasionally dislike a member of the opposite sex for no special reason they -can wholly explain to themselves. -</p> - -<p> -He was an occasional visitor of her mother’s—a personable young -Prussian officer of high rank and title. He was blonde and military and -good-looking; he brought his bearing and manner from the Court at Berlin, and -the click of his heels as he brought them smartly together, when he made his -perfect automatic bow, was one of the things Robin knew she was reasonless in -feeling she detested in him. -</p> - -<p> -“It makes me feel as if he was not merely bowing as a a man who is a -gentleman does,” she confided to Mademoiselle Vallé, “but as if he -had been taught to do it and to call attention to it as if no one had ever -known how to do it properly before. It is so flourishing in its stiff way that -it’s rather vulgar.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is only personal fancy on your part,” commented Mademoiselle. -</p> - -<p> -“I know it is,” admitted Robin. “But—” uneasily, -“—but that isn’t what I dislike in him most. It’s his -eyes, I suppose they are handsome eyes. They are blue and full—rather too -full. They have a queer, swift stare—as if they plunged into other -people’s eyes and tried to hold them and say something secret, all in one -second. You find yourself getting red and trying to look away.” -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t,” said Mademoiselle astutely—because she -wanted to hear the rest, without asking too many questions. -</p> - -<p> -Robin laughed just a little. -</p> - -<p> -“You have not seen him do it. I have not seen him do it myself very -often. He comes to call on—Mamma”—she never said -“Mother”—“when he is in London. He has been coming for -two or three seasons. The first time I saw him I was going out with Dowie and -he was just going upstairs. Because the hall is so small, we almost knocked -against each other, and he jumped back and made his bow, and he stared so that -I felt silly and half frightened. I was only fifteen then.” -</p> - -<p> -“And since then?” Mademoiselle Vallé inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“When he is here it seems as if I always meet him somewhere. Twice, when -Fräulein Hirsch was with me in the Square Gardens, he came and spoke to us. I -think he must know her. He was very grand and condescendingly polite to her, as -if he did not forget she was only a German teacher and I was only a little girl -whose mamma he knew. But he kept looking at me until I began to hate -him.” -</p> - -<p> -“You must not dislike people without reason. You dislike Lord -Coombe.” -</p> - -<p> -“They both make me creep. Lord Coombe doesn’t plunge his eyes into -mine, but he makes me creep with his fishy coldness. I feel as if he were like -Satan in his still way.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is childish prejudice and nonsense.” -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps the other is, too,” said Robin. “But they both make -me creep, nevertheless. I would rather <i>die</i> than be obliged to let one of -them touch me. That was why I would never shake hands with Lord Coombe when I -was a little child.” -</p> - -<p> -“You think Fräulein Hirsch knows the Baron?” Mademoiselle inquired -further. -</p> - -<p> -“I am sure she does. Several times, when she has gone out to walk with -me, we have met him. Sometimes he only passes us and salutes, but sometimes he -stops and says a few words in a stiff, magnificent way. But he always bores his -eyes into mine, as if he were finding out things about me which I don’t -know myself. He has passed several times when you have been with me, but you -may not remember.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle Vallé chanced, however, to recall having observed the salute of a -somewhat haughty, masculine person, whose military bearing in itself was -sufficient to attract attention, so markedly did it suggest the clanking of -spurs and accoutrements, and the high lift of a breast bearing orders. -</p> - -<p> -“He is Count von Hillern, and I wish he would stay in Germany,” -said Robin. -</p> - -<p> -Fräulein Hirsch had not been one of those who returned hastily to her own -country, giving no warning of her intention to her employers. She had remained -in London and given her lessons faithfully. She was a plain young woman with a -large nose and pimpled, colourless face and shy eyes and manner. Robin had felt -sure that she stood in awe of the rank and military grandeur of her fellow -countryman. She looked shyer than ever when he condescended to halt and address -her and her charge—so shy, indeed, that her glances seemed furtive. Robin -guessed that she admired him but was too humble to be at ease when he was near -her. More than once she had started and turned red and pale when she saw him -approaching, which had caused Robin to wonder if she herself would feel as -timid and overpowered by her superiors, if she became a governess. Clearly, a -man like Count von Hillern would then be counted among her superiors, and she -must conduct herself becomingly, even if it led to her looking almost stealthy. -She had, on several occasions, asked Fräulein certain questions about -governesses. She had inquired as to the age at which one could apply for a -place as instructress to children or young girls. Fräulein Hirsch had begun her -career in Germany at the age of eighteen. She had lived a serious life, full of -responsibilities at home as one of a large family, and she had perhaps been -rather mature for her age. In England young women who wished for situations -answered advertisements and went to see the people who had inserted them in the -newspapers, she explained. Sometimes, the results were very satisfactory. -Fräulein Hirsch was very amiable in her readiness to supply information. Robin -did not tell her of her intention to find work of some sort—probably -governessing—but the young German woman was possessed of a mind -“made in Germany” and was quite well aware of innumerable things -her charge did not suspect her of knowing. One of the things she knew best was -that the girl was a child. She was not a child herself, and she was an abjectly -bitter and wretched creature who had no reason for hope. She lived in small -lodgings in a street off Abbey Road, and, in a drawer in her dressing table, -she kept hidden a photograph of a Prussian officer with cropped blond head, and -handsome prominent blue eyes, arrogantly gazing from beneath heavy lids which -drooped. He was of the type the German woman, young and slim, or mature and -stout, privately worships as a god whose relation to any woman can only be that -of a modern Jove stooping to command service. In his teens he had become -accustomed to the female eye which lifts itself adoringly or casts the -furtively excited glance of admiration or appeal. It was the way of mere nature -that it should be so—the wise provision of a masculine God, whose world -was created for the supply and pleasure of males, especially males of the -Prussian Army, whose fixed intention it was to dominate the world and teach it -obedience. -</p> - -<p> -To such a man, so thoroughly well trained in the comprehension of the power of -his own rank and values, a young woman such as Fräulein -Hirsch—subservient and without beauty—was an unconsidered object to -be as little regarded as the pavement upon which one walks. The pavement had -its uses, and such women had theirs. They could, at least, obey the orders of -those Heaven had placed above them, and, if they showed docility and -intelligence, might be re warded by a certain degree of approval. -</p> - -<p> -A presumption, which would have dared to acknowledge to the existence of the -hidden photograph, could not have been encompassed by the being of Fräulein -Hirsch. She was, in truth, secretly enslaved by a burning, secret, -heart-wringing passion which, sometimes, as she lay on her hard bed at night, -forced from her thin chest hopeless sobs which she smothered under the -bedclothes. -</p> - -<p> -Figuratively, she would have licked the boots of her conquering god, if he -would have looked at her—just looked—as if she were human. But such -a thing could not have occurred to him. He did not even think of her as she -thought of herself, torturingly—as not young, not in any degree -good-looking, not <i>geboren</i>, not even female. He did not think of her at -all, except as one of those born to serve in such manner as their superiors -commanded. She was in England under orders, because she was unobtrusive looking -enough to be a safe person to carry on the work she had been given to do. She -was cleverer than she looked and could accomplish certain things without -attracting any attention whatsoever. -</p> - -<p> -Von Hillern had given her instructions now and then, which had made it -necessary for him to see and talk to her in various places. The fact that she -had before her the remote chance of seeing him by some chance, gave her an -object in life. It was enough to be allowed to stand or sit for a short time -near enough to have been able to touch his sleeve, if she had had the mad -audacity to do it; to quail before his magnificent glance, to hear his voice, -to <i>almost</i> touch his strong, white hand when she gave him papers, to see -that he deigned, sometimes, to approve of what she had done, to assure him of -her continued obedience, with servile politeness. -</p> - -<p> -She was not a nice woman, or a good one, and she had, from her birth, accepted -her place in her world with such finality that her desires could not, at any -time, have been of an elevated nature. If he had raised a haughty hand and -beckoned to her, she would have followed him like a dog under any conditions he -chose to impose. But he did not raise his hand, and never would, because she -had no attractions whatsoever. And this she knew, so smothered her sobs in her -bed at night or lay awake, fevered with anticipation when there was a vague -chance that he might need her for some reason and command her presence in some -deserted park or country road or cheap hotel, where she could take rooms for -the night as if she were a passing visitor to London. -</p> - -<p> -One night—she had taken cheap lodgings for a week in a side street, in -obedience to orders—he came in about nine o’clock dressed in a -manner whose object was to dull the effect of his grandeur and cause him to -look as much like an ordinary Englishman as possible. -</p> - -<p> -But, when the door was closed and he stood alone in the room with her, she saw, -with the blissful pangs of an abjectly adoring woman, that he automatically -resumed his magnificence of bearing. His badly fitting overcoat removed, he -stood erect and drawn to his full height, so dominating the small place and her -idolatrously cringing being that her heart quaked within her. Oh! to dare to -cast her unloveliness at his feet, if it were only to be trampled upon and die -there! No small sense of humour existed in her brain to save her from her -pathetic idiocy. Romantic humility and touching sacrifice to the worshipped one -were the ideals she had read of in verse and song all her life. Only through -such servitude and sacrifice could woman gain man’s love—and even -then only if she had beauty and the gifts worthy of her idol’s -acceptance. -</p> - -<p> -It was really his unmitigated arrogance she worshipped and crawled upon her -poor, large-jointed knees to adore. Her education, her very religion itself had -taught that it was the sign of his nobility and martial high breeding. Even the -women of his own class believed something of the same sort—the more -romantic and sentimental of them rather enjoying being mastered by it. To -Fräulein Hirsch’s mental vision, he was a sublimated and more dazzling -German Rochester, and she herself a more worthy, because more submissive, Jane -Eyre. Ach Gott! His high-held, cropped head—his so beautiful white -hands—his proud eyes which deigned to look at her from their drooping -lids! His presence filled the shabby room with the atmosphere of a Palace. -</p> - -<p> -He asked her a few questions; he required from her certain notes she had made; -without wasting a word or glance he gave her in detail certain further orders. -</p> - -<p> -He stood by the table, and it was, therefore, necessary that she should -approach him—should even stand quite near that she might see clearly a -sketch he made hastily—immediately afterwards tearing it into fragments -and burning it with a match. She was obliged to stand so near him that her -skirt brushed his trouser leg. His nearness, and a vague scent of cigar smoke, -mingled with the suggestion of some masculine soap or essence, were so poignant -in their effect that she trembled and water rose in her eyes. In fact—and -despite her terrified effort to control it, a miserable tear fell on her cheek -and stood there because she dared not wipe it away. -</p> - -<p> -Because he realized, with annoyance, that she was trembling, he cast a cold, -inquiring glance at her and saw the tear. Then he turned away and resumed his -examination of her notes. He was not here to make inquiries as to whether a -sheep of a woman was crying or had merely a cold in her head. -“Ach!” grovelled poor Hirsch in her secret soul,—his -patrician control of outward expression and his indifference to all small and -paltry things! It was part, not only of his aristocratic breeding, but of the -splendour of his military training. -</p> - -<p> -It was his usual custom to leave her at once, when the necessary formula had -been gone through. Tonight—she scarcely dared to believe it—he -seemed to have some reason for slight delay. He did not sit down or ask -Fräulein Hirsch to do so—but he did not at once leave the room. He -lighted a quite marvellous cigar—deigning a slight wave of the admired -hand which held it, designating that he asked permission. Oh! if she dared have -darted to him with a match! He stood upon the hearth and asked a -casual-sounding question or so regarding her employer, her household, her -acquaintances, her habits. -</p> - -<p> -The sole link between them was the asking of questions and the giving of -private information, and, therefore, the matter of taste in such matters did -not count as a factor. He might ask anything and she must answer. Perhaps it -was necessary for her to seek some special knowledge among the guests Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless received. But training, having developed in her alertness of -mind, led her presently to see that it was not Mrs. Gareth-Lawless he was -chiefly interested in—but a member of her family—the very small -family which consisted of herself and her daughter. -</p> - -<p> -It was Robin he was enclosing in his network of questions. And she had seen him -look at Robin when he had passed or spoken to them. An illuminating flash -brought back to her that he had cleverly found out from her when they were to -walk together, and where they were to go. She had not been quick enough to -detect this before, but she saw it now. Girls who looked like that—yes! -But it could not be—serious. An English girl of such family—with -such a mother! A momentary caprice, such as all young men of his class amused -themselves with and forgot—but nothing permanent. It would not, indeed, -be approved in those High Places where obedience was the first commandment of -the Decalogue. -</p> - -<p> -But he did not go. He even descended a shade from his inaccessible plane. It -was not difficult for him to obtain details of the odd loneliness of the -girl’s position. Fräulein Hirsch was quite ready to explain that, in -spite of the easy morals and leniency of rank and fashion in England, she was a -sort of little outcast from sacred inner circles. There were points she burned -to make clear to him, and she made them so. She was in secret fiercely desirous -that he should realize to the utmost, that, whatsoever rashness this young -flame of loveliness inspired in him, it was <i>not</i> possible that he could -regard it with any shadow of serious intention. She had always disliked the -girl, and now her weak mildness and humility suddenly transformed themselves -into something else—a sort of maternal wolfishness. It did not matter -what happened to the girl—and whatsoever befell or did not befall her, -she—Mathilde Hirsch—could neither gain nor lose hope through it. -But, if she did not displease him and yet saved him from final disaster, he -would, perhaps, be grateful to her—and perhaps, speak with -approval—or remember it—and his Noble Mother most certainly -would—if she ever knew. But behind and under and through all these -specious reasonings, was the hot choking burn of the mad jealousy only her type -of luckless woman can know—and of whose colour she dare not show the -palest hint. -</p> - -<p> -“I have found out that, for some reason, she thinks of taking a place as -governess,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Suggest that she go to Berlin. There are good places there,” was -his answer. -</p> - -<p> -“If she should go, her mother will not feel any anxiety about her,” -returned Fräulein Hirsch. -</p> - -<p> -“If, then, some young man she meets in the street makes love to her and -they run away together, she will not be pursued by her relatives.” -</p> - -<p> -Fräulein Hirsch’s flat mouth looked rather malicious. -</p> - -<p> -“Her mother is too busy to pursue her, and there is no one -else—unless it were Lord Coombe, who is said to want her himself.” -</p> - -<p> -Von Hillern shrugged his fine shoulders. -</p> - -<p> -“At his age! After the mother! That is like an Englishman!” -</p> - -<p> -Upon this, Fräulein Hirsch drew a step nearer and fixed her eyes upon his, as -she had never had the joy of fixing them before in her life. She dared it now -because she had an interesting story to tell him which he would like to hear. -It <i>was</i> like an Englishman. Lord Coombe had the character of being one of -the worst among them, but was too subtle and clever to openly offend people. It -was actually said that he was educating the girl and keeping her in seclusion -and that it was probably his colossal intention to marry her when she was old -enough. He had no heir of his own—and he must have beauty and innocence. -Innocence and beauty his viciousness would have. -</p> - -<p> -“Pah!” exclaimed von Hillern. “It is youth which requires -such things—and takes them. That is all imbecile London gossip. No, he -would not run after her if she ran away. He is a proud man and he knows he -would be laughed at. And he could not get her back from a young man—who -was her lover.” -</p> - -<p> -Her lover! How it thrilled the burning heart her poor, flat chest panted above. -With what triumphant knowledge of such things he said it. -</p> - -<p> -“No, he could not,” she answered, her eyes still on his. “No -one could.” -</p> - -<p> -He laughed a little, confidently, but almost with light indifference. -</p> - -<p> -“If she were missing, no particular search would be made then,” he -said. “She is pretty enough to suit Berlin.” -</p> - -<p> -He seemed to think pleasantly of something as he stood still for a moment, his -eyes on the floor. When he lifted them, there was in their blue a hint of ugly -exulting, though Mathilde Hirsch did not think it ugly. He spoke in a low -voice. -</p> - -<p> -“It will be an exciting—a colossal day when we come to -London—as we shall. It will be as if an ocean had collected itself into -one huge mountain of a wave and swept in and overwhelmed everything. There will -be confusion then and the rushing up of untrained soldiers—and -shouts—and yells——” -</p> - -<p> -“And Zeppelins dropping bombs,” she so far forgot herself as to -pant out, “and buildings crashing and pavements and people smashed! -Westminster and the Palaces rocking, and fat fools running before -bayonets.” -</p> - -<p> -He interrupted her with a short laugh uglier than the gleam in his eyes. He was -a trifle excited. -</p> - -<p> -“And all the women running about screaming and trying to hide and being -pulled out. We can take any of their pretty, little, high nosed women we -choose—any of them.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she answered, biting her lip. No one would take her, she -knew. -</p> - -<p> -He put on his overcoat and prepared to leave her. As he stood at the door -before opening it, he spoke in his usual tone of mere command. -</p> - -<p> -“Take her to Kensington Gardens tomorrow afternoon,” he said. -“Sit in one of the seats near the Round Pond and watch the children -sailing their boats. I shall not be there but you will find yourself near a -quiet, elegant woman in mourning who will speak to you. You are to appear to -recognize her as an old acquaintance. Follow her suggestions in -everything.” -</p> - -<p> -After this he was gone and she sat down to think it over. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> - -<p> -She saw him again during the following week and was obliged to tell him that -she had not been able to take her charge to Kensington Gardens on the morning -that he had appointed but that, as the girl was fond of the place and took -pleasure in watching the children sailing their boats on the Round Pond, it -would be easy to lead her there. He showed her a photograph of the woman she -would find sitting on a particular bench, and he required she should look at it -long enough to commit the face to memory. It was that of a quietly elegant -woman with gentle eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“She will call herself Lady Etynge,” he said. “You are to -remember that you once taught her little girl in Paris. There must be no haste -and no mistakes. It be well for them to meet—by accident—several -times.” -</p> - -<p> -Later he aid to her: -</p> - -<p> -“When Lady Etynge invites her to go to her house, you will, of course, go -with her. You will not stay. Lady Etynge will tell you what to do.” -</p> - -<p> -In words, he did not involve himself by giving any hint of his intentions. So -far as expression went, he might have had none, whatever. Her secret conclusion -was that he knew, if he could see the girl under propitious -circumstances—at the house of a clever and sympathetic acquaintance, he -need have no shadow of a doubt as to the result of his efforts to please her. -He knew she was a lonely, romantic creature, who had doubtless read sentimental -books and been allured by their heroes. She was, of course, just ripe for young -peerings into the land of love making. His had been no peerings, thought the -pale Hirsch sadly. What girl—or woman—could resist the alluring -demand of his drooping eyes, if he chose to allow warmth to fill them? Thinking -of it, she almost gnashed her teeth. Did she not see how he would look, bending -his high head and murmuring to a woman who shook with joy under his gaze? Had -she not seen it in her own forlorn, hopeless dreams? -</p> - -<p> -What did it matter if what the world calls disaster befell the girl? Fräulein -Hirsch would not have called it disaster. Any woman would have been paid a -thousand times over. His fancy might last a few months. Perhaps he would take -her to Berlin—or to some lovely secret spot in the mountains where he -could visit her. What heaven—what heaven! She wept, hiding her face on -her hot, dry hands. -</p> - -<p> -But it would not last long—and he would again think only of the immense -work—the august Machine, of which he was a mechanical part—and he -would be obliged to see and talk to her, Mathilde Hirsch, having forgotten the -rest. She could only hold herself decently in check by telling herself again -and again that it was only natural that such things should come and go in his -magnificent life, and that the sooner it began the sooner it would end. -</p> - -<p> -It was a lovely morning when her pupil walked with her in Kensington Gardens, -and, quite naturally, strolled towards the Round Pond. Robin was happy because -there were flutings of birds in the air, gardeners were stuffing crocuses and -hyacinths into the flower beds, there were little sweet scents floating about -and so it was Spring. She pulled a bare looking branch of a lilac bush towards -her and stooped and kissed the tiny brown buttons upon it, half shyly. -</p> - -<p> -“I can’t help it when I see the first ones swelling on the twigs. -They are working so hard to break out into green,” she said. “One -loves everything at this time—everything! Look at the children round the -pond. That fat, little boy in a reefer and brown leather leggings is bursting -with joy. Let us go and praise his boat, Fräulein.” -</p> - -<p> -They went and Robin praised the boat until its owner was breathless with -rapture. Fräulein Hirsch, standing near her, looked furtively at all the -benches round the circle, giving no incautiously interested glance to any one -of them in particular. Presently, however, she said: -</p> - -<p> -“I think that is Lady Etynge sitting on the third bench from here. I said -to you that I had heard she was in London. I wonder if her daughter is still in -the Convent at Tours?” -</p> - -<p> -When Robin returned, she saw a quiet woman in perfect mourning recognize -Fräulein Hirsch with a a bow and smile which seemed to require nearer approach. -</p> - -<p> -“We must go and speak to her.” Fräulein Hirsch said. “I know -she wil wish me to present you. She is fond of young girls—because of -Hélène.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin went forward prettily. The woman was gentle looking and attracting. She -had a sweet manner and was very kind to Fräulein Hirsch. She seemed to know her -well and to like her. Her daughter, Hélène, was still in the Convent at Tours -but was expected home very shortly. She would be glad to find that Fräulein -Hirsch was in London. -</p> - -<p> -“I have turned the entire top story of my big house into a pretty suite -for her. She has a fancy for living high above the street,” smiled Lady -Etynge, indulgently. Perhaps she was a “Mother” person, Robin -thought. -</p> - -<p> -Both her looks and talk were kind, and she was very nice in her sympathetic -interest in the boats and the children’s efforts to sail them. -</p> - -<p> -“I often bring my book here and forget to read, because I find I am -watching them,” she said. “They are so eager and so triumphant when -a boat gets across the Pond.” -</p> - -<p> -She went away very soon and Robin watched her out of sight with interest. -</p> - -<p> -They saw her again a few days later and talked a little more. She was not -always near the Pond when they came, and they naturally did not go there each -time they walked together, though Fräulein Hirsch was fond of sitting and -watching the children. -</p> - -<p> -She had been to take tea with her former employer, she told Robin one day, and -she was mildly excited by the preparations for Hélène, who had been educated -entirely in a French convent and was not like an English girl at all. She had -always been very delicate and the nuns seemed to know how to take care of her -and calm her nerves with their quiet ways. -</p> - -<p> -“Her mother is rather anxious about her coming to London. She has, of -course, no young friends here and she is so used to the quiet of convent -life,” the Fräulein explained. “That is why the rooms at the top of -the house have been arranged for her. She will hear so little sound. I confess -I am anxious about her myself. Lady Etynge is wondering if she can find a -suitable young companion to live in the house with her. She must be a young -lady and perfectly educated—and with brightness and charm. Not a person -like myself, but one who can be treated as an equal and a friend—almost a -playmate.” -</p> - -<p> -“It would be an agreeable position,” commented Robin, thoughtfully. -</p> - -<p> -“Extremely so,” answered Fräulein Hirsch. “Hélène is a most -lovable and affectionate girl. And Lady Etynge is rich enough to pay a large -salary. Hélène is her idol. The suite of rooms is perfect. In Germany, girls -are not spoiled in that way. It is not considered good for them.” -</p> - -<p> -It was quite natural, since she felt an interest in Hélène, that, on their next -meeting, Robin should find pleasure in sitting on the green bench near the -girl’s mother and hear her speak of her daughter. She was not diffuse or -intimate in her manner. Hélène first appeared in the talk as a result of a -polite inquiry made by Fräulein Hirsch. Robin gathered, as she listened, that -this particular girl was a tenderly loved and cared for creature and was -herself gentle and intelligent and loving. She sounded like the kind of a girl -one would be glad to have for a friend. Robin wondered and wondered—if -she would “do.” Perhaps, out of tactful consideration for the -feelings of Fräulein Hirsch who would not “do”—because she -was neither bright, nor pretty, nor a girl—Lady Etynge touched but -lightly on her idea that she might find a sort of sublimated young companion -for her daughter. -</p> - -<p> -“It would be difficult to advertise for what one wants,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. To state that a girl must be clever and pretty and graceful, and -attractive, would make it difficult for a modest young lady to write a suitable -reply,” said Fräulein Hirsch grimly, and both Lady Etynge and Robin -smiled. -</p> - -<p> -“Among your own friends,” Lady Etynge said to Robin, a little -pathetically in her yearning, “do you know of anyone—who might know -of anyone who would fit in? Sometimes there are poor little cousins, you -know?” -</p> - -<p> -“Or girls who have an independent spirit and would like to support -themselves,” said the Fräulein. “There are such girls in these -advanced times.” -</p> - -<p> -“I am afraid I don’t know anyone,” answered Robin. Modesty -also prevented her from saying that she thought she did. She herself was well -educated, she was good tempered and well bred, and she had known for some time -that she was pretty. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps Fräulein Hirsch may bring you in to have tea with me some -afternoon when you are out,” Lady Etynge said kindly before she left -them. “I think you would like to see Hélène’s rooms. I should be -glad to hear what another girl thinks of them.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin was delighted. Perhaps this was a way opening to her. She talked to -Mademoiselle Vallé about it and so glowed with hope that Mademoiselle’s -heart was moved. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think I might go?” she said. “Do you think there is -any chance that I might be the right person? <i>Am</i> I nice enough—and -well enough educated, and <i>are</i> my manners good?” -</p> - -<p> -She did not know exactly where Lady Etynge lived, but believed it was one of -those big houses in a certain dignified “Place” they both -knew—a corner house, she was sure, because—by mere chance—she -had one day seen Lady Etynge go into such a house as if it were her own. She -did not know the number, but they could ask Fräulein. -</p> - -<p> -Fräulein Hirsch was quite ready with detail concerning her former patroness and -her daughter. She obviously admired them very much. Her manner held a touch of -respectful reverence. She described Hélène’s disposition and delicate -nerves and the perfection of the nuns’ treatment of her. -</p> - -<p> -She described the beauty of the interior of the house, its luxury and -convenience, and the charms of the suite of apartments prepared for Hélène. She -thought the number of the house was No. 97 A. Lady Etynge was the kindest -employer she had ever had. She believed that Miss Gareth-Lawless and Hélène -would be delighted with each other, if they met, and her impression was that -Lady Etynge privately hoped they would become friends. -</p> - -<p> -Her mild, flat face was so modestly amiable that Mademoiselle Vallé, who always -felt her unattractive femininity pathetic, was a little moved by her evident -pleasure in having been the humble means of providing Robin with acquaintances -of an advantageous kind. -</p> - -<p> -No special day had been fixed upon for the visit and the cup of tea. Robin was -eager in secret and hoped Lady Etynge would not forget to remind them of her -invitation. -</p> - -<p> -She did not forget. One afternoon—they had not seen her for several days -and had not really expected to meet her, because they took their walk later -than usual—they found her just rising from her seat to go home as they -appeared. -</p> - -<p> -“Our little encounters almost assume the air of appointments,” she -said. “This is very nice, but I am just going away, I am sorry to say. I -wonder—” she paused a moment, and then looked at Fräulein Hirsch -pleasantly; “I wonder if, in about an hour, you would bring Miss -Gareth-Lawless to me to have tea and tell me if she thinks Hélène will like her -new rooms. You said you would like to see them,” brightly to Robin. -</p> - -<p> -“You are very kind. I should like it so much,” was Robin’s -answer. -</p> - -<p> -Fräulein Hirsch was correctly appreciative of the condescension shown to her. -Her manner was the perfection of the exact shade of unobtrusive chaperonship. -There was no improper suggestion of a mistaken idea that she was herself a -guest, or, indeed, anything, in fact, but a proper appendage to her charge. -Robin had never been fond of Fräulein as she was fond of Mademoiselle and -Dowie, still she was not only an efficient teacher, but also a good walker and -very fond of long tramps, which Mademoiselle was really not strong enough for, -but which Robin’s slender young legs rejoiced in. -</p> - -<p> -The two never took cabs or buses, but always walked everywhere. They walked on -this occasion, and, about an hour later, arrived at a large, corner house in -Berford Place. A tall and magnificently built footman opened the door for them, -and they were handed into a drawing room much grander than the one Robin -sometimes glanced into as she passed it, when she was at home. A quite -beautiful tea equipage awaited them on a small table, but Lady Etynge was not -in the room. -</p> - -<p> -“What a beautiful house to live in,” said Robin, “but, do you -know, the number <i>isn’t</i> 97 A. I looked as we came in, and it is No. -25.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it? I ought to have been more careful,” answered Fräulein -Hirsch. “It is wrong to be careless even in small matters.” -</p> - -<p> -Almost immediately Lady Etynge came in and greeted them, with a sort of gentle -delight. She drew Robin down on to a sofa beside her and took her hand and gave -it a light pat which was a caress. -</p> - -<p> -“Now you really <i>are</i> here,” she said, “I have been so -busy that I have been afraid I should not have time to show you the rooms -before it was too late to make a change, if you thought anything might be -improved.” -</p> - -<p> -“I am sure nothing can improve them,” said Robin, more dewy-eyed -than usual and even a thought breathless, because this was really a sort of -adventure, and she longed to ask if, by any chance, she would “do.” -And she was so afraid that she might lose this amazingly good opportunity, -merely because she was too young and inexperienced to know how she ought to -broach the subject. She had not thought yet of asking Mademoiselle Vallé how it -should be done. -</p> - -<p> -She was not aware that she looked at Lady Etynge with a heavenly, little -unconscious appeal, which made her enchanting. Lady Etynge looked at her quite -fixedly for an instant. -</p> - -<p> -“What a child you are! And what a colour your cheeks and lips are!” -she said. “You are much—much prettier than Hélène, my dear.” -</p> - -<p> -She got up and brought a picture from a side table to show it to her. -</p> - -<p> -“I think she is lovely,” she said. “Is it became I am her -mother?” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, no! Not because you are her mother!” exclaimed Robin. -“She is angelic!” -</p> - -<p> -She was rather angelic, with her delicate uplifted face and her communion veil -framing it mistily. -</p> - -<p> -The picture was placed near them and Robin looked at is many times as they took -their tea. To be a companion to a girl with a face like that would be almost -too much to ask of one’s luck. There was actual yearning in Robin’s -heart. Suddenly she realized that she had missed something all her life, -without knowing that she missed it. It was the friendly nearness of youth like -her own. How she hoped that she might make Lady Etynge like her. After tea was -over, Lady Etynge spoke pleasantly to Fräulein Hirsch. -</p> - -<p> -“I know that you wanted to register a letter. There is a post-office just -around the corner. Would you like to go and register it while I take Miss -Gareth-Lawless upstairs? You have seen the rooms. You will only be away a few -minutes.” -</p> - -<p> -Fräulein Hirsch was respectfully appreciative again. The letter really was -important. It contained money which she sent monthly to her parents. This month -she was rather late, and she would be very glad to be allowed to attend to the -matter without losing a post. -</p> - -<p> -So she went out of the drawing-room and down the stairs, and Robin heard the -front door close behind her with a slight thud. She had evidently opened and -closed it herself without waiting for the footman. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -The upper rooms in London houses—even in the large ones—are usually -given up to servants’ bedrooms, nurseries, and school rooms. Stately -staircases become narrower as they mount, and the climber gets glimpses of -apartments which are frequently bare, whatsoever their use, and, if not grubby -in aspect, are dull and uninteresting. -</p> - -<p> -But, in Lady Etynge’s house, it was plain that a good deal had been done. -Stairs had been altered and widened, walls had been given fresh and delicate -tints, and one laid one’s hand on cream white balustrades and trod on -soft carpets. A good architect had taken interest in the problems presented to -him, and the result was admirable. Partitions must have been removed to make -rooms larger and of better shape. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing could be altered without spoiling it!” exclaimed Robin, -standing in the middle of a sitting room, all freshness and exquisite -colour—the very pictures on the wall being part of the harmony. -</p> - -<p> -All that a girl would want or love was there. There was nothing left -undone—unremembered. The soft Chesterfield lounge, which was not too big -and was placed near the fire, the writing table, the books, the piano of -satinwood inlaid with garlands; the lamp to sit and read by. -</p> - -<p> -“How glad she must be to come back to anyone who loves her so,” -said Robin. -</p> - -<p> -Here was a quilted basket with three Persian kittens purring in it, and she -knelt and stroked their fluffiness, bending her slim neck and showing how -prettily the dark hair grew up from it. It was, perhaps, that at which Lady -Etynge was looking as she stood behind her and watched her. The girl-nymph -slenderness and flexibility of her leaning body was almost touchingly lovely. -</p> - -<p> -There were several other rooms and each one was, in its way, more charming than -the other. A library in Dresden blue and white, and with peculiarly pretty -windows struck the last note of cosiness. All the rooms had pretty windows with -rather small square panes enclosed in white frames. -</p> - -<p> -It was when she was in this room that Robin took her courage in her hands. She -must not let her chance go by. Lady Etynge was so kind. She wondered if it -would seem <i>gauche</i> and too informal to speak now. -</p> - -<p> -She stood quite upright and still, though her voice was not quite steady when -she began. -</p> - -<p> -“Lady Etynge,” she said, “you remember what Fräulein Hirsch -said about girls who wish to support themselves? I—I am one of them. I -want very much to earn my own living. I think I am well educated. I have been -allowed to read a good deal and my teachers, Mademoiselle Vallé and Fräulein -Hirsch, say I speak and write French and German well for an English girl. If -you thought I could be a suitable companion for Miss Etynge, I—should be -very happy.” -</p> - -<p> -How curiously Lady Etynge watched her as she spoke. She did not look -displeased, but there was something in her face which made Robin afraid that -she was, perhaps, after all, not the girl who was fortunate enough to quite -“do.” -</p> - -<p> -She felt her hopes raised a degree, however, when Lady Etynge smiled at her. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you know, I feel that is very pretty of you!” she said. -“It quite delights me—as I am an idolizing mother—that my -mere talk of Hélène should have made you like her well enough to think you -might care to live with her. And I confess I am modern enough to be pleased -with your wishing to earn your own living.” -</p> - -<p> -“I must,” said Robin. “I <i>must!</i> I could not bear not to -earn it!” She spoke a little suddenly, and a flag of new colour fluttered -in her cheek. -</p> - -<p> -“When Hélène comes, you must meet. If you like each other, as I feel sure -you will, and if Mrs. Gareth-Lawless does not object—if it remains only a -matter of being suitable—you are suitable, my dear—you are -suitable.” -</p> - -<p> -She touched Robin’s hand with the light pat which was a caress, and the -child was radiant. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, you are kind to me!” The words broke from her involuntarily. -“And it is such <i>good</i> fortune! Thank you, thank you, Lady -Etynge.” -</p> - -<p> -The flush of her joy and relief had not died out before the footman, who had -opened the door, appeared on the threshold. He was a handsome young fellow, -whose eyes were not as professionally impassive as his face. A footman had no -right to dart a swift side look at one as people did in the street. He did dart -such a glance. Robin saw, and she was momentarily struck by its being one of -those she sometimes objected to. -</p> - -<p> -Otherwise his manner was without flaw. He had only come to announce to his -mistress the arrival of a caller. -</p> - -<p> -When Lady Etynge took the card from the salver, her expression changed. She -even looked slightly disturbed. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh, I am sorry,” she murmured, “I must see her,” -lifting her eyes to Robin. “It is an old friend merely passing through -London. How wicked of me to forget that she wrote to say that she might dash in -at any hour.” -</p> - -<p> -“Please!” pled Robin, prettily. “I can run away at once. -Fräulein Hirsch must have come back. Please—” -</p> - -<p> -“The lady asked me particularly to say that she has only a few minutes to -stay, as she is catching a train,” the footman decorously ventured. -</p> - -<p> -“If that is the case,” Lady Etynge said, even relievedly, “I -will leave you here to look at things until I come back. I really want to talk -to you a little more about yourself and Hélène. I can’t let you -go.” She looked back from the door before she passed through it. -“Amuse yourself, my dear,” and then she added hastily to the man. -</p> - -<p> -“Have you remembered that there was something wrong with the latch, -William? See if it needs a locksmith.” -</p> - -<p> -“Very good, my lady.” -</p> - -<p> -She was gone and Robin stood by the sofa thrilled with happiness and relief. -How wonderful it was that, through mere lucky chance, she had gone to watch the -children sailing their boats! And that Fräulein Hirsch had seen Lady Etynge! -What good luck and how grateful she was! The thought which passed through her -mind was like a little prayer of thanks. How strange it would be to be really -intimate with a girl like herself—or rather like Hélène. It made her -heart beat to think of it. How wonderful it would be if Hélène actually loved -her, and she loved Hélène. Something sprang out of some depths of her being -where past things were hidden. The something was a deadly little memory. Donal! -Donal! It would be—if she loved Hélène and Hélène loved her—as new -a revelation as Donal. Oh! she remembered. -</p> - -<p> -She heard the footman doing something to the latch of the door, which caused it -to make a clicking sound. He was obeying orders and examining it. As she -involuntarily glanced at him, he—bending over the door -handle—raised his eyes sideways and glanced at her. It was an inexcusable -glance from a domestic, because it was actually as if he were taking the -liberty of privately summing her up—taking her points in for his own -entertainment. She so resented the unprofessional bad manners of it, that she -turned away and sauntered into the Dresden blue and white library and sat down -with a book. -</p> - -<p> -She was quite relieved, when, only a few minutes later, he went away having -evidently done what he could. -</p> - -<p> -The book she had picked up was a new novel and opened with an -attention-arresting agreeableness, which led her on. In fact it led her on -further and, for a longer time than she was aware of. It was her way to become -wholly absorbed in books when they allured her; she forgot her surroundings and -forgot the passing of time. This was a new book by a strong man with the gift -which makes alive people, places, things. The ones whose lives had taken -possession of his being in this story were throbbing with vital truth. -</p> - -<p> -She read on and on because, from the first page, she knew them as actual -pulsating human creatures. They looked into her face, they laughed, she heard -their voices, she <i>cared</i> for every trivial thing that happened to -them—to any of them. If one of them picked a flower, she saw how he or -she held it and its scent was in the air. -</p> - -<p> -Having been so drawn on into a sort of unconsciousness of all else, it was -inevitable that, when she suddenly became aware that she did not see her page -quite clearly, she should withdraw her eyes from her page and look about her. -As she did so, she started from her comfortable chair in amazement and some -alarm. The room had become so much darker that it must be getting late. How -careless and silly she had been. Where was Fräulein Hirsch? -</p> - -<p> -“I am only a strange girl and Lady Etynge might so easily have forgotten -me,” passed through her mind. “Her friend may have stayed and they -may have had so much to talk about, that, of coarse, I was forgotten. But -Fräulein Hirsch—how could she!” -</p> - -<p> -Then, remembering the subservient humility of the Fräulein’s mind, she -wondered if it could have been possible that she had been too timid to do more -than sit waiting—in the hall, perhaps—afraid to allow the footman -to disturb Lady Etynge by asking her where her pupil was. The poor, meek, silly -thing. -</p> - -<p> -“I must get away without disturbing anyone,” she thought, “I -will slip downstairs and snatch Fräulein Hirsch from her seat and we will go -quietly out. I can write a nice note to Lady Etynge tomorrow, and explain. I -HOPE she won’t mind having forgotten me. I must make her feel sure that -it did not matter in the least. I’ll tell her about the book.” -</p> - -<p> -She replaced the book on the shelf from which she had taken it and passed -through into the delightful sitting room. The kittens were playing together on -the hearth, having deserted their basket. One of them gave a soft, airy pounce -after her and caught at her dress with tiny claws, rolling over and over after -his ineffectual snatch. -</p> - -<p> -She had not heard the footman close the door when he left the room, but she -found he must have done so, as it was now shut. When she turned the handle it -did not seem to work well, because the door did not open as it ought to have -done. She turned it again and gave it a little pull, but it still remained -tightly shut. She turned it again, still with no result, and then she tried the -small latch. Perhaps the man had done some blundering thing when he had been -examining it. She remembered hearing several clicks. She turned the handle -again and again. There was no key in the keyhole, so he could not have bungled -with the key. She was quite aghast at the embarrassment of the situation. -</p> - -<p> -“How <i>can</i> I get out without disturbing anyone, if I cannot open the -door!” she said. “How stupid I shall seem to Lady Etynge! She -won’t like it. A girl who could forget where she was—and then not -be able to open a door and be obliged to bang until people come!” -</p> - -<p> -Suddenly she remembered that there had been a door in the bedroom which had -seemed to lead out into the hall. She ran into the room in such a hurry that -all three kittens ran frisking after her. She saw she had not been mistaken. -There was a door. She went to it and turned the handle, breathless with -excitement and relief. But the handle of that door also would not open it. -Neither would the latch. And there was no key. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” she gasped. “Oh!” -</p> - -<p> -Then she remembered the electric bell near the fireplace in the sitting room. -There was one by the fireplace here, also. No, she would ring the one in the -sitting room. She went to it and pressed the button. She could not hear the -ghost of a sound and one could generally hear <i>something</i> like one. She -rang again and waited. The room was getting darker. Oh, how <i>could</i> -Fräulein Hirsch—how could she? -</p> - -<p> -She waited—she waited. Fifteen minutes by her little watch—twenty -minutes—and, in their passing, she rang again. She rang the bell in the -library and the one in the bedroom—even the one in the bathroom, lest -some might be out of order. She slowly ceased to be embarrassed and -self-reproachful and began to feel afraid, though she did not know quite what -she was afraid of. She went to one of the windows to look at her watch again in -the vanishing light, and saw that she had been ringing the bells for an hour. -She automatically put up a hand and leaned against the white frame of one of -the decorative small panes of glass. As she touched it, she vaguely realized -that it was of such a solidity that it felt, not like wood but iron. She drew -her hand away quickly, feeling a sweep of unexplainable fear—yes, it was -FEAR. And why should she so suddenly feel it? She went back to the door and -tried again to open it—as ineffectively as before. Then she began to feel -a little cold and sick. She returned to the Chesterfield and sat down on it -helplessly. -</p> - -<p> -“It seems as if—I had been locked in!” she broke out, in a -faint, bewildered wail of a whisper. “Oh, <i>why</i>—did they lock -the doors!” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> - -<p> -She had known none of the absolute horrors of life which were possible in that -underworld which was not likely to touch her own existence in any form. -</p> - -<p> -“Why,” had argued Mademoiselle Vallé, “should one fill a -white young mind with ugly images which would deface with dark marks and -smears, and could only produce unhappiness and, perhaps, morbid broodings? One -does not feel it is wise to give a girl an education in crime. One would not -permit her to read the Newgate Calendar for choice. She will be protected by -those who love her and what she must discover she will discover. That is -Life.” -</p> - -<p> -Which was why her first discovery that neither door could be opened, did not at -once fill her with horror. Her first arguments were merely those of a girl who, -though her brain was not inactive pulp, had still a protected girl’s -outlook. She had been overwhelmed by a sense of the awkwardness of her position -and by the dread that she would be obliged to disturb and, almost inevitably, -embarrass and annoy Lady Etynge. Of course, there had been some bungling on the -part of the impudent footman—perhaps actually at the moment when he had -given his sidelong leer at herself instead of properly attending to what he was -trying to do. That the bedroom was locked might be the result of a dozen -ordinary reasons. -</p> - -<p> -The first hint of an abnormality of conditions came after she had rung the -bells and had waited in vain for response to her summons. There were servants -whose business it was to answer bells at once. If <i>all</i> the bells were out -of order, why were they out of order when Hélène was to return in a few days -and her apartment was supposed to be complete? Even to the kittens—even -to the kittens! -</p> - -<p> -“It seems as if I had been locked in,” she had whispered to the -silence of the room. “Why did they lock the doors?” -</p> - -<p> -Then she said, and her heart began to thump and race in her side: -</p> - -<p> -“It has been done on purpose. They don’t intend to let me -out—for some <i>horrible</i> reason!” -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps even her own growing panic was not so appalling as a sudden rushing -memory of Lady Etynge, which, at this moment, overthrew her. Lady Etynge! Lady -Etynge! She saw her gentle face and almost affectionately watching eyes. She -heard her voice as she spoke of Hélène; she felt the light pat which was a -caress. -</p> - -<p> -“No! No!” she gasped it, because her breath had almost left her. -“No! No! She couldn’t! No one could! There is <i>nothing</i> as -wicked—as that!” -</p> - -<p> -Bat, even as she cried out, the overthrow was utter, and she threw herself -forward on the arm of the couch and sobbed—sobbed with the passion she -had only known on the day long ago when she had crawled into the shrubs and -groveled in the earth. It was the same kind of passion—the shaken and -heart-riven woe of a creature who has trusted and hoped joyously and has been -forever betrayed. The face and eyes had been so kind. The voice so friendly! -Oh, how could even the wickedest girl in the world have doubted their -sincerity. Unfortunately—or fortunately—she knew nothing whatever -of the mental processes of the wicked girls of the world, which was why she lay -broken to pieces, sobbing—sobbing, not at the moment because she was a -trapped thing, but because Lady Etynge had a face in whose gentleness her heart -had trusted and rejoiced. -</p> - -<p> -When she sat upright again, her own face, as she lifted it, would have struck a -perceptive onlooker as being, as it were, the face of another girl. It was -tear-stained and wild, but this was not the cause of its change. The soft, bird -eyes were different—suddenly, amazingly older than they had been when she -had believed in Hélène. -</p> - -<p> -She had no experience which could reveal to her in a moment the monstrousness -of her danger, but all she had ever read, or vaguely gathered, of law breakers -and marauders of society, collected itself into an advancing tidal wave of -horror. -</p> - -<p> -She rose and went to the window and tried to open it, but it was not intended -to open. The decorative panes were of small size and of thick glass. Her first -startled impression that the white framework seemed to be a painted metal was -apparently founded on fact. A strong person might have bent it with a hammer, -but he could not have broken it. She examined the windows in the other rooms -and they were of the same structure. -</p> - -<p> -“They are made like that,” she said to herself stonily, “to -prevent people from getting OUT.” -</p> - -<p> -She stood at the front one and looked down into the broad, stately -“Place.” It was a long way to look down, and, even if the window -could be opened, one’s voice would not be heard. The street lamps were -lighted and a few people were to be seen walking past unhurriedly. -</p> - -<p> -“In the big house almost opposite they are going to give a party. There -is a red carpet rolled out. Carriages are beginning to drive up. And here on -the top floor, there is a girl locked up—And they don’t -know!” -</p> - -<p> -She said it aloud, and her voice sounded as though it were not her own. It was -a dreadful voice, and, as she heard it, panic seized her. -</p> - -<p> -Nobody knew—nobody! Her mother never either knew or cared where she was, -but Dowie and Mademoiselle always knew. They would be terrified. Fräulein -Hirsch had, perhaps, been told that her pupil had taken a cab and gone home and -she would return to her lodgings thinking she was safe. -</p> - -<p> -Then—only at this moment, and with a suddenness which produced a sense of -shock—she recalled that it was Fräulein Hirsch who had presented her to -Lady Etynge. Fräulein Hirsch herself! It was she who had said she had been in -her employ and had taught Hélène—Hélène! It was she who had related -anecdotes about the Convent at Tours and the nuns who were so wise and kind! -Robin’s hand went up to her forehead with a panic-stricken gesture. -Fräulein Hirsch had made an excuse for leaving her with Lady Etynge—to be -brought up to the top of the house quite alone—and locked in. Fräulein -Hirsch had <i>known!</i> And there came back to her the memory of the furtive -eyes whose sly, adoring sidelooks at Count Von Hillern had always—though -she had tried not to feel it—been, somehow, glances she had -disliked—yes, <i>disliked!</i> -</p> - -<p> -It was here—by the thread of Fräulein Hirsch—that Count Von Hillern -was drawn into her mind. Once there, it was as if he stood near her—quite -close—looking down under his heavy, drooping lids with stealthy, plunging -eyes. It had always been when Fräulein Hirsch had walked with her that they had -met him—almost as if by arrangement. -</p> - -<p> -There were only two people in the world who might—because she herself had -so hated them—dislike and choose in some way to punish her. One was Count -Von Hillern. The other was Lord Coombe. Lord Coombe, she knew, was bad, -vicious, did the things people only hinted at without speaking of them plainly. -A sense of instinctive revolt in the strength of her antipathy to Von Hillern -made her feel that he must be of the same order. -</p> - -<p> -“If either of them came into this room now and locked the door behind -him, I could not get out.” -</p> - -<p> -She heard herself say it aloud in the strange girl’s dreadful voice, as -she had heard herself speak of the party in the big house opposite. She put her -soft, slim hand up to her soft, slim throat. -</p> - -<p> -“I could not get out,” she repeated. -</p> - -<p> -She ran to the door and began to beat on its panels. By this time, she knew it -would be no use and yet she beat with her hands until they were bruised and -then she snatched up a book and beat with that. She thought she must have been -beating half an hour when she realized that someone was standing outside in the -corridor, and the someone said, in a voice she recognized as belonging to the -leering footman, -</p> - -<p> -“May as well keep still, Miss. You can’t hammer it down and no -one’s going to bother taking any notice,” and then his footsteps -retired down the stairs. She involuntarily clenched her hurt hands and the -shuddering began again though she stood in the middle of the room with a rigid -body and her head thrown fiercely back. -</p> - -<p> -“If there are people in the world as hideous—and monstrous as -<i>this</i>—let them kill me if they want to. I would rather be killed -than live! They would <i>have</i> to kill me!” and she said it in a -frenzy of defiance of all mad and base things on earth. -</p> - -<p> -Her peril seemed to force her thought to delve into unknown dark places in her -memory and dig up horrors she had forgotten—newspaper stories of crime, -old melodramas and mystery romances, in which people disappeared and were long -afterwards found buried under floors or in cellars. It was said that the -Berford Place houses, winch were old ones, had enormous cellars under them. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps other girls have disappeared and now are buried in the -cellars,” she thought. -</p> - -<p> -And the dreadful young voice added aloud. -</p> - -<p> -“Because they would <i>have</i> to kill me.” -</p> - -<p> -One of the Persian kittens curled up in the basket wakened because he heard it -and stretched a sleepy paw and mewed at her. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -Coombe House was one of the old ones, wearing somewhat the aspect of a stately -barrack with a fine entrance. Its court was enclosed at the front by a stone -wall, outside which passing London roared in low tumult. The court was -surrounded by a belt of shrubs strong enough to defy the rain of soot which -fell quietly upon them day and night. -</p> - -<p> -The streets were already lighted for the evening when Mademoiselle Vallé -presented herself at the massive front door and asked for Lord Coombe. The -expression of her face, and a certain intensity of manner, caused the -serious-looking head servant, who wore no livery, to come forward instead of -leaving her to the footmen. -</p> - -<p> -“His lordship engaged with—a business person—and must not be -disturbed,” he said. “He is also going out.” -</p> - -<p> -“He will see me,” replied Mademoiselle Vallé. “If you give -him this card he will see me.” -</p> - -<p> -She was a plainly dressed woman, but she had a manner which removed her -entirely from the class of those who merely came to importune. There was -absolute certainty in the eyes she fixed with steadiness on the man’s -face. He took her card, though he hesitated. -</p> - -<p> -“If he does not see me,” she added, “he will be very much -displeased.” -</p> - -<p> -“Will you come in, ma’am, and take a seat for a moment?” he -ventured. “I will inquire.” -</p> - -<p> -The great hall was one of London’s most celebrated. A magnificent -staircase swept up from it to landings whose walls were hung with tapestries -the world knew. In a gilded chair, like a throne, Mademoiselle Vallé sat and -waited. -</p> - -<p> -But she did not wait long. The serious-looking man without livery returned -almost immediately. He led Mademoiselle into a room like a sort of study or -apartment given up to business matters. Mademoiselle Vallé had never seen Lord -Coombe’s ceremonial evening effect more flawless. Tall, thin and finely -straight, he waited in the centre of the room. He was evidently on the point of -going out, and the light-textured satin-lined overcoat he had already thrown on -revealed, through a suggestion of being winged, that he wore in his lapel a -delicately fresh, cream-coloured carnation. -</p> - -<p> -A respectable, middle-class looking man with a steady, blunt-featured face, had -been talking to him and stepped quietly aside as Mademoiselle entered. There -seemed to be no question of his leaving the room. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe met his visitor half way: -</p> - -<p> -“Something has alarmed you very much?” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“Robin went out with Fräulein Hirsch this afternoon,” she said -quickly. “They went to Kensington Gardens. They have not come -back—and it is nine o’clock. They are always at home by six.” -</p> - -<p> -“Will you sit down,” he said. The man with the steady face was -listening intently, and she realized he was doing so and that, somehow, it was -well that he should. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not think there is time for any one to sit down,” she said, -speaking more quickly than before. “It is not only that she has not come -back. Fräulein Hirsch has presented her to one of her old employers—a -Lady Etynge. Robin was delighted with her. She has a daughter who is in -France—,” -</p> - -<p> -“Marguerite staying with her aunt in Paris,” suddenly put in the -voice of the blunt-featured man from his side of the room. -</p> - -<p> -“Hélène at a Covent in Tours,” corrected Mademoiselle, turning a -paling countenance towards him and then upon Coombe. “Lady Etynge spoke -of wanting to engage some nice girl as a companion to her daughter, who is -coming home. Robin thought she might have the good fortune to please her. She -was to go to Lady Etynge’s house to tea sine afternoon and be shown the -rooms prepared for Hélène. She thought the mother charming.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did she mention the address?” Coombe asked at once. -</p> - -<p> -“The house was in Berford Place—a large house at a corner. She -chanced to see Lady Etynge go into it one day or we should not have known. She -did not notice the number. Fräulein Hirsch thought it was 97A. I have looked -through the Blue Book, Lord Coombe—through the Peerage—through the -Directory! There is no Lady Etynge and there is no 97A in Berford Place! That -is why I came here.” -</p> - -<p> -The man who had stood aside, stepped forward again. It was as if he answered -some sign, though Lord Coombe at the moment crossed the hearth and rang the -bell. -</p> - -<p> -“Scotland Yard knows that, ma’am,” said the man. -“We’ve had our eyes on that house for two weeks, and this kind of -thing is what we want.” -</p> - -<p> -“The double brougham,” was Coombe’s order to the servant who -answered his ring. Then he came back to Mademoiselle. -</p> - -<p> -“Mr. Barkstow is a detective,” he said. “Among the other -things he has done for me, he has, for some time, kept a casual eye on Robin. -She is too lovely a child and too friendless to be quite safe. There are -blackguards who know when a girl has not the usual family protection. He came -here to tell me that she had been seen sitting in Kensington Gardens with a -woman Scotland Yard has reason to suspect.” -</p> - -<p> -“A black ’un!” said Barkstow savagely. “If she’s -the one we think she is—a black, poisonous, sly one with a face that no -girl could suspect.” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe’s still countenance was so deadly in the slow lividness, which -Mademoiselle saw began to manifest itself, that she caught his sleeve with a -shaking hand. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s nothing but a baby!” she said. “She -doesn’t know what a baby she is. I can see her eyes frantic with terror! -She’d go mad.” -</p> - -<p> -“Good God!” he said, in a voice so low it scarcely audible. -</p> - -<p> -He almost dragged her out of the room, though, as they passed through the hall, -the servants only saw that he had given the lady his arm—and two of the -younger footmen exchanged glances with each other which referred solely to the -inimitableness of the cut of his evening overcoat. -</p> - -<p> -When they entered the carriage, Barkstow entered with them and Mademoiselle -Vallé leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her face clutched in her -hands. She was trying to shut out from her mental vision a memory of -Robin’s eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“If—if Fräulein Hirsch is—not true,” she broke out -once. “Count von Hillern is concerned. It has come upon me like a flash. -Why did I not see before?” -</p> - -<p> -The party at the big house, where the red carpet was rolled across the -pavement, was at full height when they drove into the Place. Their brougham did -not stop at the corner but at the end of the line of waiting carriages. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe got out and looked up and down the thoroughfare. -</p> - -<p> -“It must be done quietly. There must be no scandal,” he said. -“The policeman on the beat is an enormous fellow. You will attend to him, -Barkstow,” and Barkstow nodded and strolled away. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe walked up the Place and down on the opposite side until he was within a -few yards of the corner house. When he reached this point, he suddenly -quickened his footsteps because he saw that someone else was approaching it -with an air of intention. It was a man, not quite as tall as himself but of -heavier build and with square held shoulders. As the man set his foot upon the -step, Coombe touched him on the arm and said something in German. -</p> - -<p> -The man started angrily and then suddenly stood quite still and erect. -</p> - -<p> -“It will be better for us to walk up the Place together,” Lord -Coombe said, with perfect politeness. -</p> - -<p> -If he could have been dashed down upon the pavement and his head hammered in -with the handle of a sword, or if he could have been run through furiously -again and again, either or both of these things would have been done. But -neither was possible. It also was not possible to curse aloud in a fashionable -London street. Such curses as one uttered must be held in one’s foaming -mouth between one’s teeth. Count von Hillern knew this better than most -men would have known it. Here was one of those English swine with whom Germany -would deal in her own way later. -</p> - -<p> -They walked back together as if they were acquaintances taking a casual stroll. -</p> - -<p> -“There is nothing which would so infuriate your—Master—as a -disgraceful scandal,” Lord Coombe’s highbred voice suggested -undisturbedly. “The high honour of a German officer—the knightly -bearing of a wearer of the uniform of the All Highest—that sort of thing -you know. All that sort of thing!” -</p> - -<p> -Von Hillern ground out some low spoken and quite awful German words. If he had -not been trapped—if he had been in some quiet by-street! -</p> - -<p> -“The man walking ahead of us is a detective from Scotland Yard. The -particularly heavy and rather martial tread behind us is that of a policeman -much more muscular than either of us. There is a ball going on in the large -house with the red carpet spread across the pavement. I know the people who are -giving it. There are a good many coachmen and footmen about. Most of them would -probably recognize me.” -</p> - -<p> -It became necessary for Count von Hillern actually to wipe away certain flecks -of foam from his lips, as he ground forth again more varied and awful -sentiments in his native tongue. -</p> - -<p> -“You are going back to Berlin,” said Coombe, coldly. “If we -English were not such fools, you would not be here. You are, of course, not -going into that house.” -</p> - -<p> -Von Hillern burst into a derisive laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“You are going yourself,” he said. “You are a worn-out old -<i>roue</i>, but you are mad about her yourself in your senile way.” -</p> - -<p> -“You should respect my age and decrepitude,” answered Coombe. -“A certain pity for my gray hairs would become your youth. Shall we turn -here or will you return to your hotel by some other way?” He felt as if -the man might a burst a blood vessel if he were obliged to further restrain -himself. -</p> - -<p> -Von Hillern wheeled at the corner and confronted him. -</p> - -<p> -“There will come a day—” he almost choked. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Der Tag?</i> Naturally,” the chill of Coombe’s voice was -a sound to drive this particular man at this particular, damnably-thwarted -moment, raving mad. And not to be able to go mad! Not to be able! -</p> - -<p> -“Swine of a doddering Englishman! Who would envy you—trembling on -your lean shanks—whatsoever you can buy for yourself. I spit on -you—spit!” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t,” said Coombe. “You are sputtering to such an -extent that you really <i>are</i>, you know.” -</p> - -<p> -Von Hillern whirled round the corner. -</p> - -<p> -Coombe, left alone, stood still a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“I was in time,” he said to himself, feeling somewhat nauseated. -“By extraordinary luck, I was in time. In earlier days one would have -said something about ‘Provadence’.” And he at once walked -back. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> - -<p> -It was not utterly dark in the room, though Robin, after passing her hands -carefully over the walls, had found no electric buttons within reach nor any -signs of candles or matches elsewhere. The night sky was clear and brilliant -with many stars, and this gave her an unshadowed and lighted space to look at. -She went to the window and sat down on the floor, huddled against the wall with -her hands clasped round her knees, looking up. She did this in the effort to -hold in check a rising tide of frenzy which threatened her. Perhaps, if she -could fix her eyes on the vault full of stars, she could keep herself from -going out of her mind. Though, perhaps, it would be better if she <i>did</i> go -out of her mind, she found herself thinking a few seconds later. -</p> - -<p> -After her first entire acceptance of the hideous thing which had happened to -her, she had passed through nerve breaking phases of terror-stricken -imaginings. The old story of the drowning man across whose brain rush all the -images of life, came back to her. She did not know where or when or how she had -ever heard or read of the ghastly incidents which came trooping up to her and -staring at her with dead or mad eyes and awful faces. Perhaps they were old -nightmares—perhaps a kind of delirium had seized her. She tried to stop -their coming by saying over and over again the prayers Dowie had taught her -when she was a child. And then she thought, with a sob which choked her, that -perhaps they were only prayers for a safe little creature kneeling by a white -bed—and did not apply to a girl locked up in a top room, which nobody -knew about. Only when she thought of Mademoiselle Vallé and Dowie looking for -her—with all London spread out before their helplessness—did she -cry. After that, tears seemed impossible. The images trooped by too close to -her. The passion hidden within her being—which had broken out when she -tore the earth under the shrubbery, and which, with torture staring her in the -face, had leaped in the child’s soul and body and made her defy Andrews -with shrieks—leaped up within her now. She became a young Fury, to whom a -mad fight with monstrous death was nothing. She told herself that she was -strong for a girl—that she could tear with her nails, she could clench -her teeth in a flesh, she could shriek, she could battle like a young madwoman -so that they would be <i>forced</i> to kill her. This was one of the images -which rose up before her again and yet again, A hideous—hideous thing, -which would not remain away. -</p> - -<p> -She had not had any food since the afternoon cup of tea and she began to feel -the need of it. If she became faint—! She lifted her face desperately as -she said it, and saw the immense blue darkness, powdered with millions of stars -and curving over her—as it curved over the hideous house and all the rest -of the world. How high—how immense—how fathomlessly still it -was—how it seemed as if there could be nothing else—that nothing -else could be real! Her hands were clenched together hard and fiercely, as she -scrambled to her knees and uttered a of prayer—not a -child’s—rather the cry of a young Fury making a demand. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps a girl is Nothing,” she cried, “—a girl locked -up in a room! But, perhaps, she is Something—she may be real too! Save -me—save me! But if you won’t save me, let me be killed!” -</p> - -<p> -She knelt silent after it for a few minutes and then she sank down and lay on -the floor with her face on her arm. -</p> - -<p> -How it was possible that even young and worn-out as she was, such peace as -sleep could overcome her at such a time, one cannot say. But in the midst of -her torment she was asleep. -</p> - -<p> -But it was not for long. She wakened with a start and sprang to her feet -shivering. The carriages were still coming and going with guests for the big -house opposite. It could not be late, though she seemed to have been in the -place for years—long enough to feel that it was the hideous centre of the -whole earth and all sane and honest memories were a dream. She thought she -would begin to walk up and down the room. -</p> - -<p> -But a sound she heard at this very instant made her stand stock still. She had -known there would be a sound at last—she had waited for it all the -time—she had known, of course, that it would come, but she had not even -tried to guess whether she would hear it early or late. It would be the sound -of the turning of the handle of the locked door. It had come. There it was! The -click of the lock first and then the creak of the turned handle! -</p> - -<p> -She went to the window again and stood with her back against it, so that her -body was outlined against the faint light. Would the person come in the dark, -or would he carry a light? Something began to whirl in her brain. What was the -low, pumping thump she seemed to hear and feel at the same time? It was the -awful thumping of her heart. -</p> - -<p> -The door opened—not stealthily, but quite in the ordinary way. The person -who came in did not move stealthily either. He came in as though he were making -an evening call. How tall and straight his body was, with a devilish elegance -of line against the background of light in the hall. She thought she saw a -white flower on his lapel as his overcoat fell back. The leering footman had -opened the door for him. -</p> - -<p> -“Turn on the lights.” A voice she knew gave the order, the leering -footman obeyed, touching a spot high on the wall. -</p> - -<p> -She had vaguely and sickeningly felt almost sure that it would be either Count -von Hillern or Lord Coombe—and it was not Count von Hillern! The cold -wicked face—the ironic eyes which made her creep—the absurd, -elderly perfection of dress—even the flawless flower—made her flash -quake with repulsion. If Satan came into the room, he might look like that and -make one’s revolting being quake so. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought—it might be you,” the strange girl’s voice -said to him aloud. -</p> - -<p> -“Robin,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -He was moving towards her and, as she threw out her madly clenched little -hands, he stopped and drew back. -</p> - -<p> -“Why did you think I might come?” he asked. -</p> - -<p> -“Because you are the kind of a man who would do the things only devils -would do. I have hated—hated—hated you since I was a baby. Come and -kill me if you like. Call the footman back to help you, if yon like. I -can’t get away. Kill me—kill me—kill me!” -</p> - -<p> -She was lost in her frenzy and looked as if she were mad. -</p> - -<p> -One moment he hesitated, and then he pointed politely to the sofa. -</p> - -<p> -“Go and sit down, please,” he suggested. It was no more then a -courteous suggestion. “I shall remain here. I have no desire to approach -you—if you’ll pardon my saying so.” -</p> - -<p> -But she would not leave the window. -</p> - -<p> -“It is natural that you should be overwrought,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“This is a damnable thing. You are too young to know the worst of -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are the worst of it!” she cried. “You.” -</p> - -<p> -“No” as the chill of his even voice struck her, she wondered if he -were really human. “Von Hillern would have been the worst of it. I -stopped him at the front door and knew how to send him away. Now, listen, my -good child. Hate me as ferociously as you like. That is a detail. You are in -the house of a woman whose name stands for shame and infamy and crime.” -</p> - -<p> -“What are <i>you</i> doing in it—” she cried again, -“—in a place where girls are trapped—and locked up in top -rooms—to be killed?” -</p> - -<p> -“I came to take you away. I wish to do it quietly. It would be rather -horrible if the public discovered that you have spent some hours here. If I had -not slipped in when they were expecting von Hillern, and if the servants were -not accustomed to the quiet entrance of well dressed men, I could not have got -in without an open row and the calling of the policemen,—which I wished -to avoid. Also, the woman downstairs knows me and realized that I was not lying -when I said the house was surrounded and she was on the point of being -‘run in’. She is a woman of broad experience, and at once knew that -she might as well keep quiet.” -</p> - -<p> -Despite his cold eyes and the bad smile she hated, despite his almost dandified -meticulous attire and the festal note of his white flower, which she hated with -the rest—he was, perhaps, not lying to her. Perhaps for the sake of her -mother he had chosen to save her—and, being the man he was, he had been -able to make use of his past experiences. -</p> - -<p> -She began to creep away from the window, and she felt her legs, all at once, -shaking under her. By the time she reached the Chesterfield sofa she fell down -by it and began to cry. A sort of hysteria seized her, and she shook from head -to foot and clutched at the upholstery with weak hands which clawed. She was, -indeed, an awful, piteous sight. He was perhaps not lying, but she was afraid -of him yet. -</p> - -<p> -“I told the men who are waiting outside that if I did not bring you out -in half an hour, they were to break into the house. I do not wish them to break -in. We have not any time to spare. What you are doing is quite natural, but you -must try and get up.” He stood by her and said this looking down at her -slender, wrung body and lovely groveling head. -</p> - -<p> -He took a flask out of his overcoat pocket—and it was a gem of -goldsmith’s art. He poured some wine into its cup and bent forward to -hold it out to her. -</p> - -<p> -“Drink this and try to stand on your feet,” he said. He knew better -than to try to help her to rise—to touch her in any way. Seeing to what -the past hours had reduced her, he knew better. There was mad fear in her eyes -when she lifted her head and threw out her hand again. -</p> - -<p> -“No! No!” she cried out. “No, I will drink nothing!” He -understood at once and threw the wine into the grate. -</p> - -<p> -“I see,” he said. “You might think it might be drugged. You -are right. It might be. I ought to have thought of that.” He returned the -flask to his pocket. “Listen again. You must. The time will soon be up -and we must not let those fellows break in and make a row that will collect a -crowd We must go at once. Mademoiselle Vallé is waiting for you in my carriage -outside. You will not be afraid to drink wine she gives you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle!” she stammered. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. In my carriage, which is not fifty yards from the house. Can you -stand on your feet?” She got up and stood but she was still shuddering -all over. -</p> - -<p> -“Can you walk downstairs? If you cannot, will you let me carry you? I am -strong enough—in spite of my years.” -</p> - -<p> -“I can walk,” she whispered. -</p> - -<p> -“Will you take my arm?” -</p> - -<p> -She looked at him for a moment with awful, broken-spirited eyes. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I will take your arm.” -</p> - -<p> -He offered it to her with rigid punctiliousness of manner. He did not even look -at her. He led her out of the room and down the three flights of stairs. As -they passed by the open drawing-room door, the lovely woman who had called -herself Lady Etynge stood near it and watched them with eyes no longer gentle. -</p> - -<p> -“I have something to say to you, Madam,” he said; “When I -place this young lady in the hands of her governess, I will come back and say -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is her governess Fräulein Hirsch?” asked the woman lightly. -</p> - -<p> -“No. She is doubtless on her way back to Berlin—and von Hillern -will follow her.” -</p> - -<p> -There was only the first floor flight of stairs now. Robin could scarcely see -her way. But Lord Coombe held her up firmly and, in a few moments more, the -leering footman, grown pale, opened the large door, they crossed the pavement -to the carriage, and she was helped in and fell, almost insensible, across -Mademoiselle Vallé’s lap, and was caught in a strong arm which shook as -she did. -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Ma chèrie</i>,” she heard, “The Good God! Oh, the -good—good God!—And Lord Coombe! Lord Coombe!” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe had gone back to the house. Four men returned with him, two in plain -clothes and two heavily-built policemen. They remained below, but Coombe went -up the staircase with the swift lightness of a man of thirty. -</p> - -<p> -He merely stood upon the threshold of the drawing-room. This was what he said, -and his face was entirely white his eyes appalling. -</p> - -<p> -“My coming back to speak to you is—superfluous—and the result -of pure fury. I allow it to myself as mere shameless indulgence. More is known -against you than this—things which have gone farther and fared worse. You -are not young and you are facing years of life in prison. Your head will be -shaved—your hands worn and blackened and your nails broken with the -picking of oakum. You will writhe in hopeless degradation until you are done -for. You will have time, in the night blackness if of your cell, to -remember—to see faces—to hear cries. Women such as you should learn -what hell on earth means. You will learn.” -</p> - -<p> -When he ended, the woman hung with her back to the wall she had staggered -against, her mouth opening and shutting helplessly but letting forth no sound. -</p> - -<p> -He took out an exquisitely fresh handkerchief and touched his forehead because -it was damp. His eyes were still appalling, but his voice suddenly dropped and -changed. -</p> - -<p> -“I have allowed myself to feel like a madman,” he said. “It -has been a rich experience—good for such a soul as I own.” -</p> - -<p> -He went downstairs and walked home because his carriage had taken Robin and -Mademoiselle back to the slice of a house. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> - -<p> -Von Hillern made no further calls on Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. His return to Berlin -was immediate and Fräulein Hirsch came no more to give lessons in German. -Later, Coombe learned from the man with the steady, blunt-featured face, that -she had crossed the Channel on a night boat not many hours after Von Hillern -had walked away from Berford Place. The exact truth was that she had been -miserably prowling about the adjacent streets, held in the neighbourhood by -some self-torturing morbidness, half thwarted helpless passion, half triumphing -hatred of the young thing she had betrayed. Up and down the streets she had -gone, round and round, wringing her lean fingers together and tasting on her -lips the salt of tears which rolled down her cheeks—tears of torment and -rage. -</p> - -<p> -There was the bitterness of death in what, by a mere trick of chance, came -about. As she turned a corner telling herself for the hundredth time that she -must go home, she found herself face to face with a splendid figure swinging -furiously along. She staggered at the sight of the tigerish rage in the white -face she recognized with a gasp. It was enough merely to behold it. He had met -with some disastrous humiliation! -</p> - -<p> -As for him, the direct intervention of that Heaven whose special care he was, -had sent him a woman to punish—which, so far, was at least one thing -arranged as it should be. He knew so well how he could punish her with his mere -contempt and displeasure—as he could lash a spaniel crawling at his feet. -He need not deign to tell her what had happened, and he did not. He merely drew -back and stood in stiff magnificence looking down at her. -</p> - -<p> -“It is through some folly of yours,” he dropped in a voice of -vitriol. “Women are always foolish. They cannot hold their tongues or -think clearly. Return to Berlin at once. You are not of those whose conduct I -can commend to be trusted in the future.” -</p> - -<p> -He was gone before she could have spoken even if she had dared. Sobbing gasps -caught her breath as she stood and watched him striding pitilessly and superbly -away with, what seemed to her abject soul, the swing and tread of a martial -god. Her streaming tears tasted salt indeed. She might never see him -again—even from a distance. She would be disgraced and flung aside as a -blundering woman. She had obeyed his every word and done her straining best, as -she had licked the dust at his feet—but he would never cast a glance at -her in the future or utter to her the remotest word of his high commands. She -so reeled as she went her wretched way that a good-natured policeman said to -her as he passed, -</p> - -<p> -“Steady on, my girl. Best get home and go to bed.” -</p> - -<p> -To Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was stated by Coombe that Fräulein Hirsch had been -called back to Germany by family complications. That august orders should -recall Count Von Hillern, was easily understood. Such magnificent persons never -shone upon society for any length of time. -</p> - -<p> -That Feather had been making a country home visit when her daughter had faced -tragedy was considered by Lord Coombe as a fortunate thing. -</p> - -<p> -“We will not alarm Mrs. Gareth-Lawless by telling her what has -occurred,” he said to Mademoiselle Vallé. “What we most desire is -that no one shall suspect that the hideous thing took place. A person who was -forgetful or careless might, unintentionally, let some word escape -which—” -</p> - -<p> -What he meant, and what Mademoiselle Vallé knew he meant—also what he -knew she knew he meant—was that a woman, who was a heartless fool, -without sympathy or perception, would not have the delicacy to feel that the -girl must be shielded, and might actually see a sort of ghastly joke in a story -of Mademoiselle Vallé’s sacrosanct charge simply walking out of her -enshrining arms into such a “galere” as the most rackety and -adventurous of pupils could scarcely have been led into. Such a point of view -would have been quite possible for Feather—even probable, in the slightly -spiteful attitude of her light mind. -</p> - -<p> -“She was away from home. Only you and I and Dowie know,” answered -Mademoiselle. -</p> - -<p> -“Let us remain the only persons who know,” said Coombe. -“Robin will say nothing.” -</p> - -<p> -They both knew that. She had been feverish and ill for several days and Dowie -had kept her in bed saying that she had caught cold. Neither of the two women -had felt it possible to talk to her. She had lain staring with a deadly quiet -fixedness straight before her, saying next to nothing. Now and then she -shuddered, and once she broke into a mad, heart-broken fit of crying which she -seemed unable to control. -</p> - -<p> -“Everything is changed,” she said to Dowie and Mademoiselle who sat -on either side of her bed, sometimes pressing her head down onto a kind -shoulder, sometimes holding her hand and patting it. “I shall be afraid -of everybody forever. People who have sweet faces and kind voices will make me -shake all over. Oh! She seemed so kind—so kind!” -</p> - -<p> -It was Dowie whose warm shoulder her face hidden on this time, and Dowie was -choked with sobs she dared not let loose. She could only squeeze hard and kiss -the “silk curls all in a heap”—poor, tumbled curls, no longer -a child’s! -</p> - -<p> -“Aye, my lamb!” she managed to say. “Dowie’s poor pet -lamb!” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s the knowing that kind eyes—kind ones—!” she -broke off, panting. “It’s the <i>knowing!</i> I didn’t know -before! I knew nothing. Now, it’s all over. I’m afraid of all the -world!” -</p> - -<p> -“Not all, <i>chèrie</i>,” breathed Mademoiselle. -</p> - -<p> -She sat upright against her pillows. The mirror on a dressing table reflected -her image—her blooming tear-wet youth, framed in the wonderful hair -falling a shadow about her. She stared at the reflection hard and -questioningly. -</p> - -<p> -“I suppose,” her voice was pathos itself in its helplessness, -“it is because what you once told me about being pretty, is true. A girl -who looks like <i>that</i>,” pointing her finger at the glass, -“need not think she can earn her own living. I loathe it,” in -fierce resentment at some bitter injustice. “It is like being a person -under a curse!” -</p> - -<p> -At this Dowie broke down openly and let her tears run fast. “No, no! You -mustn’t say it or think it, my dearie!” she wept. “It might -call down a blight on it. You a young thing like a garden flower! And -someone—somewhere—God bless him—that some day’ll glory -in it—and you’ll glory too. Somewhere he is—somewhere!” -</p> - -<p> -“Let none of them look at me!” cried Robin. “I loathe them, -too. I hate everything—and everybody—but you two—just you -two.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle took her in her arms this time when she sobbed again. Mademoiselle -knew how at this hour it seemed to her that all her world was laid bare forever -more. When the worst of the weeping was over and she lay quiet, but for the -deep catching breaths which lifted her breast in slow, childish shudders at -intervals, she held Mademoiselle Vallé’s hand and looked at her with a -faint, wry smile. -</p> - -<p> -“You were too kind to tell me what a stupid little fool I was when I -talked to you about taking a place in an office!” she said. “I know -now that you would not have allowed me to do the things I was so sure I could -do. It was only my ignorance and conceit. I can’t answer advertisements. -Any bad person can say what they choose in an advertisement. If that woman had -advertised, she would have described Hélène. And there was no Hélène.” -One of the shuddering catches of her breath broke in here. After it, she said, -with a pitiful girlishness of regret: “I—I could <i>see</i> Hélène. -I have known so few people well enough to love them. No girls at all. I -though—perhaps—we should begin to <i>love</i> each other. I -can’t bear to think of that—that she never was alive at all. It -leaves a sort of empty place.” -</p> - -<p> -When she had sufficiently recovered herself to be up again, Mademoiselle Vallé -said to her that she wished her to express her gratitude to Lord Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“I will if you wish it,” she answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t you feel that it is proper that you should do it? Do you not -wish it yourself?” inquired Mademoiselle. Robin looked down at the carpet -for some seconds. -</p> - -<p> -“I know,” she at last admitted, “that it is proper. But I -don’t wish to do it.” -</p> - -<p> -“No?” said Mademoiselle Vallé. -</p> - -<p> -Robin raised her eyes from the carpet and fixed them on her. -</p> - -<p> -“It is because of—reasons,” she said. “It is part of -the horror I want to forget. Even you mayn’t know what it has done to me. -Perhaps I am turning into a girl with a bad mind. Bad thoughts keep swooping -down on me—like great black ravens. Lord Coombe saved me, but I think -hideous things about him. I heard Andrews say he was bad when I was too little -to know what it meant. Now, I <i>know</i>, I remember that <i>he</i> knew -because he chose to know—of his own free will. He knew that woman and she -knew him. <i>How</i> did he know her?” She took a forward step which -brought her nearer to Mademoiselle. “I never told you but I will tell you -now,” she confessed, “When the door opened and I saw him standing -against the light I—I did not think he had come to save me.” -</p> - -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” breathed Mademoiselle in soft horror. -</p> - -<p> -“He knows I am pretty. He is an old man but he knows. Fräulein Hirsch -once made me feel actually sick by telling me, in her meek, sly, careful way, -that he liked beautiful girls and the people said he wanted a young wife and -had his eye on me. I was rude to her because it made me so furious. <i>How</i> -did he know that woman so well? You see how bad I have been made!” -</p> - -<p> -“He knows nearly all Europe. He has seen the dark corners as well as the -bright places. Perhaps he has saved other girls from her. He brought her to -punishment, and was able to do it because he has been on her track for some -time. You are not bad—but unjust. You have had too great a shock to be -able to reason sanely just yet.” -</p> - -<p> -“I think he will always make me creep a little,” said Robin, -“but I will say anything you think I ought to say.” -</p> - -<p> -On an occasion when Feather had gone again to make a visit in the country, -Mademoiselle came into the sitting room with the round window in which plants -grew, and Coombe followed her. Robin looked up from her book with a little -start and then stood up. -</p> - -<p> -“I have told Lord Coombe that you wish—that I wish you to thank -him,” Mademoiselle Vallé said. -</p> - -<p> -“I came on my own part to tell you that any expression of gratitude is -entirely unnecessary,” said Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“I <i>must</i> be grateful. I <i>am</i> grateful.” Robin’s -colour slowly faded as she said it. This was the first time she had seen him -since he had supported her down the staircase which mounted to a place of hell. -</p> - -<p> -“There is nothing to which I should object so much as being regarded as a -benefactor,” he answered definitely, but with entire lack of warmth. -“The role does not suit me. Being an extremely bad man,” he said it -as one who speaks wholly without prejudice, “my experience is wide. I -chance to know things. The woman who called herself Lady Etynge is of a class -which—which does not count me among its clients. I had put certain -authorities on her track—which was how I discovered your whereabouts when -Mademoiselle Vallé told me that you had gone to take tea with her. Mere chance -you see. Don’t be grateful to me, I beg of you, but to Mademoiselle -Vallé.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why,” faltered Robin, vaguely repelled as much as ever, “did -it matter to you?” -</p> - -<p> -“Because,” he answered—Oh, the cold inhumanness of his gray -eye!—“you happened to live in—this house.” -</p> - -<p> -“I thought that was perhaps the reason,” she said—and she -felt that he made her “creep” even a shade more. -</p> - -<p> -“I beg your pardon,” she added, suddenly remembering, “Please -sit down.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you,” as he sat. “I will because I have something more -to say to you.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin and Mademoiselle seated themselves also and listened. -</p> - -<p> -“There are many hideous aspects of existence which are not considered -necessary portions of a girl’s education,” he began. -</p> - -<p> -“They ought to be,” put in Robin, and her voice was as hard as it -was young. -</p> - -<p> -It was a long and penetrating look he gave her. -</p> - -<p> -“I am not an instructor of Youth. I have not been called upon to decide. -I do not feel it my duty to go even now into detail.” -</p> - -<p> -“You need not,” broke in the hard young voice. “I know -everything in the world. I’m BLACK with knowing.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle will discuss that point with you. What you have, -unfortunately, been forced to learn is that it is not safe for a -girl—even a girl without beauty—to act independently of older -people, unless she has found out how to guard herself -against—devils.” The words broke from him sharply, with a sudden -incongruous hint of ferocity which was almost startling. “You have been -frightened,” he said next, “and you have discovered that there are -devils, but you have not sufficient experience to guard yourself against -them.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have been so frightened that I shall be a coward—a coward all my -life. I shall be afraid of every face I see—the more to be trusted they -look, the more I shall fear them. I hate every one in the world!” -</p> - -<p> -Her quite wonderful eyes—so they struck Lord Coombe—flamed with a -child’s outraged anguish. A thunder shower of tears broke and rushed down -her cheeks, and he rose and, walking quietly to the window full of flowers, -stood with his back to her for a few moments. She neither cared nor knew -whether it was because her hysteric emotion bored or annoyed him, or because he -had the taste to realize that she would not wish to be looked at. Unhappy youth -can feel no law but its own. -</p> - -<p> -But all was over during the few moments, and he turned and walked back to his -chair. -</p> - -<p> -“You want very much to do some work which will insure your entire -independence—to take some situation which will support you without aid -from others? You are not yet prepared to go out and take the first place which -offers. You have been—as you say—too hideously frightened, and you -know there are dangers in wandering about unguided. Mademoiselle Vallé,” -turning his head, “perhaps you will tell her what you know of the Duchess -of Darte?” -</p> - -<p> -Upon which, Mademoiselle Vallé took hold of her hand and entered into a careful -explanation. -</p> - -<p> -“She is a great personage of whom there can be no doubt. She was a lady -of the Court. She is of advanced years and an invalid and has a liking for -those who are pretty and young. She desires a companion who is well educated -and young and fresh of mind. The companion who had been with her for many years -recently died. If you took her place you would live with her in her town house -and go with her to the country after the season. Your salary would be liberal -and no position could be more protected and dignified. I have seen and talked -to her grace myself, and she will allow me to take you to her, if you desire to -go.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do not permit the fact that she has known me for many years to prejudice -you against the proposal,” said Coombe. “You might perhaps regard -it rather as a sort of guarantee of my conduct in the matter. She knows the -worst of me and still allows me to retain her acquaintance. She was brilliant -and full of charm when she was a young woman, and she is even more so now -because she is—of a rarity! If I were a girl and might earn my living in -her service, I should feel that fortune had been good to me—good.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin’s eyes turned from one of them to the other—from Coombe to -Mademoiselle Vallé, and from Mademoiselle to Coombe pathetically. -</p> - -<p> -“You—you see—what has been done to me,” she said. -“A few weeks ago I should have <i>known</i> that God was providing for -me—taking care of me. And now—I am still afraid. I feel as if she -would see that—that I am not young and fresh any more but black with -evil. I am afraid of her—I am afraid of you,” to Coombe, “and -of myself.” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe rose, evidently to go away. -</p> - -<p> -“But you are not afraid of Mademoiselle Vallé,” he put it to her. -“She will provide the necessary references for the Duchess. I will leave -her to help you to decide.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin rose also. She wondered if she ought not to hold out her hand. Perhaps he -saw her slight movement. He himself made none. -</p> - -<p> -“I remember you objected to shaking hands as a child,” he said, -with an impersonal civil smile, and the easy punctiliousness of his bow made it -impossible for her to go further. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> - -<p> -Some days before this the Duchess of Darte had driven out in the morning to -make some purchases and as she had sat in her large landau she had greatly -missed Miss Brent who had always gone with her when she had made necessary -visits to the shops. She was not fond of shopping and Miss Brent had privately -found pleasure in it which had made her a cheerful companion. To the quiet -elderly woman whose life previous to her service with this great lady had been -spent in struggles with poverty, the mere incident of entering shops and -finding eager salesmen springing forward to meet her with bows and amiable -offers of ministration, was to the end of her days an almost thrilling thing. -The Duchess bought splendidly though quietly. Knowing always what she wanted, -she merely required that it be produced, and after silently examining it gave -orders that it should be sent to her. There was a dignity in her decision which -was impressive. She never gave trouble or hesitated. The staffs of employees in -the large shops knew and reveled in her while they figuratively bent the knee. -Miss Brent had been a happy satisfied woman while she had lived. She had died -peacefully after a brief and, as it seemed at first, unalarming illness at one -of her employer’s country houses to which she had been amiably sent down -for a holiday. Every kindness and attention had been bestowed upon her and only -a few moments before she fell into her last sleep she had been talking -pleasantly of her mistress. -</p> - -<p> -“She is a very great lady, Miss Hallam,” she had said to her nurse. -“She’s the last of her kind I often think. Very great ladies seem -to have gone out—if you know what I mean. They’ve gone out.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess had in fact said of Brent as she stood a few days later beside her -coffin and looked down at her contentedly serene face, something not unlike -what Brent had said of herself. -</p> - -<p> -“You were a good friend, Brent, my dear,” she murmured. “I -shall always miss you. I am afraid there are no more like you left.” -</p> - -<p> -She was thinking of her all the morning as she drove slowly down to Bond Street -and Piccadilly. As she got out of her carriage to go into a shop she was -attracted by some photographs of beauties in a window and paused to glance at -them. Many of them were beauties whom she knew, but among them were some of -society’s latest discoveries. The particular photographs which caught her -eye were two which had evidently been purposely placed side by side for an -interesting reason. The reason was that the two women, while obviously -belonging to periods of some twenty years apart as the fashion of their dress -proved, were in face and form so singularly alike that they bewilderingly -suggested that they were the same person. Both were exquisitely nymphlike, fair -and large eyed and both had the fine light hair which is capable of forming -itself into a halo. The Duchess stood and looked at them for the moment -spell-bound. She slightly caught her breath. She was borne back so swiftly and -so far. Her errand in the next door shop was forgotten. She went into the one -which displayed the photographs. -</p> - -<p> -“I wish to look at the two photographs which are so much alike,” -she said to the man behind the counter. -</p> - -<p> -He knew her as most people did and brought forth the photographs at once. -</p> - -<p> -“Many people are interested in them, your grace,” he said. -“It was the amazing likeness which made me put them beside each -other.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she answered. “It is almost incredible.” She -looked up from the beautiful young being dressed in the mode of twenty years -past. -</p> - -<p> -“This is—<i>was</i>—?” she corrected herself and -paused. The man replied in a somewhat dropped voice. He evidently had his -reasons for feeling it discreet to do so. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—<i>was</i>. She died twenty years ago. The young Princess -Alixe of X—” he said. “There was a sad story, your grace no -doubt remembers. It was a good deal talked about.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she replied and said no more, but took up the modern -picture. It displayed the same almost floating airiness of type, but in this -case the original wore diaphanous wisps of spangled tulle threatening to take -wings and fly away leaving the girl slimness of arms and shoulders bereft of -any covering whatsoever. -</p> - -<p> -“This one is—?” she questioned. -</p> - -<p> -“A Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. A widow with a daughter though she looks in her -teens. She’s older than the Princess was, but she’s kept her beauty -as ladies know how to in these days. It’s wonderful to see them side by -side. But it’s only a few that saw her Highness as she was the season she -came with the Prince to visit at Windsor in Queen Victoria’s day. Did -your grace—” he checked himself feeling that he was perhaps -somewhat exceeding Bond Street limits. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I saw her,” said the Duchess. “If these are for sale I -will take them both.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m selling a good many of them. People buy them because the -likeness makes them a sort of curiosity. Mrs. Gareth-Lawless is a very modern -lady and she is quite amused.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess took the two photographs home with her and looked at them a great -deal afterwards as she sat in her winged chair. -</p> - -<p> -They were on her table when Coombe came to drink tea with her in the afternoon. -</p> - -<p> -When he saw them he stood still and studied the two faces silently for several -seconds. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you ever see a likeness so wonderful?” he said at last. -</p> - -<p> -“Never,” she answered. “Or an unlikeness. That is the most -wonderful of all—the unlikeness. It is the same body inhabited by two -souls from different spheres.” -</p> - -<p> -His next words were spoken very slowly. -</p> - -<p> -“I should have been sure you would see that,” he commented. -</p> - -<p> -“I lost my breath for a second when I saw them side by side in the shop -window—and the next moment I lost it again because I saw—what I -speak of—the utter world wide apartness. It is in their eyes. -She—,” she touched the silver frame enclosing the young Princess, -“was a little saint—a little spirit. There never was a young human -thing so transparently pure.” -</p> - -<p> -The rigid modeling of his face expressed a thing which, himself recognizing its -presence, he chose to turn aside as he moved towards the mantel and leaned on -it. The same thing caused his voice to sound hoarse and low as he spoke in -answer, saying something she had not expected him to say. Its unexpectedness in -fact produced in her an effect of shock. -</p> - -<p> -“And she was the possession of a brute incarnate, mad with unbridled lust -and drink and abnormal furies. She was a child saint, and shook with terror -before him. He killed her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I believe he did,” she said unsteadily after a breath space of -pause. “Many people believed so though great effort was made to silence -the stories. But there were too many stories and they were so unspeakable that -even those in high places were made furiously indignant. He was not received -here at Court afterwards. His own emperor could not condone what he did. Public -opinion was too strong.” -</p> - -<p> -“The stories were true,” answered the hoarse low voice. “I -myself, by royal command, was a guest at the Schloss in the Bavarian Alps when -it was known that he struck her repeatedly with a dog whip. She was going to -have a child. One night I was wandering in the park in misery and I heard -shrieks which sent me in mad search. I do not know what I should have done if I -had succeeded, but I tried to force an entrance into the wing from which the -shrieks came. I was met and stopped almost by open violence. The sounds ceased. -She died a week later. But the most experienced lying could not hide some -things. Even royal menials may have human blood in their veins. It was known -that there were hideous marks on her little dead body.” -</p> - -<p> -“We heard. We heard,” whispered the Duchess. -</p> - -<p> -“He killed her. But she would have died of horror if he had not struck -her a blow. She began to die from the hour the marriage was forced upon her. I -saw that when she was with him at Windsor.” -</p> - -<p> -“You were in attendance on him,” the Duchess said after a little -silence. “That was when I first knew you.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” She had added the last sentence gravely and his reply was as -grave though his voice was still hoarse. “You were sublime goodness and -wisdom. When a woman through the sheer quality of her silence saves a man from -slipping over the verge of madness he does not forget. While I was sane I dared -scarcely utter her name. If I had gone mad I should have raved as madmen do. -For that reason I was afraid.” -</p> - -<p> -“I knew. Speech was the greatest danger,” she answered him. -“She was a princess of a royal house—poor little angel—and -she had a husband whose vileness and violence all Europe knew. How <i>dared</i> -they give her to him?” -</p> - -<p> -“For reasons of their own and because she was too humbly innocent and -obedient to rebel.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess did not ask questions. The sublime goodness of which he had spoken -had revealed its perfection through the fact that in the long past days she had -neither questioned nor commented. She had given her strong soul’s secret -support to him and in his unbearable hours he had known that when he came to -her for refuge, while she understood his need to the uttermost, she would speak -no word even to himself. -</p> - -<p> -But today though she asked no question her eyes waited upon him as it were. -This was because she saw that for some unknown reason a heavy veil had rolled -back from the past he had chosen to keep hidden even from himself, as it were, -more than from others. -</p> - -<p> -“Speech is always the most dangerous thing,” he said. “Only -the silence of years piled one upon the other will bury unendurable things. -Even thought must be silenced. I have lived a lifetime since—” his -words began to come very slowly—as she listened she felt as if he were -opening a grave and drawing from its depths long buried things, -“—since the night when I met her alone in a wood in the park of the -Schloss and—lost hold of myself—lost it utterly.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess’ withered hands caught each other in a clasp which was almost -like a passionate exclamation. -</p> - -<p> -“There was such a night. And I was young—young—not an iron -bound <i>vieillard</i> then. When one is young one’s anguish is the -Deluge which ends the world forever. I had lain down and risen up and spent -every hour in growing torture for months. I had been forced to bind myself down -with bands of iron. When I found myself, without warning, face to face with -her, alone in the night stillness of the wood, the bands broke. She had dared -to creep out in secret to hide herself and her heartbroken terror in the -silence and darkness alone. I knew it without being told. I knew and I went -quite mad for the time. I was only a boy. I threw myself face downward on the -earth and sobbed, embracing her young feet.” -</p> - -<p> -Both of them were quite silent for a few moments before he went on. -</p> - -<p> -“She was not afraid,” he said, even with something which was like a -curious smile of tender pity at the memory. “Afterwards—when I -stood near her, trembling—she even took my hand and held it. Once she -kissed it humbly like a little child while her tears rained down. Never before -was there anything as innocently heartbreaking. She was so piteously grateful -for love of any kind and so heart wrung by my misery.” -</p> - -<p> -He paused again and looked down at the carpet, thinking. Then he looked up at -her directly. -</p> - -<p> -“I need not explain to you. You will know. I was twenty-five. My heart -was pounding in my side, my blood thudded through my veins. Every atom of -natural generous manhood in my being was wild with fury at the brutal wrong -done her exquisiteness. And she—” -</p> - -<p> -“She was a young novice fresh from a convent and very pious,” the -Duchess’ quiet voice put in. -</p> - -<p> -“You understand,” he answered. “She knelt down and prayed for -her own soul as well as mine. She thanked God that I was kind and would forgive -her and go away—and only remember her in my prayers. She believed it was -possible. It was not, but I kissed the hem of her white dress and left her -standing alone—a little saint in a woodland shrine. That was what I -thought deliriously as I staggered off. It was the next night that I heard her -shrieks. Then she died.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess knew what else had died—the high adventure of youth and joy -of life in him, the brilliant spirit which had been himself and whose utter -withdrawal from his being had left him as she had seen him on his return to -London in those days which now seemed a memory of a past life in a world which -had passed also. He had appeared before her late one afternoon and she had for -a moment been afraid to look at him because she was struck to the depths of her -being by a sense of seeing before her a body which had broken the link holding -it to life and walked the earth, the crowded streets, the ordinary rooms where -people gathered, a dead thing. Even while it moved it gazed out of dead eyes. -And the years had passed and though they had been friends he had never spoken -until now. -</p> - -<p> -“Such a thing must be buried in a tomb covered with a heavy stone and -with a seal set upon it. I am unsealing a tomb,” he said. Then after a -silence he added, “I have, of cause, a reason.” She bent her head -because she had known this must be the case. -</p> - -<p> -“There is a thing I wish you to understand. Every woman could not.” -</p> - -<p> -“I shall understand.” -</p> - -<p> -“Because I know you will I need not enter into exact detail. You will not -find what I say abnormal.” -</p> - -<p> -There had been several pauses during his relation. Once or twice he had stopped -in the middle of a sentence as if for calmer breath or to draw himself back -from a past which had suddenly become again a present of torment too great to -face with modern steadiness. He took breath so to speak in this manner again. -</p> - -<p> -“The years pass, the agony of being young passes. One slowly becomes -another man,” he resumed. “I am another man. I could not be called -a creature of sentiment. I have given myself interests in existence—many -of them. But the sealed tomb is under one’s feet. Not to allow oneself to -acknowledge its existence consciously is one’s affair. But—the -devil of chance sometimes chooses to play tricks. Such a trick was played on -me.” -</p> - -<p> -He glanced down at the two pictures at which she herself was looking with grave -eyes. It was the photograph of Feather he took up and set a strange questioning -gaze upon. -</p> - -<p> -“When I saw this,” he said, “this—exquisitely smiling -at me under a green tree in a sunny garden—the tomb opened under my feet, -and I stood on the brink of it—twenty-five again.” -</p> - -<p> -“You cannot possibly put it into words,” the Duchess said. -“You need not. I know.” For he had become for the moment almost -livid. Even to her who so well knew him it was a singular thing to see him -hastily set down the picture and touch his forehead with his handkerchief. -</p> - -<p> -She knew he was about to tell her his reason for this unsealing of the tomb. -When he sat down at her table he did so. He did not use many phrases, but in -making clear his reasons he also made clear to her certain facts which most -persons would have ironically disbelieved. But no shadow of a doubt passed -through her mind because she had through a long life dwelt interestedly on the -many variations in human type. She was extraordinarily interested when he ended -with the story of Robin. -</p> - -<p> -“I do not know exactly why ‘it matters to me’—I am -quoting her mother,” he explained, “but it happens that I am -determined to stand between the child and what would otherwise be the -inevitable. It is not that she has the slightest resemblance to—to -anyone—which might awaken memory. It is not that. She and her mother are -of totally different types. And her detestation of me is unconquerable. She -believes me to be the worst of men. When I entered the room into which the -woman had trapped her, she thought that I came as one of the creature’s -damnable clients. You will acknowledge that my position presents difficulties -in the way of explanation to a girl—to most adults in fact. Her childish -frenzy of desire to support herself arises from her loathing of the position of -accepting support from me. I sympathize with her entirely.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle Vallé is an intelligent woman,” the Duchess said as -though thinking the matter out. “Send her to me and we will talk the -matter over. Then she can bring the child.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> - -<p> -As a result of this, her grace saw Mademoiselle Vallé alone a few mornings -later and talked to her long and quietly. Their comprehension of each other was -complete. Before their interview was at an end the Duchess’ interest in -the adventure she was about to enter into had become profound. -</p> - -<p> -“The sooner she is surrounded by a new atmosphere, the better,” was -one of the things the Frenchwoman had said. “The prospect of an -arrangement so perfect and so secure fills me with the profoundest gratitude. -It is absolutely necessary that I return to my parents in Belgium. They are old -and failing in health and need me greatly. I have been sad and anxious for -months because I felt that it would be wickedness to desert this poor child. I -have been torn in two. Now I can be at peace—thank the good God.” -</p> - -<p> -“Bring her to me tomorrow if possible,” the Duchess said when they -parted. “I foresee that I may have something to overcome in the fact that -I am Lord Coombe’s old friend, but I hope to be able to overcome -it.” -</p> - -<p> -“She is a baby—she is of great beauty—she has a passionate -little soul of which she knows nothing.” Mademoiselle Vallé said it with -an anxious reflectiveness. “I have been afraid. If I were her -mother——” her eyes sought those of the older woman. -</p> - -<p> -“But she has no mother,” her grace answered. Her own eyes were -serious. She knew something of girls, of young things, of the rush and tumult -of young life in them and of the outlet it demanded. A baby who was of great -beauty and of a passionate soul was no trivial undertaking for a rheumatic old -duchess, but—“Bring her to me,” she said. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -So was Robin brought to the tall Early Victorian mansion in the belatedly -stately square. And the chief thought in her mind was that though mere good -manners demanded under the circumstances that she should come to see the -Dowager Duchess of Darte and be seen by her, if she found that she was like -Lord Coombe, she would not be able to endure the prospect of a future spent in -her service howsoever desirable such service might outwardly appear. This -desirableness Mademoiselle Vallé had made clear to her. She was to be the -companion of a personage of great and mature charm and grace who desired not -mere attendance, but something more, which something included the warmth and -fresh brightness of happy youth and bloom. She would do for her employer the -things a young relative might do. She would have a suite of rooms of her own -and a freedom as to hours and actions which greater experience on her part -would have taught was not the customary portion meted out to a paid companion. -But she knew nothing of paid service and a preliminary talk of Coombe’s -with Mademoiselle Vallé had warned her against allowing any suspicion that this -“earning a living” had been too obviously ameliorated. -</p> - -<p> -“Her life is unusual. She herself is unusual in a most dignified and -beautiful way. You will, it might almost be said, hold the position of a young -lady in waiting,” was Mademoiselle’s gracefully put explanation. -</p> - -<p> -When, after they had been ushered into the room where her grace sat in her -beautiful and mellow corner by the fire, Robin advanced towards the highbacked -chair, what the old woman was chiefly conscious of was the eyes which seemed -all lustrous iris. There was uncommon appeal and fear in them. The blackness of -their setting of up-curled lashes made them look babyishly wide. -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle Vallé has told me of your wish to take a position as -companion,” the Duchess said after they were seated. -</p> - -<p> -“I want very much,” said Robin, “to support myself and -Mademoiselle thinks that I might fill such a place if I am not considered too -young.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are not too young—for me. I want something young to come and -befriend me. Am I too old for <i>you?</i>” Her smile had been celebrated -fifty years earlier and it had not changed. A smile does not. She was not like -Lord Coombe in any degree however remote. She did not belong to his world, -Robin thought. -</p> - -<p> -“If I can do well enough the things you require done,” she answered -blushing her Jacqueminot rose blush, “I shall be grateful if you will let -me try to do them. Mademoiselle will tell you that I have no experience, but -that I am one who tries well.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle has answered all my questions concerning your -qualifications so satisfactorily that I need ask you very few.” -</p> - -<p> -Such questions as she asked were not of the order Robin had expected. She led -her into talk and drew Mademoiselle Vallé into the conversation. It was talk -which included personal views of books, old gardens and old houses, people, -pictures and even—lightly—politics. Robin found herself quite -incidentally, as it were, reading aloud to her an Italian poem. She ceased to -be afraid and was at ease. She forgot Lord Coombe. The Duchess listening and -watching her warmed to her task of delicate investigation and saw reason for -anticipating agreeably stimulating things. She was not taking upon herself a -merely benevolent duty which might assume weight and become a fatigue. In fact -she might trust Coombe for that. After all it was he who had virtually educated -the child—little as she was aware of the singular fact. It was he who had -dragged her forth from her dog kennel of a top floor nursery and quaintly -incongruous as it seemed, had found her a respectable woman for a nurse and an -intelligent person for a governess and companion as if he had been a -domesticated middle class widower with a little girl to play mother to. She saw -in the situation more than others would have seen in it, but she saw also the -ironic humour of it. Coombe—with the renowned cut of his -overcoat—the perfection of his line and scarcely to be divined -suggestions of hue—Coombe! -</p> - -<p> -She did not avoid all mention of his name during the interview, but she spoke -of him only casually, and though the salary she offered was an excellent one, -it was not inordinate. Robin could not feel that she was not being accepted as -of the class of young persons who support themselves self-respectingly, though -even the most modest earned income would have represented wealth to her -ignorance. -</p> - -<p> -Before they parted she had obtained the position so pleasantly described by -Mademoiselle Vallé as being something like that of a young lady in waiting. -“But I am really a companion and I will do everything—everything I -can so that I shall be worth keeping,” she thought seriously. She felt -that she should want to be kept. If Lord Coombe was a friend of her -employer’s it was because the Duchess did not know what others knew. And -her house was not his house—and the hideous thing she had secretly -loathed would be at an end. She would be supporting herself as decently and -honestly as Mademoiselle or Dowie had supported themselves all their lives. -</p> - -<p> -With an air of incidentally recalling a fact, the Duchess said after they had -risen to leave her: -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle Vallé tells me you have an elderly nurse you are very fond -of. She seems to belong to a class of servants almost extinct.” -</p> - -<p> -“I love her,” Robin faltered—because the sudden reminder -brought back a pang to her. There was a look in her eyes which faltered also. -“She loves me. I don’t know how——” but there she -stopped. -</p> - -<p> -“Such women are very valuable to those who know the meaning of their -type. I myself am always in search of it. My dear Miss Brent was of it, though -of a different class.” -</p> - -<p> -“But most people do not know,” said Robin. “It seems -old-fashioned to them—and it’s beautiful! Dowie is an angel.” -</p> - -<p> -“I should like to secure your Dowie for my housekeeper and -myself,”—one of the greatest powers of the celebrated smile was its -power to convince. “A competent person is needed to take charge of the -linen. If we can secure an angel we shall be fortunate.” -</p> - -<p> -A day or so later she said to Coombe in describing the visit. -</p> - -<p> -“The child’s face is wonderful. If you could but have seen her eyes -when I said it. It is not the mere beauty of size and shape and colour which -affect one. It is something else. She is a little flame of feeling.” -</p> - -<p> -The “something else” was in the sound of her voice as she answered. -</p> - -<p> -“She will be in the same house with me! Sometimes perhaps I may see her -and talk to her! Oh! how <i>grateful</i> I am!” She might even see and -talk to her as often as she wished, it revealed itself and when she and -Mademoiselle got into their hansom cab to drive away, she caught at the -Frenchwoman’s hand and clung to it, her eyelashes wet, -</p> - -<p> -“It is as if there <i>must</i> be Goodness which takes care of -one,” she said. “I used to believe in it so—until I was -afraid of all the world. Dowie means most of all. I did not know how I could -bear to let her go away. And since her husband and her daughter died, she has -no one but me. I should have had no one but her if you had gone back to -Belgium, Mademoiselle. And now she will be safe in the same house with me. -Perhaps the Duchess will keep her until she dies. I hope she will keep me until -I die. I will be as good and faithful as Dowie and perhaps the Duchess will -live until I am quite old—and not pretty any more. And I will make -economies as you have made them, Mademoiselle, and save all my salary—and -I might be able to end my days in a little cottage in the country.” -</p> - -<p> -Mademoiselle was conscious of an actual physical drag at her heartstrings. The -pulsating glow of her young loveliness had never been more moving and oh! the -sublime certainty of her unconsciousness that Life lay between this hour and -that day when she was “quite old and not pretty any more” and -having made economies could die in a little cottage in the country! She -believed in her vision as she had believed that Donal would come to her in the -garden. -</p> - -<p> -Upon Feather the revelation that her daughter had elected to join the ranks of -girls who were mysteriously determined to be responsible for themselves -produced a curious combination of effects. It was presented to her by Lord -Coombe in the form of a simple impersonal statement which had its air of -needing no explanation. She heard it with eyes widening a little and a smile -slowly growing. Having heard, she broke into a laugh, a rather high-pitched -treble laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Really?” she said. “She is really going to do it? To take a -situation! She wants to be independent and ‘live her own life!’ -What a joke—for a girl of mine!” She was either really amused or -chose to seem so. -</p> - -<p> -“What do <i>you</i> think of it?” she asked when she stopped -laughing. Her eyes had curiosity in them. -</p> - -<p> -“I like it,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course. I ought to have remembered that you helped her to an Early -Victorian duchess. She’s one without a flaw—the Dowager Duchess of -Darte. The most conscientiously careful mother couldn’t object. -It’s almost like entering into the kingdom of heaven—in a dull -way.” She began to laugh again as if amusing images rose suddenly before -her. “And what does the Duchess think of it?” she said after her -laughter had ceased again. “How does she reconcile herself to the idea of -a companion whose mother she wouldn’t have in her house?” -</p> - -<p> -“We need not enter into that view of the case. You decided some years ago -that it did not matter to you whether Early Victorian duchesses included you in -their visiting lists or did not. More modern ones do I believe—quite -beautiful and amusing ones.” -</p> - -<p> -“But for that reason I want this one and those like her. They would bore -me, but I want them. I want them to come to my house and be polite to me in -their stuffy way. I want to be invited to their hideous dinner parties and see -them sitting round their tables in their awful family jewels ‘talking of -the sad deaths of kings.’ That’s Shakespeare, you know. I heard it -last night at the theatre.” -</p> - -<p> -“Why do you want it?” Coombe inquired. -</p> - -<p> -“When I ask you why you show your morbid interest in Robin, you say you -don’t know. I don’t know—but I do want it.” -</p> - -<p> -She suddenly flushed, she even showed her small teeth. For an extraordinary -moment she looked like a little cat. -</p> - -<p> -“Robin will hare it,” she cried, grinding a delicate fist into the -palm on her knee. “She’s not eighteen and she’s a beauty and -she’s taken up by a perfectly decent old duchess. She’ll have -<i>everything!</i> The Dowager will marry her to someone important. -You’ll help,” she turned on him in a flame of temper. “You -are capable of marrying her yourself!” There was a a brief but entire -silence. It was broken by his saying, -</p> - -<p> -“She is not capable of marrying <i>me</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -There was brief but entire silence again, and it was he who again broke it, his -manner at once cool and reasonable. -</p> - -<p> -“It is better not to exhibit this kind of feeling. Let us be quite frank. -There are few things you feel more strongly than that you do not want your -daughter in the house. When she was a child you told me that you detested the -prospect of having her on your hands. She is being disposed of in the most -easily explained and enviable manner.” -</p> - -<p> -“It’s true—it’s true,” Feather murmured. She -began to see advantages and the look of a little cat died out, or at least -modified itself into that of a little cat upon whom dawned prospects of cream. -No mood ever held her very long. “She won’t come back to -stay,” she said. “The Duchess won’t let her. I can use her -rooms and I shall be very glad to have them. There’s at least some -advantage in figuring as a sort of Dame Aux Camelias.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> - -<p> -The night before Robin went away as she sat alone in the dimness of one light, -thinking as girls nearly always sit and think on the eve of a change, because -to youth any change seems to mean the final closing as well as the opening of -ways, the door of her room was opened and an exquisite and nymphlike figure in -pale green stood exactly where the rays of the reading lamp seemed to -concentrate themselves in an effort to reveal most purely its delicately -startling effect. It was her mother in a dress whose spring-like tint made her -a sort of slim dryad. She looked so pretty and young that Robin caught her -breath as she rose and went forward. -</p> - -<p> -“It is your aged parent come to give you her blessing,” said -Feather. -</p> - -<p> -“I was wondering if I might come to your room in the morning,” -Robin answered. -</p> - -<p> -Feather seated herself lightly. She was not intelligent enough to have any real -comprehension of the mood which had impelled her to come. She had merely given -way to a secret sense of resentment of something which annoyed her. She knew, -however, why she had put on the spring-leaf green dress which made her look -like a girl. She was not going to let Robin feel as if she were receiving a -visit from her grandmother. She had got that far. -</p> - -<p> -“We don’t know each other at all, do we?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” answered Robin. She could not remove her eyes from her -loveliness. She brought up such memories of the Lady Downstairs and the -desolate child in the shabby nursery. -</p> - -<p> -“Mothers are not as intimate with their daughters as they used to be when -it was a sort of virtuous fashion to superintend their rice pudding and lecture -them about their lessons. We have not seen each other often.” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” said Robin. -</p> - -<p> -Feather’s laugh had again the rather high note Coombe had noticed. -</p> - -<p> -“You haven’t very much to say, have you?” she commented. -“And you stare at me as if you were trying to explain me. I dare say you -know that you have big eyes and that they’re a good colour, but I may as -well hint to you that men do not like to be stared at as if their deeps were -being searched. Drop your eyelids.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin’s lids dropped in spite of herself because she was startled, but -immediately she was startled again by a note in her mother’s -voice—a note of added irritation. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t make a habit of dropping them too often,” it broke -out, “or it will look as if you did it to show your eyelashes. Girls with -tricks of that sort are always laughed at. Alison Carr <i>lives</i> sideways -became she has a pretty profile.” -</p> - -<p> -Coombe would have recognized the little cat look, if he had been watching her -as she leaned back in her chair and scrutinized her daughter. The fact was that -she took in her every point, being an astute censor of other women’s -charms. -</p> - -<p> -“Stand up,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -Robin stood up because she could not well refuse to do so, but she coloured -because she was suddenly ashamed. -</p> - -<p> -“You’re not little, but you’re not tall,” her mother -said. “That’s against you. It’s the fashion for women to be -immensely tall now. Du Maurier’s pictures in Punch and his idiotic Trilby -did it. Clothes are made for giantesses. I don’t care about it myself, -but a girl’s rather out of it if she’s much less than six feet -high. You can sit down.” -</p> - -<p> -A more singular interview between mother and daughter had assuredly rarely -taken place. As she looked at the girl her resentment of her increased each -moment. She actually felt as if she were beginning to lose her temper. -</p> - -<p> -“You are what pious people call ‘going out into the -world’,” she went on. “In moral books mothers always give -advice and warnings to their girls when they’re leaving them. I can give -you some warnings. You think that because you have been taken up by a dowager -duchess everything will be plain sailing. You’re mistaken. You think -because you are eighteen and pretty, men will fall at your feet.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would rather be hideous,” cried suddenly passionate Robin. -“I <i>hate</i> men!” -</p> - -<p> -The silly pretty thing who was responsible for her being, grew sillier as her -irritation increased. -</p> - -<p> -“That’s what girls always pretend, but the youngest little idiot -knows it isn’t true. It’s men who count. It makes me laugh when I -think of them—and of you. You know nothing about them and they know -everything about you. A clever man can do anything he pleases with a silly -girl.” -</p> - -<p> -“Are they <i>all</i> bad?” Robin exclaimed furiously. -</p> - -<p> -“They’re none of them bad. They’re only men. And that’s -my warning. Don’t imagine that when they make love to you they do it as -if you were the old Duchess’ granddaughter. You will only be her paid -companion and that’s a different matter.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will not speak to one of them——” Robin actually -began. -</p> - -<p> -“You’ll be obliged to do what the Duchess tells you to do,” -laughed Feather, as she realized her obvious power to dull the glitter and glow -of things which she had felt the girl must be dazzled and uplifted unduly by. -She was rather like a spiteful schoolgirl entertaining herself by spoiling an -envied holiday for a companion. “Old men will run after you and you will -have to be nice to them whether you like it or not.” A queer light came -into her eyes. “Lord Coombe is fond of girls just out of the schoolroom. -But if he begins to make love to you don’t allow yourself to feel too -much flattered.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin sprang toward her. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you think I don’t <i>abhor</i> Lord Coombe!” she cried -out forgetting herself in the desperate cruelty of the moment. -“Haven’t I reason——” but there she remembered and -stopped. -</p> - -<p> -But Feather was not shocked or alarmed. Years of looking things in the face had -provided her with a mental surface from which tilings rebounded. On the whole -it even amused her and “suited her book” that Robin should take -this tone. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! I suppose you mean you know he admires me and pays bills for me. -Where would you have been if he hadn’t done it? He’s been a sort of -benefactor.” -</p> - -<p> -“I know nothing but that even when I was a little child I could not bear -to touch his hand!” cried Robin. Then Feather remembered several things -she had almost forgotten and she was still more entertained. -</p> - -<p> -“I believe you’ve not forgotten through all these years that the -boy you fell so indecently in love with was taken away by his mother because -Lord Coombe was <i>your</i> mother’s admirer and he was such a sinner -that even a baby was contaminated by him! Donal Muir is a young man by this -time. I wonder what his mother would do now if he turned up at your -mistress’ house—that’s what she is, you know, your -mistress—and began to make love to you.” She laughed outright. -“You’ll get into all sorts of messes, but that would be the nicest -one!” -</p> - -<p> -Robin could only stand and gaze at her. Her moment’s fire had died down. -Without warning, out of the past a wave rose and overwhelmed her then and -there. It bore with it the wild woe of the morning when a child had waited in -the spring sun and her world had fallen into nothingness. It came -back—the broken-hearted anguish, the utter helpless desolation, as if she -stood in the midst of it again, as if it had never passed. It was a -re-incarnation. She could not bear it. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you hate me—as I hate Lord Coombe?” she cried out. -“Do you <i>want</i> unhappy things to happen to me? Oh! Mother, -why!” She had never said “Mother” before. Nature said it for -her here. The piteous appeal of her youth and lonely young rush of tears was -almost intolerably sweet. Through some subtle cause it added to the thing in -her which Feather resented and longed to trouble and to hurt. -</p> - -<p> -“You are a spiteful little cat!” she sprang up to exclaim, standing -close and face to face with her. “You think I am an old thing and that -I’m jealous of you! Because you’re pretty and a girl you think -women past thirty don’t count. You’ll find out. Mrs. Muir will -count and she’s forty if she’s a day. Her son’s such a beauty -that people go mad over him. And he worships her—and he’s her -slave. I wish you <i>would</i> get into some mess you couldn’t get out -of! Don’t come to me if you do.” -</p> - -<p> -The wide beauty of Robin’s gaze and her tear wet bloom were too much. -Feather was quite close to her. The spiteful schoolgirl impulse got the better -of her. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t make eyes at me like that,” she cried, and she -actually gave the rose cheek nearest her a sounding little slap, -“There!” she exclaimed hysterically and she turned about and ran -out of the room crying herself. -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -Robin had parted from Mademoiselle Vallé at Charing Cross Station on the -afternoon of the same day, but the night before they had sat up late together -and talked a long time. In effect Mademoiselle had said also, “You are -going out into the world,” but she had not approached the matter in Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless’ mood. One may have charge of a girl and be her daily -companion for years, but there are certain things the very years themselves -make it increasingly difficult to say to her. And after all why should one -state difficult things in exact phrases unless one lacks breeding and is -curious. Anxious she had been at times, but not curious. So it was that even on -this night of their parting it was not she who spoke. -</p> - -<p> -It was after a few minutes of sitting in silence and looking at the fire that -Robin broke in upon the quiet which had seemed to hold them both. -</p> - -<p> -“I must learn to remember always that I am a sort of servant. I must be -very careful. It will be easier for me to realize that I am not in my own house -than it would be for other girls. I have not allowed Dowie to dress me for a -good many weeks. I have learned how to do everything for myself quite -well.” -</p> - -<p> -“But Dowie will be in the house with you and the Duchess is very -kind.” -</p> - -<p> -“Every night I have begun my prayers by thanking God for leaving me -Dowie,” the girl said. “I have begun them and ended them with the -same words.” She looked about her and then broke out as if involuntarily. -“I shall be away from here. I shall not wear anything or eat anything or -sleep on any bed I have not paid for myself.” -</p> - -<p> -“These rooms are very pretty. We have been very comfortable here,” -Mademoiselle said. Suddenly she felt that if she waited a few moments she would -know definitely things she had previously only guessed at. “Have you no -little regrets?” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” answered Robin, “No.” -</p> - -<p> -She stood upon the hearth with her hands behind her. Mademoiselle felt as if -her fingers were twisting themselves together and the Frenchwoman was -peculiarly moved by the fact that she looked like a slim <i>jeune fille</i> of -a creature saying a lesson. The lesson opened in this wise. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know when I first began to know that I was different from -all other children,” she said in a soft, hot voice—if a voice can -express heat. “Perhaps a child who has nothing—nothing—is -obliged to begin to <i>think</i> before it knows what thoughts are. If they -play and are loved and amused they have no time for anything but growing and -being happy. You never saw the dreadful little rooms -upstairs——” -</p> - -<p> -“Dowie has told me of them,” said Mademoiselle. -</p> - -<p> -“Another child might have forgotten them. I never shall. I—I was so -little and they were full of something awful. It was loneliness. The first time -Andrews pinched me was one day when the thing frightened me and I suddenly -began to cry quite loud. I used to stare out of the window and—I -don’t know when I noticed it first—I could see the children being -taken out by their nurses. And there were always two or three of them and they -laughed and talked and skipped. The nurses used to laugh and talk too. Andrews -never did. When she took me to the gardens the other nurses sat together and -chattered and their children played games with other children. Once a little -girl began to talk to me and her nurse called her away. Andrews was very angry -and jerked me by my arm and told me that if ever I spoke to a child again she -would pinch me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Devil!” exclaimed the Frenchwoman. -</p> - -<p> -“I used to think and think, but I could never understand. How could -I?” -</p> - -<p> -“A baby!” cried Mademoiselle Vallé and she got up and took her in -her arms and kissed her. “<i>Chère petite ange!</i>” she murmured. -When she sat down again her cheeks were wet. Robin’s were wet also, but -she touched them with her handkerchief quickly and dried them. It was as if she -had faltered for a moment in her lesson. -</p> - -<p> -“Did Dowie ever tell you anything about Donal?” she asked -hesitatingly. -</p> - -<p> -“Something. He was the little boy you played with?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. He was the first human creature,” she said it very slowly as -if trying to find the right words to express what she meant, “—the -first <i>human</i> creature I had ever known. You see Mademoiselle, he—he -knew everything. He had always been happy, he <i>belonged</i> to people and -things. I belonged to nobody and nothing. If I had been like him he would not -have seemed so wonderful to me. I was in a kind of delirium of joy. If a -creature who had been deaf dumb and blind had suddenly awakened, and seeing on -a summer day in a world full of flowers and sun—it might have seemed to -them as it seemed to me.” -</p> - -<p> -“You have remembered it through all the years,” said Mademoiselle, -“like that?” -</p> - -<p> -“It was the first time I became alive. One could not forget it. We only -played as children play but—it <i>was</i> a delirium of joy. I could not -bear to go to sleep at night and forget it for a moment. Yes, I remember -it—like that. There is a dream I have every now and then and it is more -real than—than this is—” with a wave of her hand about her. -“I am always in a real garden playing with a real Donal. And his -eyes—his eyes—” she paused and thought, “There is a -look in them that is like—it is just like—that first -morning.” -</p> - -<p> -The change which passed over her face the next moment might have been said to -seem to obliterate all trace of the childish memory. -</p> - -<p> -“He was taken away by his mother. That was the beginning of my finding -out,” she said. “I heard Andrews talking to her sister and in a -baby way I gathered that Lord Coombe had sent him. I hated Lord Coombe for -years before I found out that he hadn’t—and that there was another -reason. After that it took time to puzzle things out and piece them together. -But at last I found out what the reason had been. Then I began to make plans. -These are not my rooms,” glancing about her again, “—these -are not my clothes,” with a little pull at her dress. “I’m -not ‘a strong character’, Mademoiselle, as I wanted to be, but I -haven’t one little regret—not one.” She kneeled down and put -her arms round her old friend’s waist, lifting her face. “I’m -like a leaf blown about by the wind. I don’t know what it will do with -me. Where do leaves go? One never knows really.” -</p> - -<p> -She put her face down on Mademoiselle’s knee then and cried with soft -bitterness. -</p> - -<p> -When she bade her good-bye at Charing Cross Station and stood and watched the -train until it was quite out of sight, afterwards she went back to the rooms -for which she felt no regrets. And before she went to bed that night Feather -came and gave her farewell maternal advice and warning. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> - -<p> -That a previously scarcely suspected daughter of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had become -a member of the household of the Dowager Duchess of Darte stirred but a passing -wave of interest in a circle which was not that of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself -and which upon the whole but casually acknowledged its curious existence as a -modern abnormality. Also the attitude of the Duchess herself was composedly -free from any admission of necessity for comment. -</p> - -<p> -“I have no pretty young relative who can be spared to come and live with -me. I am fond of things pretty and young and I am greatly pleased with what a -kind chance put in my way,” she said. In her discussion of the situation -with Coombe she measured it with her customary fine acumen. -</p> - -<p> -“Forty years ago it could not have been done. The girl would have been -made uncomfortable and outside things could not have been prevented from -dragging themselves in. Filial piety in the mass would have demanded that the -mother should be accounted for. Now a genial knowledge of a variety in mothers -leaves Mrs. Gareth-Lawless to play about with her own probably quite amusing -set. Once poor Robin would have been held responsible for her and so should I. -My position would have seemed to defy serious moral issues. But we have reached -a sane habit of detaching people from their relations. A nice condition we -should be in if we had not.” -</p> - -<p> -“You, of course, know that Henry died suddenly in some sort of fit at -Ostend.” Coombe said it as if in a form of reply. She had naturally -become aware of it when the rest of the world did, but had not seen him since -the event. -</p> - -<p> -“One did not suppose his constitution would have lasted so long,” -she answered. “You are more fortunate in young Donal Muir. Have you seen -him and his mother?” -</p> - -<p> -“I made a special journey to Braemarnie and had a curious interview with -Mrs. Muir. When I say ‘curious’ I don’t mean to imply that it -was not entirely dignified. It was curious only because I realize that secretly -she regards with horror and dread the fact that her boy is the prospective Head -of the House of Coombe. She does not make a jest of it as I have had the -temerity to do. It’s a cheap defense, this trick of making an eternal -jest of things, but it <i>is</i> a defense and one has formed the habit.” -</p> - -<p> -“She has never done it—Helen Muir,” his friend said. -“On the whole I believe she at times knows that she has been too grave. -She was a beautiful creature passionately in love with her husband. When such a -husband is taken away from such a woman and his child is left it often happens -that the flood of her love is turned into one current and that it is almost -overwhelming. She is too sane to have coddled the boy and made him -effeminate—what has she done instead?” -</p> - -<p> -“He is a splendid young Highlander. He would be too good-looking if he -were not as strong and active as a young stag. All she has done is to so fill -him with the power and sense of her charm that he has not seen enough of the -world or learned to care for it. She is the one woman on earth for him and life -with her at Braemarnie is all he asks for.” -</p> - -<p> -“Your difficulty will be that she will not be willing to trust him to -your instructions.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have not as much personal vanity as I may seem to have,” Coombe -said. “I put all egotism modestly aside when I talked to her and tried to -explain that I would endeavour to see that he came to no harm in my society. My -heir presumptive and I must see something of each other and he must become -intimate with the prospect of his responsibilities. More will be demanded of -the next Marquis of Coombe than has been demanded of me. And it will be -<i>demanded</i> not merely hoped for or expected. And it will be the -overwhelming forces of Fate which will demand it—not mere tenants or -constituents or the general public.” -</p> - -<p> -“Have you any views as to <i>what</i> will be demanded?” was her -interested question. -</p> - -<p> -“None. Neither has anyone else who shares my opinion. No one will have -any until the readjustment comes. But before the readjustment there will be the -pouring forth of blood—the blood of magnificent lads like Donal -Muir—perhaps his own blood,—my God!” -</p> - -<p> -“And there may be left no head of the house of Coombe,” from the -Duchess. -</p> - -<p> -“There will be many a house left without its head—houses great and -small. And if the peril of it were more generally foreseen at this date it -would be less perilous than it is.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lads like that!” said the old Duchess bitterly. “Lads in -their strength and joy and bloom! It is hideous.” -</p> - -<p> -“In all their young virility and promise for a next generation—the -strong young fathers of forever unborn millions! It’s damnable! And it -will be so not only in England, but all over a blood drenched world.” -</p> - -<p> -It was in this way they talked to each other of the black tragedy for which -they believed the world’s stage already being set in secret, and though -there were here and there others who felt the ominous inevitability of the -raising of the curtain, the rest of the world looked on in careless -indifference to the significance of the open training of its actors and even -the resounding hammerings of its stage carpenters and builders. In these days -the two discussed the matter more frequently and even in the tone of those who -waited for the approach of a thing drawing nearer every day. -</p> - -<p> -Each time the Head of the House of Coombe made one of his so-called “week -end” visits to the parts an Englishman can reach only by crossing the -Channel, he returned with new knowledge of the special direction in which the -wind veered in the blowing of those straws he had so long observed with -absorbed interest. -</p> - -<p> -“Above all the common sounds of daily human life one hears in that one -land the rattle and clash of arms and the unending thudding tread of marching -feet,” he said after one such visit. “Two generations of men -creatures bred and born and trained to live as parts of a huge death dealing -machine have resulted in a monstrous construction. Each man is a part of it and -each part’s greatest ambition is to respond to the shouted word of -command as a mechanical puppet responds to the touch of a spring. To each unit -of the millions, love of his own country means only hatred of all others and -the belief that no other should be allowed existence. The sacred creed of each -is that the immensity of Germany is such that there can be no room on the earth -for another than itself. Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior -peoples. To the masses that is their God’s will. Their God is an -understudy of their Kaiser.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are not saying that as part of the trick of making a jest of -things?” -</p> - -<p> -“I wish to God I were. The poor huge inhuman thing he has built does not -know that when he was a boy he did not play at war and battles as other boys -do, but as a creature obsessed. He has played at soldiers with his people as -his toys throughout all his morbid life—and he has hungered and thirsted -as he has done it.” -</p> - -<p> -A Bible lay upon the table and the Duchess drew it towards her. -</p> - -<p> -“There is a verse here—” she said “—I will find -it.” She turned the pages and found it. “Listen! ‘Know this -and lay it to thy heart this day. Jehovah is God in heaven above and on the -earth beneath. There is none else.’ That is a power which does not -confine itself to Germany or to England or France or to the Map of Europe. It -is the Law of the Universe—and even Wilhelm the Second cannot bend it to -his almighty will. ‘There is none else.’” -</p> - -<p> -“‘There is none else’,” repeated Coombe slowly. -“If there existed a human being with the power to drive that home as a -truth into his delirious brain, I believe he would die raving mad. To him there -is no First Cause which was not ‘made in Germany.’ And it is one of -his most valuable theatrical assets. It is part of his paraphernalia—like -the jangling of his sword and the glitter of his orders. He shakes it before -his people to arrest the attention of the simple and honest ones as one jingles -a rattle before a child. There are those among them who are not so readily -attracted by terms of blood and iron.” -</p> - -<p> -“But they will be called upon to shed blood and to pour forth their own. -There will be young things like Donal Muir—lads with ruddy cheeks and -with white bodies to be torn to fragments.” She shuddered as she said it. -“I am afraid!” she said. “I am afraid!” -</p> - -<p> -“So am I,” Coombe answered. “Of what is coming. What a -<i>fool</i> I have been!” -</p> - -<p> -“How long will it be before other men awaken to say the same -thing?” -</p> - -<p> -“Each man’s folly is his own shame.” He drew himself stiffly -upright as a man might who stood before a firing squad. “I had a life to -live or to throw away. Because I was hideously wounded at the outset I threw it -aside as done for. I said ‘there is neither God nor devil, vice nor -virtue, love nor hate. I will do and leave undone what I choose.’ I had -power and brain and money. A man who could see clearly and who had words to -choose from might have stood firmly in the place to which he was born and have -spoken in a voice which might have been listened to. He might have fought -against folly and blindness and lassitude. I deliberately chose privately to -sneer at the thought of lifting a hand to serve any thing but the cold fool who -was myself. Life passes quickly. It does not turn back.” He ended with a -short harsh laugh. “This is Fear,” he said. “Fear clears a -man’s mind of rubbish and non-essentials. It is because I am AFRAID that -I accuse myself. And it is not for myself or you but for the whole world which -before the end comes will seem to fall into fragments.” -</p> - -<p> -“You have been seeing ominous signs?” the Duchess said leaning -forward and speaking low. -</p> - -<p> -“There have been affectionate visits to Vienna. There is a certain thing -in the air—in the arrogance of the bearing of men clanking their sabres -as they stride through the streets. There is an exultant eagerness in their -eyes. Things are said which hold scarcely concealed braggart threats. They have -always been given to that sort of thing—but now it strikes one as a thing -unleashed—or barely leashed at all. The background of the sound of -clashing arms and the thudding of marching feet is more unendingly present. One -cannot get away from it. The great munition factories are working night and -day. In the streets, in private houses, in the shops, one hears and recognizes -signs. They are signs which might not be clear to one who has not spent years -in looking on with interested eyes. But I have watched too long to see only the -surface of things. The nation is waiting for something—waiting.” -</p> - -<p> -“What will be the pretext—what,” the Duchess pondered. -</p> - -<p> -“Any pretext will do—or none—except that Germany must have -what she wants and that she is strong enough to take it—after forty years -of building her machine.” -</p> - -<p> -“And we others have built none. We almost deserve whatever comes to -us.” The old woman’s face was darkly grave. -</p> - -<p> -“In three villages where I chance to be lord of the manor I have, by -means of my own, set lads drilling and training. It is supposed to be a form of -amusement and an eccentric whim of mine and it is a change from eternal -cricket. I have given prizes and made an occasional speech on the ground that -English brawn is so enviable a possession that it ought to develop itself to -the utmost. When I once went to the length of adding that each Englishman -should be muscle fit and ready in case of England’s sudden need, I saw -the lads grin cheerfully at the thought of England in any such un-English -plight. Their innocent swaggering belief that the country is always ready for -everything moved my heart of stone. And it is men like myself who are to -blame—not merely men of my class, but men of my <i>kind</i>. Those who -have chosen to detach themselves from everything but the living of life as it -best pleased their tastes or served their personal ambitions.” -</p> - -<p> -“Are we going to be taught that man cannot argue without including his -fellow man? Are we going to be forced to learn it?” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—forced. Nothing but force could reach us. The race is an -undeveloped thing. A few centuries later it will have evolved another sense. -This century may see the first huge step—because the power of a cataclysm -sweeps it forward.” -</p> - -<p> -He turned his glance towards the opening door. Robin came in with some letters -in her hand. He was vaguely aware that she wore an aspect he was unfamiliar -with. The girl of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had in the past, as it went without -saying, expressed the final note of priceless simplicity and mode. The more -finely simple she looked, the more priceless. The unfamiliarity in her outward -seeming lay in the fact that her quiet dun tweed dress with its lines of white -at neck and wrists was not priceless though it was well made. It, in fact, -unobtrusively suggested that it was meant for service rather than for -adornment. Her hair was dressed closely and her movements were very quiet. -Coombe realized that her greeting of him was delicately respectful. -</p> - -<p> -“I have finished the letters,” she said to the Duchess. “I -hope they are what you want. Sometimes I am afraid——” -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t be afraid,” said the Duchess kindly. “You write -very correct and graceful little letters. They are always what I want. Have you -been out today?” -</p> - -<p> -“Not yet.” Robin hesitated a little. “Have I your permission -to ask Mrs. James if it will be convenient to her to let Dowie go with me for -an hour?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” as kindly as before. “For two hours if you like. I -shall not drive this afternoon.” -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you,” said Robin and went out of the room as quietly as she -had entered it. -</p> - -<p> -When the door closed the Duchess was smiling at Lord Coombe. -</p> - -<p> -“I understand her,” she said. “She is sustained and comforted -by her pretty air of servitude. She might use Dowie as her personal maid and do -next to nothing, but she waits upon herself and punctiliously asks my -permission to approach Mrs. James the housekeeper with any request for a -favour. Her one desire is to be sure that she is earning her living as other -young women do when they are paid for their work. I should really like to pet -and indulge her, but it would only make her unhappy. I invent tasks for her -which are quite unnecessary. For years the little shut-up soul has been -yearning and praying for this opportunity to stand honestly on her own feet and -she can scarcely persuade herself that it has been given to her. It must not be -spoiled for her. I send her on errands my maid could perform. I have given her -a little room with a serious business air. It is full of files and papers and -she sits in it and copies things for me and even looks over accounts. She is -clever at looking up references. I have let her sit up quite late once or twice -searching for detail and dates for my use. It made her bloom with joy.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are quite the most delightful woman in the world,” said -Coombe. “Quite.” -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> - -<p> -In the serious little room the Duchess had given to her Robin built for herself -a condition she called happiness. She drew the spiritual substance from which -it was made from her pleasure in the books of reference closely fitted into -their shelves, in the files for letters and more imposing documents, in the -varieties of letter paper and envelopes of different sizes and materials which -had been provided for her use in case of necessity. -</p> - -<p> -“You may not use the more substantial ones often, but you must be -prepared for any unexpected contingency,” the Duchess had explained, -thereby smoothing her pathway by the suggestion of responsibilities. -</p> - -<p> -The girl did not know the extent of her employer’s consideration for her, -but she knew that she was kind with a special grace and comprehension. A subtle -truth she also did not recognize was that the remote flame of her own being was -fiercely alert in its readiness to leap upward at any suspicion that her duties -were not worth the payment made for them and that for any reason which might -include Lord Coombe she was occupying a position which was a sinecure. She kept -her serious little room in order herself, dusting and almost polishing the -reference books, arranging and re-arranging the files with such exactness of -system that she could—as is the vaunt of the model of orderly -perfection—lay her hand upon any document “in the dark.” She -was punctuality’s self and held herself in readiness at any moment to -appear at the Duchess’ side as if a magician had instantaneously -transported her there before the softly melodious private bell connected with -her room had ceased to vibrate. The correctness of her deference to the -convenience of Mrs. James the housekeeper in her simplest communication with -Dowie quite touched that respectable person’s heart. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s a young lady,” Mrs. James remarked to Dowie. -“And a credit to you and her governess, Mrs. Dowson. Young ladies have -gone almost out of fashion.” -</p> - -<p> -“Mademoiselle Vallé had spent her governessing days among the highest. My -own places were always with gentle-people. Nothing ever came near her that -could spoil her manners. A good heart she was born with,” was the civil -reply of Dowie. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing ever came <i>near</i> her—?” Mrs. James politely -checked what she became conscious was a sort of unconscious exclamation. -</p> - -<p> -“Nothing,” said Dowie going on with her sheet hemming steadily. -</p> - -<p> -Robin wrote letters and copied various documents for the Duchess, she went -shopping with her and executed commissions to order. She was allowed to enter -into correspondence with the village schoolmistress and the wife of the Vicar -at Darte Norham and to buy prizes for notable decorum and scholarship in the -school, and baby linen and blankets for the Maternity Bag and other -benevolences. She liked buying prizes and the baby clothes very much -because—though she was unaware of the fact—her youth delighted in -youngness and the fulfilling of young desires. Even oftener and more -significantly than ever did eyes turn towards her—try to hold -hers—look after her eagerly when she walked in the streets or drove with -the Duchess in the high-swung barouche. More and more she became used to it and -gradually she ceased to be afraid of it and began to feel it nearly -always—there were sometimes exceptions—a friendly thing. -</p> - -<p> -She saw friendliness in it because when she caught sight as she so often did of -young things like herself passing in pairs, laughing and talking and turning to -look into each other’s eyes, her being told her that it was sweet and -human and inevitable. They always turned and looked at each other—these -pairs—and then they smiled or laughed or flushed a little. As she had not -known when first she recognized, as she looked down into the street from her -nursery window, that the children nearly always passed in twos or threes and -laughed and skipped and talked, so she did not know when she first began to -notice these joyous young pairs and a certain touch of exultation in them and -feel that it was sweet and quite a simple common natural thing. Her noting and -being sometimes moved by it was as natural as her pleasure in the opening of -spring flowers or the new thrill of spring birds—but she did not know -that either. -</p> - -<p> -The brain which has worked through many years in unison with the soul to which -it was apportioned has evolved a knowledge which has deep cognizance of the -universal law. The brain of the old Duchess had so worked, keeping pace always -with its guide, never visualizing the possibility of working alone, also never -falling into the abyss of that human folly whose conviction is that all that -one sees and gives a special name to is all that exists—or that the names -accepted by the world justly and clearly describe qualities, yearnings, moods, -as they are. This had developed within her wide perception and a wisdom which -was sane and kind to tenderness. -</p> - -<p> -As she drove through the streets with Robin beside her she saw the following -eyes, she saw the girl’s soft friendly look at the young creatures who -passed her glowing and uplifted by the joy of life, and she was moved and even -disturbed. -</p> - -<p> -After her return from one particular morning’s outing she sent for Dowie. -</p> - -<p> -“You have taken care of Miss Robin since she was a little child?” -she began. -</p> - -<p> -“She was not quite six when I first went to her, your grace.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are not of the women who only feed and bathe a child and keep her -well dressed. You have been a sort of mother to her.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve tried to, your grace. I’ve loved her and watched over -her and she’s loved me, I do believe.” -</p> - -<p> -“That is why I want to talk to you about her, Dowie. If you were the -woman who merely comes and goes in a child’s life, I could not. She -is—a very beautiful young thing, Dowie.” -</p> - -<p> -“From her little head to her slim bits of feet, your grace. No one knows -better than I do.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess’ renowned smile revealed itself. -</p> - -<p> -“A beautiful young thing ought to see and know other beautiful young -things and make friends with them. That is one of the reasons for their being -put in the world. Since she has been with me she has spoken to no one under -forty. Has she never had young friends?” -</p> - -<p> -“Never, your grace. Once two—young baggages—were left to have -tea with her and they talked to her about divorce scandals and corespondents. -She never wanted to see them again.” Dowie’s face set itself in -lines of perfectly correct inexpressiveness and she added, “They set her -asking me questions I couldn’t answer. And she broke down because she -suddenly understood why. No, your grace, she’s not known those of her own -age.” -</p> - -<p> -“She is—of the ignorance of a child,” the Duchess thought it -out slowly. -</p> - -<p> -“She thinks not, poor lamb, but she is,” Dowie answered. The -Duchess’ eyes met hers and they looked at each other for a moment. Dowie -tried to retain a non-committal steadiness and the Duchess observing the -intention knew that she was free to speak. -</p> - -<p> -“Lord Coombe confided to me that she had passed through a hideous danger -which had made a lasting impression on her,” she said in a low voice. -“He told me because he felt it would explain certain reserves and fears -in her.” -</p> - -<p> -“Sometimes she wakes up out of nightmares about it,” said Dowie. -“And she creeps into my room shivering and I take her into my bed and -hold her in my arms until she’s over the panic. She says the worst of it -is that she keeps thinking that there may have been other girls trapped like -her—and that they did not get away.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess was very thoughtful. She saw the complications in which such a -horror would involve a girl’s mind. -</p> - -<p> -“If she consorted with other young things and talked nonsense with them -and shared their pleasures she would forget it,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“Ah!” exclaimed Dowie. “That’s it.” -</p> - -<p> -The question in the Duchess’ eyes when she lifted them required an answer -and she gave it respectfully. -</p> - -<p> -“The thing that happened was only the last touch put to what she’d -gradually been finding out as she grew from child to young girl. The ones she -would like to know—she said it in plain words once to -Mademoiselle—might not want to know her. I must take the liberty of -speaking plain, your grace, or it’s no use me speaking at all. She holds -it deep in her mind that she’s a sort of young outcast.” -</p> - -<p> -“I must convince her that she is not—.” It was the beginning -of what the Duchess had meant to say, but she actually found herself pausing, -held for the moment by Dowie’s quiet, civil eye. -</p> - -<p> -“Was your grace in your kindness thinking—?” was what the -excellent woman said. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. That I would invite young people to meet her—help them to -know each other and to make friends.” And even as she said it she was -conscious of being slightly under the influence of Dowie’s wise gaze. -</p> - -<p> -“Your grace only knows those young people she would like to know.” -It was a mere simple statement. -</p> - -<p> -“People are not as censorious as they once were.” Her grace’s -tone was intended to reply to the suggestion lying in the words which had worn -the air of statement without comment. -</p> - -<p> -“Some are not, but some are,” Dowie answered. “There’s -two worlds in London now, your grace. One is your grace’s and one is Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless’. I <i>have</i> heard say there are others between, but I -only know those two.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess pondered again. -</p> - -<p> -“You are thinking that what Miss Robin said to Mademoiselle Vallé might -be true—in mine. And perhaps you are not altogether wrong even if you are -not altogether right.” -</p> - -<p> -“Until I went to take care of Miss Robin I had only had places in -families Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ set didn’t touch anywhere. What -I’m remembering is that there was a—strictness—shown -sometimes even when it seemed a bit harsh. Among the servants the older ones -said that is was <i>because</i> of the new sets and their fast wicked ways. One -of my young ladies once met another young lady about her own age—she was -just fifteen—at a charity bazaar and they made friends and liked each -other very much. The young lady’s mother was one there was a lot of talk -about in connection with a person of very high station—the highest, your -grace—and everyone knew. The girl was a lovely little creature and -beautifully behaved. It was said her mother wanted to push her into the world -she couldn’t get into herself. The acquaintance was stopped, your -grace—it was put a stop to at once. And my poor little young lady quite -broke her heart over it, and I heard it was much worse for the other.” -</p> - -<p> -“I will think this over,” the Duchess said. “It needs -thinking over. I wished to talk to you because I have seen that she has fixed -little ideas regarding what she thinks is suited to her position as a paid -companion and she might not be prepared. I wish you to see that she has a -pretty little frock or so which she could wear if she required them.” -</p> - -<p> -“She has two, your grace,” Dowie smiled affectionately as she said -it. “One for evening and one for special afternoon wear in case your -grace needed her to attend you for some reason. They are as plain as she dare -make them, but when she puts one on she can’t help giving it <i>a -look</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—she would give it all it needed,” her grace said. -“Thank you, Dowie. You may go.” -</p> - -<p> -With her sketch of a respectful curtsey Dowie went towards the door. As she -approached it her step became slower; before she reached it she had stopped and -there was a remarkable look on her face—a suddenly heroic look. She -turned and made several steps backward and paused again which unexpected action -caused the Duchess to turn to glance at her. When she glanced her grace -recognized the heroic look and waited, with a consciousness of some slight new -emotion within herself, for its explanation. -</p> - -<p> -“Your grace,” Dowie began, asking God himself to give courage if -she was doing right and to check her if she was making a mistake, “When -your grace was thinking of the parents of other young ladies and -gentlemen—did it come to you to put it to yourself whether you’d be -willing—” she caught her breath, but ended quite clearly, -respectfully, reasonably. “Lady Kathryn—Lord Halwyn—” -Lady Kathryn was the Duchess’ young granddaughter, Lord Halwyn was her -extremely good-looking grandson who was in the army. -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess understood what the heroic look had meant, and her respect for it -was great. Its intention had not been to suggest inclusion of George and -Kathryn in her plan, it had only with pure justice put it to her to ask herself -what her own personal decision in such a matter would be. -</p> - -<p> -“You do feel as if you were her mother,” she said. “And you -are a practical, clear-minded woman. It is only if I myself am willing to take -such a step that I have a right to ask it of other people. Lady Lothwell is the -mother I must speak to first. Her children are mine though I am a mere -grandmother.” -</p> - -<p> -Lady Lothwell was her daughter and though she was not regarded as Victorian -either of the Early or the Middle periods, Dowie as she returned to her own -comfortable quarters wondered what would happen. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> - -<p> -What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been possible for -a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest mother of her day and -have emerged from her training either obstinate or illogical. Lady Lothwell -listened to as much of the history of Robin as her mother chose to tell her and -plainly felt an amiable interest in it. She knew much more detail and gossip -concerning Mrs. Gareth-Lawless than the Duchess herself did. She had heard of -the child who was kept out of sight, and she had been somewhat disgusted by a -vague story of Lord Coombe’s abnormal interest in it and the ugly hint -that he had an object in view. It was too unpleasantly morbid to be true of a -man her mother had known for years. -</p> - -<p> -“Of course you were not thinking of anything large or formal?” she -said after a moment of smiling hesitation. -</p> - -<p> -“No. I am not launching a girl into society. I only want to help her to -know a few nice young people who are good-natured and well-mannered. She is not -the ordinary old lady’s companion and if she were not so strict with -herself and with me, I confess I should behave towards her very much as I -should behave to Kathryn if you could spare her to live with me. She is a -heart-warming young thing. Because I am known to have one of my eccentric -fancies for her and because after all her father <i>was</i> well connected, her -present position will not be the obstacle. She is not the first modern girl who -has chosen to support herself.” -</p> - -<p> -“But isn’t she much too pretty?” -</p> - -<p> -“Much. But she doesn’t flaunt it.” -</p> - -<p> -“But heart-warming—and too pretty! Dearest mamma!” Lady -Lothwell laughed again. “She can do no harm to Kathryn, but I own that if -George were not at present quite madly in love with a darling being at least -fifteen years older than himself I should pause to reflect. Mrs. Stacy will -keep him steady—Mrs. Alan Stacy, you know—the one with the -magnificent henna hair, and the eyes that droop. No boy of twenty-two can -resist her. They call her adorers ‘The Infant School’.” -</p> - -<p> -“A small dinner and a small dance—and George and Kathryn may be the -beginning of an interesting experiment. It would be pretty and kind of you to -drop in during the course of the evening.” -</p> - -<p> -“Are you hoping to—perhaps—make a marriage for her?” -Lady Lothwell asked the question a shade disturbedly. “You are so -amazing, mamma darling, that I know you will do it, if you believe in it. You -seem to be able to cause the things you really want, to evolve from the -universe.” -</p> - -<p> -“She is the kind of girl whose place in the universe is in the home of -some young man whose own place in the universe is in the heart and soul and -life of her kind of girl. They ought to carry out the will of God by falling -passionately in love with each other. They ought to marry each other and have a -large number of children as beautiful and rapturously happy as themselves. They -would assist in the evolution of the race.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! Mamma! how delightful you always are! For a really brilliant woman -you are the most adorable dreamer in the world.” -</p> - -<p> -“Dreams are the only things which are true. The rest are nothing but -visions.” -</p> - -<p> -“Angel!” her daughter laughed a little adoringly as she kissed her. -“I will do whatever you want me to do. I always did, didn’t I? -It’s your way of making one see what you see when you are talking that -does it.” -</p> - -<p> -It was understood before they parted that Kathryn and George would be present -at the small dinner and the small dance, and that a few other agreeable young -persons might be trusted to join them, and that Lady Lothwell and perhaps her -husband would drop in. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s your being almost Early Victorian, mamma, which makes it easy -for you to initiate things. You will initiate little Miss Lawless. It was -rather neat of her to prefer to drop the ‘Gareth.’ There has been -less talk in late years of the different classes ‘keeping their -places’—‘upper’ and ‘lower’ classes really -strikes one as vulgar.” -</p> - -<p> -“We may ‘keep our places’,” the Duchess said. “We -may hold on to them as firmly as we please. It is the places themselves which -are moving, my dear. It is not unlike the beginning of a landslide.” -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -Robin went to Dowie’s room the next evening and stood a moment in silence -watching her sewing before she spoke. She looked anxious and even pale. -</p> - -<p> -“Her grace is going to give a party to some young people, Dowie,” -she said. “She wishes me to be present. I—I don’t know what -to do.” -</p> - -<p> -“What you must do, my dear, is to put on your best evening frock and go -downstairs and enjoy yourself as the other young people will. Her grace wants -you to see someone your own age,” was Dowie’s answer. -</p> - -<p> -“But I am not like the others. I am only a girl earning her living as a -companion. How do I know—” -</p> - -<p> -“Her grace knows,” Dowie said. “And what she asks you to do -it is your duty to do—and do it prettily.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin lost even a shade more colour. -</p> - -<p> -“Do you realize that I have never been to a party in my life—not -even to a children’s party, Dowie? I shall not know how to behave -myself.” -</p> - -<p> -“You know how to talk nicely to people, and you know how to sit down and -rise from your chair and move about a room like a quiet young lady. You dance -like a fairy. You won’t be asked to do anything more.” -</p> - -<p> -“The Duchess,” reflected Robin aloud slowly, “would not let -me come downstairs if she did not know that people would—be kind.” -</p> - -<p> -“Lady Kathryn and Lord Halwyn are coming. They are her own -grandchildren,” Dowie said. -</p> - -<p> -“How did you know that?” Robin inquired. -</p> - -<p> -Robin’s colour began to come back. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s not what usually happens to girls in situations,” she -said. -</p> - -<p> -“Her grace herself isn’t what usually happens,” said Dowie. -“There is no one like her for high wisdom and kindness.” -</p> - -<p> -Having herself awakened to the truth of this confidence-inspiring fact, Robin -felt herself supported by it. One knew what far-sighted perception and clarity -of experienced vision this one woman had gained during her many years of life. -If she had elected to do this thing she had seen her path clear before her and -was not offering a gift which awkward chance might spoil or snatch away from -the hand held out to receive it. A curious slow warmth began to creep about -Robin’s heart and in its mounting gradually fill her being. It was true -she had been taught to dance, to move about and speak prettily. She had been -taught a great many things which seemed to be very carefully instilled into her -mind and body without any special reason. She had not been aware that Lord -Coombe and Mademoiselle Vallé had directed and discussed her training as if it -had been that of a young royal person whose equipment must be a flawless thing. -If the Dowager Duchess of Darte had wished to present her at Court some fair -morning she would have known the length of the train she must wear, where she -must make her curtseys and to whom and to what depth, how to kiss the royal -hand, and how to manage her train when she retired from the presence. When she -had been taught this she had asked Mademoiselle Vallé if the training was part -of every girl’s education and Mademoiselle had answered, -</p> - -<p> -“It is best to know everything—even ceremonials which may or may -not prove of use. It all forms part of a background and prevents one from -feeling unfamiliar with customs.” -</p> - -<p> -When she had passed the young pairs in the streets she had found an added -interest in them because of this background. She could imagine them dancing -together in fairy ball rooms whose lights and colours her imagination was -obliged to construct for her out of its own fabric; she knew what the girls -would look like if they went to a Drawing Room and she often wondered if they -would feel shy when the page spread out their lovely peacock tails for them and -left them to their own devices. It was mere Nature that she should have -pondered and pondered and sometimes unconsciously longed to feel herself part -of the flood of being sweeping past her as she stood apart on the brink of the -river. -</p> - -<p> -The warmth about her heart made it beat a little faster. She opened the door of -her wardrobe when she found herself in her bedroom. The dress hung modestly in -its corner shrouded from the penetration of London fogs by clean sheeting. It -was only white and as simple as she knew how to order it, but Mademoiselle had -taken her to a young French person who knew exactly what she was doing in all -cases, and because the girl had the supple lines of a wood nymph and the eyes -of young antelope she had evolved that which expressed her as a petal expresses -its rose. Robin locked her door and took the dress down and found the silk -stockings and slippers which belonged to it. She put them all on standing -before her long mirror and having left no ungiven last touch she fell a few -steps backward and looked at herself, turning and balancing herself as a bird -might have done. She turned lightly round and round. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. I <i>am</i>—” she said. “I am—very!” -</p> - -<p> -The next instant she laughed at herself outright. -</p> - -<p> -“How silly! How silly!” she said. “Almost <i>everybody</i> -is—more or less! I wonder if I remember the new steps.” For she had -been taught the new steps—the new walking and swayings and pauses and -sudden swirls and swoops. And her new dress was as short as other fashionable -girls’ dresses were, but in her case revealed a haunting delicacy of -contour and line. -</p> - -<p> -So before her mirror she danced alone and as she danced her lips parted and her -breast rose and fell charmingly, and her eyes lighted and glowed as any -girl’s might have done or as a joyous girl nymph’s might have -lighted as she danced by a pool in her forest seeing her loveliness mirrored -there. -</p> - -<p> -Something was awakening as something had awakened when Donal had kissed a child -under the soot sprinkled London trees. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> - -<p> -The whole day before the party was secretly exciting to Robin. She knew how -much more important it seemed to her than it really was. If she had been six -years old she might have felt the same kind of uncertain thrills and tremulous -wonders. She hid herself behind the window curtains in her room that she might -see the men putting up the crimson and white awning from the door to the -carriage step. The roll of red carpet they took from their van had a magic air. -The ringing of the door bell which meant that things were being delivered, the -extra moving about of servants, the florists’ men who went into the -drawing-rooms and brought flowers and big tropical plants to re-arrange the -conservatory and fill corners which were not always decorated—each and -every one of them quickened the beating of her pulses. If she had belonged in -her past to the ordinary cheerful world of children, she would have felt by -this time no such elation. But she had only known of the existence of such -festivities as children’s parties because once a juvenile ball had been -given in a house opposite her mother’s and she had crouched in an almost -delirious little heap by the nursery window watching carriages drive up and -deposit fluffy pink and white and blue children upon the strip of red carpet, -and had seen them led or running into the house. She had caught sounds of -strains of music and had shivered with rapture—but Oh! what worlds away -from her the party had been. -</p> - -<p> -She found her way into the drawing-rooms which were not usually thrown open. -They were lofty and stately and seemed to her immense. There were splendid -crystal-dropping chandeliers and side lights which she thought looked as if -they would hold a thousand wax candles. There was a delightfully embowered -corner for the musicians. It was all spacious and wonderful in its beautiful -completeness—its preparedness for pleasure. She realized that all of it -had always been waiting to be used for the happiness of people who knew each -other and were young and ready for delight. When the young Lothwells had been -children they had had dances and frolicking games with other children in the -huge rooms and had kicked up their young heels on the polished floors at -Christmas parties and on birthdays. How wonderful it must have been. But they -had not known it was wonderful. -</p> - -<p> -As Dowie dressed her the reflection she saw in the mirror gave back to her an -intensified Robin whose curved lips almost quivered as they smiled. The soft -silk of her hair looked like the night and the small rings on the back of her -very slim white neck were things to ensnare the eye and hold it helpless. -</p> - -<p> -“You look your best, my dear,” Dowie said as she clasped her little -necklace. “And it is a good best.” Dowie was feeling tremulous -herself though she could not have explained why. She thought that perhaps it -was because she wished that Mademoiselle could have been with her. -</p> - -<p> -Robin kissed her when the last touch had been given. -</p> - -<p> -“I’m going to run down the staircase,” she said. “If I -let myself walk slowly I shall have time to feel queer and shy and I might seem -to <i>creep</i> into the drawing-room. I mustn’t creep in. I must walk in -as if I had been to parties all my life.” -</p> - -<p> -She ran down and as she did so she looked like a white bird flying, but she was -obliged to stop upon the landing before the drawing-room door to quiet a moment -of excited breathing. Still when she entered the room she moved as she should -and held her head poised with a delicately fearless air. The Duchess—who -herself looked her best in her fine old ivory profiled way—gave her a -pleased smile of welcome which was almost affectionate. -</p> - -<p> -“What a perfect little frock!” she said. “You are -delightfully pretty in it.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is it quite right?” said Robin. “Mademoiselle chose it for -me.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is quite right. ‘Frightfully right,’ George would say. -George will sit near you at dinner. He is my grandson—Lord Halwyn you -know, and you will no doubt frequently hear him say things are -‘frightfully’ something or other during the evening. Kathryn will -say things are ‘deevy’ or ‘exquig‘. I mention it -because you may not know that she means ‘exquisite’ and -‘divine.’ Don’t let it frighten you if you don’t quite -understand their language. They are dear handsome things sweeping along in the -rush of their bit of century. I don’t let it frighten me that their world -seems to me an entirely new planet.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin drew a little nearer her. She felt something as she had felt years ago -when she had said to Dowie. “I want to kiss you, Dowie.” Her eyes -were pools of childish tenderness because she so well understood the infinitude -of the friendly tact which drew her within its own circle with the light humour -of its “I don’t let them frighten <i>me</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are kind—kind to me,” she said. “And I am -grateful—<i>grateful</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -The extremely good-looking young people who began very soon to drift into the -brilliant big room—singly or in pairs of brother and sister—filled -her with innocent delight. They were so well built and gaily at ease with each -other and their surroundings, so perfectly dressed and finished. The filmy -narrowness of delicate frocks, the shortness of skirts accentuated the youth -and girlhood and added to it a sort of child fairy-likeness. Kathryn in -exquisite wisps of silver-embroidered gauze looked fourteen instead of nearly -twenty—aided by a dimple in her cheek and a small tilted nose. A girl in -scarlet tulle was like a child out of a nursery ready to dance about a -Christmas tree. Everyone seemed so young and so suggested supple dancing, -perhaps because dancing was going on everywhere and all the world whether -fashionable or unfashionable was driven by a passion for whirling, swooping and -inventing new postures and fantastic steps. The young men had slim straight -bodies and light movements. Their clothes fitted their suppleness to -perfection. Robin thought they all looked as if they had had a great deal of -delightful exercise and plenty of pleasure all their lives. -</p> - -<p> -They were of that stream which had always seemed to be rushing past her in -bright pursuit of alluring things which belonged to them as part of their -existence, but which had had nothing to do with her own youth. Now the stream -had paused as if she had for the moment some connection with it. The swift -light she was used to seeing illuminate glancing eyes as she passed people in -the street, she saw again and again as new arrivals appeared. Kathryn was quite -excited by her eyes and eyelashes and George hovered about. There was a great -deal of hovering. At the dinner table sleek young heads held themselves at an -angle which allowed of their owners seeing through or around, or under floral -decorations and alert young eyes showed an eager gleam. After dinner was over -and dancing began the Duchess smiled shrewdly as she saw the gravitating -masculine movement towards a certain point. It was the point where Robin stood -with a small growing circle about her. -</p> - -<p> -It was George who danced with her first. He was tall and slender and flexible -and his good shoulders had a military squareness of build. He had also a nice -square face, and a warmly blue eye and knew all the latest steps and curves and -unexpected swirls. Robin was an ozier wand and there was no swoop or dart or -sudden sway and change she was not alert at. The swing and lure of the music, -the swift movement, the fluttering of airy draperies as slim sister nymphs flew -past her, set her pulses beating with sweet young joy. A brief, uncontrollable -ripple of laughter broke from her before she had circled the room twice. -</p> - -<p> -“How heavenly it is!” she exclaimed and lifted her eyes to -Halwyn’s. “How heavenly!” -</p> - -<p> -They were not safe eyes to lift in such a way to those of a very young man. -They gave George a sudden enjoyable shock. He had heard of the girl who was a -sort of sublimated companion to his grandmother. The Duchess herself had talked -to him a little about her and he had come to the party intending to behave very -amiably and help the little thing enjoy herself. He had also encountered before -in houses where there were no daughters the smart well-born, young companion -who was allowed all sorts of privileges because she knew how to assume tiresome -little responsibilities and how to be entertaining enough to add cheer and -spice to the life of the elderly and lonely. Sometimes she was a subtly -appealing sort of girl and given to being sympathetic and to liking sympathy -and quiet corners in conservatories or libraries, and sometimes she was capable -of scientific flirtation and required scientific management. A man had to have -his wits about him. This one as she flew like a blown leaf across the floor and -laughed up into his face with wide eyes, produced a new effect and was a new -kind. -</p> - -<p> -“It’s you who are heavenly,” he answered with a boy’s -laugh. “You are like a feather—and a willow wand.” -</p> - -<p> -“You are light too,” she laughed back, “and you are like -steel as well.” -</p> - -<p> -Mrs. Alan Stacy, the lady with the magnificent henna hair, had recently given -less time to him, being engaged in the preliminary instruction of a new member -of the Infant Class. Such things will, of course, happen and though George had -quite ingenuously raged in secret, the circumstances left him free to -“hover” and hovering was a pastime he enjoyed. -</p> - -<p> -“Let us go on like this forever and ever,” he said sweeping half -the length of the room with her and whirling her as if she were indeed a leaf -in the wind, “Forever and ever.” -</p> - -<p> -“I wish we could. But the music will stop,” she gave back. -</p> - -<p> -“Music ought never to stop—never,” he answered. -</p> - -<p> -But the music did stop and when it began again almost immediately another tall, -flexible young man made a lightning claim on her and carried her away only to -hand her to another and he in his turn to another. She was not allowed more -than a moment’s rest and borne on the crest of the wave of young delight, -she did not need more. Young eyes were always laughing into hers and elating -her by a special look of pleasure in everything she did or said or inspired in -themselves. How was she informed without phrases that for this exciting evening -she was a creature without a flaw, that the loveliness of her eyes startled -those who looked into them, that it was a thrilling experience to dance with -her, that somehow she was new and apart and wonderful? No sleek-haired, slim -and straight-backed youth said exactly any of these things to her, but somehow -they were conveyed and filled her with a wondering realization of the fact that -if they were true, they were no longer dreadful and maddening, since they only -made people like and want to dance with one. To dance, to like people and be -liked seemed so heavenly natural and right—to be only like air and sky -and free, happy breathing. There was, it was true, a blissful little uplifted -look about her which she herself was not aware of, but which was singularly -stimulating to the masculine beholder. It only meant indeed that as she whirled -and swayed and swooped laughing she was saying to herself at intervals, -</p> - -<p> -“This is what other girls feel like. They are happy like this. I am -laughing and talking to people just as other girls do. I am Robin -Gareth-Lawless, but I am enjoying a party like this—a <i>young</i> -party.” -</p> - -<p> -Lady Lothwell sitting near her mother watched the trend of affairs with an -occasional queer interested smile. -</p> - -<p> -“Well, mamma darling,” she said at last as youth and beauty whirled -by in a maelstrom of modern Terpsichorean liveliness, “she is a great -success. I don’t know whether it is quite what you intended or -not.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess did not explain what she had intended. She was watching the trend -also and thinking a good deal. On the whole Lady Lothwell had scarcely expected -that she would explain. She rarely did. She seldom made mistakes, however. -</p> - -<p> -Kathryn in her scant gauzy strips of white and silver having drifted towards -them at the moment stood looking on with a funny little disturbed expression on -her small, tip-tilted face. -</p> - -<p> -“There’s something <i>about</i> her, grandmamma,” she said. -</p> - -<p> -“All the girls see it and no one knows what it is. She’s sitting -out for a few minutes and just look at George—and Hal Brunton—and -Captain Willys. They are all laughing, of course, and pretending to joke, but -they would like to eat each other up. Perhaps it’s her eyelashes. She -looks out from under them as if they were a curtain.” -</p> - -<p> -Lady Lothwell’s queer little smile became a queer little laugh. -</p> - -<p> -“Yes. It gives her a look of being ecstatically happy and yet almost shy -and appealing at the same time. Men can’t stand it of course.” -</p> - -<p> -“None of them are trying to stand it,” answered little Lady Kathryn -somewhat in the tone of a retort. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t believe she knows she does it,” Lady Lothwell said -quite reflectively. -</p> - -<p> -“She does not know at all. That is the worst of it,” commented the -Duchess. -</p> - -<p> -“Then you see that there <i>is</i> a worst,” said her daughter. -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess glanced towards Kathryn, but fortunately the puzzled fret of the -girl’s forehead was even at the moment melting into a smile as a young -man of much attraction descended upon her with smiles of his own and carried -her into the Tango or Fox Trot or Antelope Galop, whichsoever it chanced to be. -</p> - -<p> -“If she were really aware of it that would be ‘the worst’ for -other people—for us probably. She could look out from under her lashes to -sufficient purpose to call what she wanted and take and keep it. As she is not -aware, it will make things less easy for herself—under the -circumstances.” -</p> - -<p> -“The circumstance of being Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ daughter is not an -agreeable one,” said Lady Lothwell. -</p> - -<p> -“It might give some adventurous boys ideas when they had time to realize -all it means. Do you know I am rather sorry for her myself. I shouldn’t -be surprised if she were rather a dear little thing. She looks tender and -cuddle-some. Perhaps she is like the heroine of a sentimental novel I read the -other day. Her chief slave said of her ‘She walks into a man’s -heart through his eyes and sits down there and makes a warm place which will -never get cold again.‘ Rather nice, I thought.” -</p> - -<p> -The Duchess thought it rather nice also. -</p> - -<p> -“‘Never get cold again,‘” she repeated. “What a -heavenly thing to happen to a pair of creatures—if—” she -paused and regarded Robin, who at the other side of the room was trying to -decide some parlous question of dances to which there was more than one -claimant. She was sweetly puckering her brow over her card and round her were -youthful male faces looking eager and even a trifle tense with repressed -anxiety for the victory of the moment. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” Lady Lothwell laughed. “As Kitty says -‘There’s something about her’ and it’s not mere -eyelashes. You have let loose a germ among us, mamma my sweet, and you -can’t do anything with a germ when you have let it loose. To quote Kitty -again, ‘Look at George!’” -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p> -The music which came from the bower behind which the musicians were hidden -seemed to gain thrill and wildness as the hours went on. As the rooms grew -warmer the flowers breathed out more reaching scent. Now and again Robin paused -for a moment to listen to strange delightful chords and to inhale passing waves -of something like mignonette and lilies, and apple blossoms in the sun. She -thought there must be some flower which was like all three in one. The rushing -stream was carrying her with it as it went—one of the happy petals on its -surface. Could it ever cast her aside and leave her on the shore again? While -the violins went singing on and the thousand wax candles shone on the faint or -vivid colours which mingled into a sort of lovely haze, it did not seem -possible that a thing so enchanting and so real could have an end at all. All -the other things in her life seemed less real tonight. -</p> - -<p> -In the conservatory there was a marble fountain which had long years ago been -brought from a palace garden in Rome. It was not as large as it was beautiful -and it had been placed among palms and tropic ferns whose leaves and fronds it -splashed merrily among and kept deliciously cool and wet-looking. There was a -quite intoxicating hot-house perfume of warm damp moss and massed flowers and -it was the kind of corner any young man would feel it necessary to gravitate -towards with a partner. -</p> - -<p> -George led Robin to it and she naturally sat upon the edge of the marble basin -and as naturally drew off a glove and dipped her hand into the water, splashing -it a little because it felt deliciously cool. George stood near at first and -looked down at her bent head. It was impossible not also to take in her small -fine ear and the warm velvet white of the lovely little nape of her slim neck. -He took them in with elated appreciation. He was not subtle minded enough to be -aware that her reply to a casual remark he had made to her at dinner had had a -remote effect upon him. -</p> - -<p> -“One of the loveliest creatures I ever saw was a Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless,” he had said. “Are you related to her?” -</p> - -<p> -“I am her daughter,” Robin had answered and with a slightly -startled sensation he had managed to slip into amiably deft generalities while -he had secretly wondered how much his grandmother knew or did not know. -</p> - -<p> -An involuntary thought of Feather had crossed his mind once or twice during the -evening. This was the girl who, it was said, had actually been saved up for old -Coombe. Ugly morbid sort of idea if it was true. How had the Duchess got hold -of her and why and what was Coombe really up to? Could he have some elderly -idea of wanting a youngster for a wife? Occasionally an old chap did. Serve him -right if some young chap took the wind out of his sails. He was not a desperate -character, but he had been very intimate with Mrs. Alan Stacy and her friends -and it had made him careless. Also Robin had drawn him—drawn him more -than he knew. -</p> - -<p> -“Is it still heavenly?” he asked. (How pointed her fingers were and -how soft and crushable her hand looked as it splashed like a child’s.) -</p> - -<p> -“More heavenly every minute,” she answered. He laughed outright. -</p> - -<p> -“The heavenly thing is the way you are enjoying it yourself. I never saw -a girl light up a whole room before. You throw out stars as you dance.” -</p> - -<p> -“That’s like a skyrocket,” Robin laughed back. “And -it’s because in all my life I never went to a dance before.” -</p> - -<p> -“Never! You mean except to children’s parties?” -</p> - -<p> -“There were no children’s parties. This is the -first—first—first.” -</p> - -<p> -“Well, I don’t see how that happened, but I am glad it did because -it’s been a great thing for me to see you at your -first—first—first.” -</p> - -<p> -He sat down on the fountain’s edge near her. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall not forget it,” he said. -</p> - -<p> -“I shall remember it as long as I live,” said Robin and she lifted -her unsafe eyes again and smiled into his which made them still more unsafe. -</p> - -<p> -Perhaps it was because he was extremely young, perhaps it was because he was -immoral, perhaps because he had never held a tight rein on his fleeting -emotions, even the next moment he felt that it was because he was an -idiot—but suddenly he found he had let himself go and was kissing the -warm velvet of the slim little nape—had kissed it twice. -</p> - -<p> -He had not given himself time to think what would happen as a result, but what -did happen was humiliating and ridiculous. One furious splash of the curled -hand flung water into his face and eyes and mouth while Robin tore herself free -from him and stood blazing with fury and woe—for it was not only fury he -saw. -</p> - -<p> -“You—You—!” she cried and actually would have swooped -to the fountain again if he had not caught her arm. -</p> - -<p> -He was furious himself—at himself and at her. -</p> - -<p> -“You—little fool!” he gasped. “What did you do that for -even if I <i>was</i> a jackass? There was nothing in it. You’re so -pretty——” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve spoiled everything!” she flamed, -“everything—everything!” -</p> - -<p> -“I’ve spoiled nothing. I’ve only been a fool—and -it’s your own fault for being so pretty.” -</p> - -<p> -“You’ve spoiled everything in the world! Now—” with a -desolate horrible little sob, “now I can only go -back—<i>back!</i>” -</p> - -<p> -He had a queer idea that she spoke as if she were Cinderella and he had made -the clock strike twelve. Her voice had such absolute grief in it that he -involuntarily drew near her. -</p> - -<p> -“I say,” he was really breathless, “don’t speak like -that. I beg pardon. I’ll grovel! Don’t—Oh! -Kathryn—<i>come</i> here.” -</p> - -<p> -This last because at this difficult moment from between the banks of hot-house -bloom and round the big palms his sister Kathryn suddenly appeared. She -immediately stopped short and stared at them both—looking from one to the -other. -</p> - -<p> -“What is the matter?” she asked in a low voice. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! <i>come</i> and talk to her,” George broke forth. “I -feel as if she might scream in a minute and call everybody in. I’ve been -a lunatic and she has apparently never been kissed before. Tell her—tell -her you’ve been kissed yourself.” -</p> - -<p> -A queer little look revealed itself in Kathryn’s face. A delicate vein of -her grandmother’s wisdom made part of her outlook upon a rapidly moving -and exciting world. She had never been hide-bound or dull and for a slight -gauzy white and silver thing she was astute. -</p> - -<p> -“Don’t be impudent,” she said to George as she walked up to -Robin and put a cool hand on her arm. “He’s only been silly. -You’d better let him off,” she said. She turned a glance on George -who was wiping his sleeve with a handkerchief and she broke into a small laugh, -“Did she push you into the fountain?” she asked cheerfully. -</p> - -<p> -“She threw the fountain at me,” grumbled George. “I shall -have to dash off home and change.” -</p> - -<p> -“I would,” replied Kathryn still cheerful. “You can apologize -better when you’re dry.” -</p> - -<p> -He slid through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood and gazed at -each other. Robin’s flame had died down and her face had settled itself -into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know that she herself looked at her as -the Duchess might have looked at another girl in the quite different days of -her youth. -</p> - -<p> -“I’ll tell you something now he’s gone,” she said. -“I <i>have</i> been kissed myself and so have other girls I know. Boys -like George don’t really matter, though of course it’s bad manners. -But who has got good manners? Things rush so that there’s scarcely time -for manners at all. When an older man makes a snatch at you it’s -sometimes detestable. But to push him into the fountain was a good idea,” -and she laughed again. -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t push him in.” -</p> - -<p> -“I wish you had,” with a gleeful mischief. The next moment, -however, the hint of a worried frown showed itself on her forehead. “You -see,” she said protestingly, “you are so <i>frightfully</i> -pretty.” -</p> - -<p> -“I’d rather be a leper,” Robin shot forth. -</p> - -<p> -But Kathryn did not of course understand. -</p> - -<p> -“What nonsense!” she answered. “What utter rubbish! You know -you wouldn’t. Come back to the ball room. I came here because my mother -was asking for George.” -</p> - -<p> -She turned to lead the way through the banked flowers and as she did so added -something. -</p> - -<p> -“By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of the -Balkan countries. They are always assassinating people. They like it. Lord -Coombe has just come in and is talking it over with grandmamma. I can see they -are quite excited in their quiet way.” -</p> - -<p> -As they neared the entrance to the ball room she paused a moment with a new -kind of impish smile. -</p> - -<p> -“Every girl in the room is absolutely shaky with thrills at this -particular moment,” she said. “And every man feels himself -bristling a little. The very best looking boy in all England is dancing with -Sara Studleigh. He dropped in by chance to call and the Duchess made him stay. -He is a kind of miracle of good looks and takingness.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin said nothing. She had plainly not been interested in the Balkan tragedy -and she as obviously did not care for the miracle. -</p> - -<p> -“You don’t ask who he is?” said Kathryn. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t want to know.” -</p> - -<p> -“Oh! Come! You mustn’t feel as sulky as that. You’ll want to -ask questions the moment you see him. I did. Everyone does. His name is Donal -Muir. He’s Lord Coombe’s heir. He’ll be the Head of the House -of Coombe some day. Here he comes,” quite excitedly, “Look!” -</p> - -<p> -It was one of the tricks of Chance—or Fate—or whatever you will. -The dance brought him within a few feet of them at that very moment and the -slow walking steps he was taking held him—they were some of the queer -stealthy almost stationary steps of the Argentine Tango. He was finely and -smoothly fitted as the other youngsters were, his blond glossed head was set -high on a heroic column of neck, he was broad of shoulder, but not too broad, -slim of waist, but not too slim, long and strong of leg, but light and supple -and firm. He had a fair open brow and a curved mouth laughing to show white -teeth. Robin felt he ought to wear a kilt and plaid and that an eagle’s -feather ought to be standing up from a chieftain’s bonnet on the fair -hair which would have waved if it had been allowed length enough. He was -scarcely two yards from her now and suddenly—almost as if he had been -called—he turned his eyes away from Sara Studleigh who was the little -thing in Christmas tree scarlet. They were blue like the clear water in a tarn -when the sun shines on it and they were still laughing as his mouth was. -Straight into hers they laughed—straight into hers. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> - -<p> -Through all aeons since all the worlds were made it is at least not unthinkable -that in all the worlds of which our own atom is one, there has ruled a Force -illimitable, unconquerable and inexplicable and whichsoever its world and -whatsoever the sign denoting or the name given it, the Force—the Thing -has been the same. Upon our own atom of the universe it is given the generic -name of Love and its existence is that which the boldest need not defy, the -most profound need not attempt to explain with clarity, the most brilliantly -sophistical to argue away. Its forms of beauty, triviality, magnificence, -imbecility, loveliness, stupidity, holiness, purity and bestiality neither -detract from nor add to its unalterable power. As the earth revolves upon its -axis and reveals night and day, Spring, Summer and Winter, so it reveals this -ceaselessly working Force. Men who were as gods have been uplifted or broken by -it, fools have trifled with it, brutes have sullied it, saints have worshipped, -poets sung and wits derided it. As electricity is a force death dealing, or -illuminating and power bestowing, so is this Great Impeller, and it is -fatuous—howsoever worldly wise or moderately sardonic one would choose to -be—to hint ironically that its proportions are less than the ages have -proved them. Whether a world formed without a necessity for the presence and -assistance of this psychological factor would have been a better or a worse -one, it is—by good fortune—not here imperative that one should -attempt to decide. What is—exists. None of us created it. Each one will -deal with the Impeller as he himself either sanely or madly elects. He will -also bear the consequences—and so also may others. -</p> - -<p> -Of this force the Head of the House of Coombe and his old friend knew much and -had often spoken to each other. They had both been accustomed to recognizing -its signs subtle or crude, and watching their development. They had seen it in -the eyes of creatures young enough to be called boys and girls, they had heard -it in musical laughter and in silly giggles, they had seen it express itself in -tragedy and comedy and watched it end in union or in a nothingness which melted -away like a wisp of fog. But they knew it was a thing omnipresent and that no -one passed through life untouched by it in some degree. -</p> - -<p> -Years before this evening two children playing in a garden had not know that -the Power—the Thing—drew them with its greatest strength because -among myriads of atoms they two were created for oneness. Enraptured and -unaware they played together, their souls and bodies drawn nearer each other -every hour. -</p> - -<p> -So it was that—without being portentous—one may say that when an -unusually beautiful and unusually well dressed and perfectly fitted young man -turned involuntarily in the particular London ball room in which Mrs. -Gareth-Lawless’ daughter watched the dancers, and looked unintentionally -into the eyes of a girl standing for a moment near the wide entrance doors, the -inexplicable and unconquerable Force reconnected its currents again. -</p> - -<p> -Donal Muir’s eyes only widened a little for a second’s time. He had -not known why he had suddenly looked around and he did not know why he was -conscious of something which startled him a little. You could not actually -stare at a girl because your eyes chanced to get entangled in hers for a second -as you danced past her. It was true she was of a startling prettiness and there -was something—. Yes, there was <i>something</i> which drew the eye -and—. He did not know what it was. It had actually given him a sort of -electric shock. He laughed at himself a little and then his open brow looked -puzzled for a moment. -</p> - -<p> -“You saw Miss Lawless,” said Sara Studleigh who was at the moment -dancing prettily with him. She was guilty of something which might have been -called a slight giggle, but it was good-natured. “I know, you saw Miss -Lawless—the pretty one near the door.” -</p> - -<p> -“There are so many pretty ones near everything. You can’t lift your -eyes without seeing one,” Donal answered. “What a lot of -them!” (The sense of having received a slight electric shock made you -feel that you must look again and find out what had caused it, he was -thinking.) -</p> - -<p> -“She is the one with the eyelashes.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have eyelashes—so have you,” looking down at hers with a -very taking expression. Hers were in fact nice ones. -</p> - -<p> -“But ours are not two inches long and they don’t make a big soft -circle round our eyes when we look at anyone.” -</p> - -<p> -“Please look up and let me see,” said Donal. “When I asked -you to dance with me I thought—” -</p> - -<p> -What a “way” he had, Sara Studleigh was thinking. But -“perhaps it <i>was</i> the eyelashes” was passing through -Donal’s mind. Very noticeable eyelashes were rather arresting. -</p> - -<p> -“I knew you saw her,” said Sara Studleigh, “because I have -happened to be near two or three people this evening when they caught their -first sight of her.” -</p> - -<p> -“What happens to them?” asked Donal Muir. -</p> - -<p> -“They forget where they are,” she laughed, “and don’t -say anything for a few seconds.” -</p> - -<p> -“I should not want to forget where I am. It wouldn’t be possible -either,” answered Donal. (“But that was it,” he thought. -“For a minute I forgot.”) -</p> - -<p> -One should not dance with one girl and talk to her about another. Wisely he led -her to other subjects. The music was swinging through the air performing its -everlasting miracle of swinging young souls and pulses with it, the warmed -flowers breathed more perceptible scent, sweet chatter and laughter, swaying -colour and glowing eyes concentrated in making magic. This beautiful young -man’s pulses only beat with the rest—as one with the pulse of the -Universe. Lady Lothwell acting for the Duchess was very kind to him finding him -another partner as soon as a new dance began—this time her own daughter, -Lady Kathryn. -</p> - -<p> -Even while he had been tangoing with Sara Studleigh he had seen the girl with -the eyelashes, whirling about with someone, and when he began his dance with -Kathryn, he caught a glimpse of her at the other end of the room. And almost -immediately Kathryn spoke of her. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know when you will get a dance with Miss Lawless,” -she said. “She is obliged to work out mathematical problems on her -programme.” -</p> - -<p> -“I have a setter who fixes his eyes on you and waits without moving until -you look at him and then he makes a dart and you’re obliged to pat -him,” he said. “Perhaps if I go and stand near her and do that she -will take notice of me.” -</p> - -<p> -“Take notice of him, the enslaving thing!” thought Kathryn. -“She’d jump—for all her talk about lepers—any girl -would. He’s TOO nice! There’s something about <i>him</i> -too.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin did not jump. She had no time to do it because one dance followed another -so quickly and some of them were even divided in two or three pieces. But the -thrill of the singing sound of the violins behind the greenery, the perfume and -stately spaces and thousand candlelights had suddenly been lifted on to another -plane though she had thought they could reach no higher one. Her whole being -was a keen fine awareness. Every moment she was <i>aware</i>. After all the -years—from the far away days—he had come back. No one had dreamed -of the queer half abnormal secret she had always kept to herself as a -child—as a little girl—as a bigger one when she would have died -rather than divulge that in her loneliness there had been something she had -remembered—something she had held on to—a memory which she had -actually made a companion of, making pictures, telling herself stories in the -dark, even inventing conversations which not for one moment had she thought -would or could ever take place. But they had been living things to her and her -one near warm comfort—closer, oh, so weirdly closer than kind, kind Dowie -and dearly beloved Mademoiselle. She had wondered if the two would have -disapproved if they had known—if Mademoiselle would have been shocked if -she had realized that sometimes when they walked together there walked with -them a growing, laughing boy in a swinging kilt and plaid and that he had a -voice and eyes that drew the heart out of your breast for joy. At first he had -only been a child like herself, but as she had grown he had grown with -her—but always taller, grander, marvellously masculine and beyond -compare. Yet never once had she dared to believe or hope that he could take -form before her eyes—a living thing. He had only been the shadow she had -loved and which could not be taken away from her because he was her secret and -no one could ever know. -</p> - -<p> -The music went swinging and singing with notes which were almost a pain. And he -was in the very room with her! Donal! Donal! He had not known and did not know. -He had laughed into her eyes without knowing—but he had come back. A -young man now like all the rest, but more beautiful. What a laugh, what -wonderful shoulders, what wonderful dancing, how long and strongly smooth and -supple he was in the line fabric of his clothes! Though her mind did not form -these things in words for her, it was only that her eyes saw all the charm of -him from head to foot, and told her that he was only more than ever what he had -been in the miraculous first days. -</p> - -<p> -“Perhaps he will not find out at all,” she thought, dancing all the -while and trying to talk as well as think. “I was too little for him to -remember. I only remembered because I had nothing else. Oh, if he should not -find out!” She could not go and tell him. Even if a girl could do such a -thing, perhaps he could not recall a childish incident of so long -ago—such a small, small thing. It had only been immense to her and so -much water had flowed under his bridge bearing so many flotillas. She had only -stood and looked down at a thin trickling stream which carried no ships at all. -It was very difficult to keep her eyes from stealing—even -darting—about in search of him. His high fair head with the clipped wave -in its hair could be followed if one dared be alert. He danced with an auburn -haired girl, he spun down the room with a brown one, he paused for a moment to -show the trick of a new step to a tall one with black coils. He was at the end -of the room, he was tangoing towards her and she felt her heart beat and beat. -He passed close by and his eyes turned upon her and after he had passed a queer -little inner trembling would not cease. Oh! if he had looked a little -longer—if her partner would only carry her past him! And how dreadful she -was to let herself feel so excited when he could not be <i>expected</i> to -remember such a little thing—just a baby playing with him in a garden. -Oh!—her heart giving a leap—if he would look—if he would -<i>look!</i> -</p> - -<p> -When did she first awaken to a realization—after what seemed years and -years of waiting and not being able to conquer the inwardly trembling -feeling—that he was <i>beginning</i> to look—that somehow he had -become aware of her presence and that it drew his eyes though there was no -special recognition in them? Down the full length of the room they met hers -first, and again as he passed with yet another partner. Then when he was -resting between dances and being very gay indeed—though somehow he always -seemed gay. He had been gay when they played in the Gardens. Yes, his eyes cane -and found her. She thought he spoke of her to someone near him. Of course Robin -looked away and tried not to look again too soon. But when in spite of -intention and even determination, something forced her glance and made it a -creeping, following glance—there were his eyes again. She was frightened -each time it happened, but he was not. She began to know with new beatings of -the pulse that he no longer looked by chance, but because he wanted to see -her—and wished her to see him, as if he had begun to call to her with a -gay Donal challenge. It was like that, though his demeanour was faultlessly -correct. -</p> - -<p> -The incident of their meeting was faultlessly correct, also, when after one of -those endless lapses of time Lady Lothwell appeared and presented him as if the -brief ceremony were one of the most ordinary in existence. The conventional -grace of his bow said no more than George’s had said to those looking on, -but when he put his arm round her and they began to sway together in the dance, -Robin wondered in terror if he could not feel the beating of her heart under -his hand. If he could it would be horrible—but it would not stop. To be -so near—to try to believe it—to try to make herself remember that -she could mean nothing to him and that it was only she who was -shaking—for nothing! But she could not help it. This was the disjointed -kind of thing that flew past her mental vision. She was not a shy girl, but she -could not speak. Curiously enough he also was quite silent for several moments. -They danced for a space without a word and they did not notice that people -began to watch them because they were an attracting pair to watch. And the -truth was that neither of the two knew in the least what the other thought. -</p> - -<p> -“That—is a beautiful waltz,” he said at last. He said it in a -low meaning voice as if it were a sort of emotional confidence. He had not -actually meant to speak in such a tone, but when he realized what its sound had -been he did not care in the least. What was the matter with him? -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” Robin answered. (Only “Yes.”) -</p> - -<p> -He had not known when he glanced at her first, he was saying mentally. He could -not, of course, swear to her now. But what an extraordinary thing that—! -She was like a swallow—she was like any swift flying thing on a -man’s arm. One could go on to the end of time. Once round the great ball -room, twice, and as the third round began he gave a little laugh and spoke -again. -</p> - -<p> -“I am going to ask you a question. May I?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes.” -</p> - -<p> -“Is your name Robin?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” she could scarcely breathe it. -</p> - -<p> -“I thought it was,” in the voice in which he had spoken of the -music. “I hoped it was—after I first began to suspect. I -<i>hoped</i> it was.” -</p> - -<p> -“It is—it is.” -</p> - -<p> -“Did we—” he had not indeed meant that his arm should hold -her a shade closer, but—in spite of himself—it did because he was -after all so little more than a boy, “—did we play together in a -garden?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes—yes,” breathed Robin. “We did.” Surely she -heard a sound as if he had caught a quick breath. But after it there were a few -more steps and another brief space of silence. -</p> - -<p> -“I knew,” he said next, very low. “I <i>knew</i> that we -played together in a garden.” -</p> - -<p> -“You did not know when you first looked at me tonight.” Innocently -revealing that even his first glance had been no casual thing to her. -</p> - -<p> -But his answer revealed something too. -</p> - -<p> -“You were near the door—just coming into the room. I didn’t -know why you startled me. I kept looking for you afterwards in the -crowd.” -</p> - -<p> -“I didn’t see you look,” said Robin softly, revealing still -more in her utter inexperience. -</p> - -<p> -“No, because you wouldn’t look at me—you were too much -engaged. Do you like this step?” -</p> - -<p> -“I like them all.” -</p> - -<p> -“Do you always dance like this? Do you always make your partner feel as -if he had danced with you all his life?” -</p> - -<p> -“It is—because we played together in the garden,” said Robin -and then was quite terrified at herself. Because after all—after all they -were only two conventional young people meeting for the first time at a dance, -not knowing each other in the least. It was really the first time. The meeting -of two children could not count. But the beating and strange elated inward -tremor would not stop. -</p> - -<p> -As for him he felt abnormal also and he was usually a very normal creature. It -was abnormal to be so excited that he found himself, as it were, upon another -plane, because he had recognized and was dancing with a girl he had not seen -since she was five or six. It was not normal that he should be possessed by a -desire to keep near to her, overwhelmed by an impelling wish to talk to -her—to ask her questions. About what—about -herself—themselves—the years between—about the garden. -</p> - -<p> -“It began to come back bit by bit after I had two fair looks. You passed -me several times though you didn’t know.” (Oh! had she not known!) -“I had been promised some dances by other people. But I went to Lady -Lothwell. She’s very kind.” -</p> - -<p> -Back swept the years and it had all begun again, the wonderful -happiness—just as the anguish had swept back on the night her mother had -come to talk to her. As he had brought it into her dreary little world then, he -brought it now. He had the power. She was so happy that she seemed to be only -waiting to hear what he would say—as if that were enough. There are -phases like this—rare ones—and it was her fate that through such a -phase she was passing. -</p> - -<p> -It was indeed true that much more water had passed under his bridge than under -hers, but now—! Memory reproduced for him with an acuteness like actual -pain, a childish torment he thought he had forgotten. And it was as if it had -been endured only yesterday—and as if the urge to speak and explain was -as intense as it had been on the first day. -</p> - -<p> -“She’s very little and she won’t understand,” he had -said to his mother. “She’s very little, really—perhaps -she’ll cry.” -</p> - -<p> -How monstrous it had seemed! Had she cried—poor little soul! He looked -down at her eyelashes. Her cheek had been of the same colour and texture then. -That came back to him too. The impulse to tighten his arms was infernally -powerful—almost automatic. -</p> - -<p> -“She has no one but me to remember!” he heard his own child voice -saying fiercely. Good Lord, it <i>was</i> as if it had been yesterday. He -actually gulped something down in his throat. -</p> - -<p> -“You haven’t rested much,” he said aloud. -“There’s a conservatory with marble seats and corners and a -fountain going. Will you let me take you there when we stop dancing? I want to -apologize to you.” -</p> - -<p> -The eyelashes lifted themselves and made round her eyes the big soft shadow of -which Sara Studleigh had spoken. A strong and healthy valvular organ in his -breast lifted itself curiously at the same time. -</p> - -<p> -“To apologize?” -</p> - -<p> -Was he speaking to her almost as if she were still four or five? It was to the -helplessness of those years he was about to explain—and yet he did not -feel as though he were still eight. -</p> - -<p> -“I want to tell you why I never came back to the garden. It was a broken -promise, wasn’t it?” -</p> - -<p> -The music had not ceased, but they stopped dancing. -</p> - -<p> -“Will you come?” he said and she went with him like a -child—just as she had followed in her babyhood. It seemed only natural to -do what he asked. -</p> - -<p> -The conservatory was like an inner Paradise now. The tropically scented -warmth—the tiers on tiers of bloom above bloom—the softened swing -of music—the splash of the fountain on water and leaves. Their plane had -lifted itself too. They could hear the splashing water and sometimes feel it in -the corner seat of marble he took her to. A crystal drop fell on her hand when -she sat down. The blue of his eyes was vaguely troubled and he spoke as if he -were not certain of himself. -</p> - -<p> -“I was wakened up in what seemed to me the middle of the night,” he -said, as if indeed the thing had happened only the day before. “My mother -was obliged to go back suddenly to Scotland. I was only a little chap, but it -nearly finished me. Parents and guardians don’t understand how gigantic -such a thing can be. I had promised you—we had promised each -other—hadn’t we?” -</p> - -<p> -“Yes,” said Robin. Her eyes were fixed upon his face—open and -unmoving. Such eyes! Such eyes! All the touchingness of the past was in their -waiting on his words. -</p> - -<p> -“Children—little boys especially—are taught that they must -not cry out when they are hurt. As I sat in the train through the journey that -day I thought my heart would burst in my small breast. I turned my back and -stared out of the window for fear my mother would see my face. I’d always -loved her. Do you know I think that just then I <i>hated</i> her. I had never -hated anything before. Good Lord! What a thing for a little chap to go through! -My mother was an angel, but she didn’t <i>know</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -“No,” said Robin in a small strange voice and without moving her -gaze. “She didn’t <i>know</i>.” -</p> - -<p> -He had seated himself on a sort of low marble stool near her and he held a knee -with clasped hands. They were hands which held each other for the moment with a -sort of emotional clinch. His position made him look upward at her instead of -down. -</p> - -<p> -“It was <i>you</i> I was wild about,” he said. “You see it -was <i>you</i>. I could have stood it for myself. The trouble was that I felt I -was such a big little chap. I thought I was years—ages older than -you—and mountains bigger,” his faint laugh was touched with pity -for the smallness of the big little chap. “You seemed so tiny and -pretty—and lonely.” -</p> - -<p> -“I was as lonely as a new-born bird fallen out of its nest.” -</p> - -<p> -“You had told me you had ‘nothing.’ You said no one had ever -kissed you. I’d been loved all my life. You had a wondering way of fixing -your eyes on me as if I could give you everything—perhaps it was a coxy -little chap’s conceit that made me love you for it—but perhaps it -wasn’t.” -</p> - -<p> -“You <i>were</i> everything,” Robin said—and the mere -simpleness of the way in which she said it brought the garden so near that he -smelt the warm hawthorn and heard the distant piano organ and it quickened his -breath. -</p> - -<p> -“It was because I kept seeing your eyes and hearing your laugh that I -thought my heart was bursting. I knew you’d go and wait for me—and -gradually your little face would begin to look different. I knew you’d -believe I’d come. ‘She’s little’—that was what I -kept saying to myself again and again. ‘And she’ll -cry—awfully—and she’ll think I did it. She’ll never -know.’ There,”—he hesitated a moment—“there was a -kind of mad shame in it. As if I’d <i>betrayed</i> your littleness and -your belief, though I was too young to know what betraying was.” -</p> - -<p> -Just as she had looked at him before, “as if he could give her -everything,” she was looking at him now. In what other way could she look -while he gave her this wonderful soothing, binding softly all the old wounds -with unconscious, natural touch because he had really been all her child being -had been irradiated and warmed by. There was no pose in his manner—no -sentimental or flirtatious youth’s affecting of a picturesque attitude. -It was real and he told her this thing because he must for his own relief. -</p> - -<p> -“Did you cry?” he said. “Did my little chap’s conceit -make too much of it? I suppose I ought to hope it did.” -</p> - -<p> -Robin put her hand softly against her heart. -</p> - -<p> -“No,” she answered. “I was only a baby, but I think it -<i>killed</i> something—here.” -</p> - -<p> -He caught a big hard breath. -</p> - -<p> -“Oh!” he said and for a few seconds simply sat and gazed at her. -</p> - -<p> -“But it came to life again?” he said afterwards. -</p> - -<p> -“I don’t know. I don’t know what it was. Perhaps it could -only live in a very little creature. But it was killed.” -</p> - -<p> -“I say!” broke from him. “It was like wringing a -canary’s neck when it was singing in the sun!” -</p> - -<p> -A sudden swelling of the music of a new dance swept in to them and he rose and -stood up before her. -</p> - -<p> -“Thank you for giving me my chance to tell you,” he said. -“This was the apology. You have been kind to listen.” -</p> - -<p> -“I wanted to listen,” Robin said. “I am glad I didn’t -live a long time and grow old and die without your telling me. When I saw you -tonight I almost said aloud, ‘He’s come back!’” -</p> - -<p> -“I’m glad I came. It’s queer how one can live a thing over -again. There have been all the years between for us both. For me there’s -been all a lad’s life—tutors and Eton and Oxford and people and -lots of travel and amusement. But the minute I set eyes on you near the door -something must have begun to drag me back. I’ll own I’ve never -liked to let myself dwell on that memory. It wasn’t a good thing because -it had a trick of taking me back in a fiendish way to the little chap with his -heart bursting in the railway carriage—and the betrayal feeling. -It’s morbid to let yourself grouse over what can’t be undone. So -you faded away. But when I danced past you somehow I knew I’d come on -<i>something</i>. It made me restless. I couldn’t keep my eyes away -decently. Then all at once I <i>knew!</i> I couldn’t tell you what the -effect was. There you were again—I was as much obliged to tell you as I -should have been if I’d found you at Braemarnie when I got there that -night. Conventions had nothing to do with it. It would not have mattered even -if you’d obviously thought I was a fool. You might have thought so, you -know.” -</p> - -<p> -“No, I mightn’t,” answered Robin. “There have been no -Eton and Oxford and amusements for me. This is my first party.” -</p> - -<p> -She rose as he had done and they stood for a second or so with their eyes -resting on each other’s—each with a young smile quivering into life -which neither was conscious of. It was she who first wakened and came back. He -saw a tiny pulse flutter in her throat and she lifted her hand with a delicate -gesture. -</p> - -<p> -“This dance was Lord Halwyn’s and we’ve sat it out. We must -go back to the ball room.” -</p> - -<p> -“I—suppose—we must,” he answered with slow -reluctance—but he could scarcely drag his eyes away from hers—even -though he obeyed, and they turned and went. -</p> - -<p> -In the shining ball room the music rose and fell and swelled again into ecstasy -as he took her white young lightness in his arm and they swayed and darted and -swooped like things of the air—while the old Duchess and Lord Coombe -looked on almost unseeing and talked in murmurs of Sarajevo. -</p> - -<h5>THE END</h5> - -<h5>PUBLISHERS’ NOTE</h5> - -<p> -The inflexible limitations of magazine space necessitated the omission—in -its serial form—of so large a portion of <i>The Head of the House of -Coombe</i> as to eliminate much of the charm of characterization and the -creation of atmosphere and background which add so greatly to the power and -picturesqueness of the author’s work. -</p> - -<p> -These values having been unavoidably lost in a greatly compressed version, it -is the publishers’ desire to produce the story in its entirety, and, as -during its writing it developed into what might be regarded as two -novels—so distinctly does it deal with two epochs—it has been -decided to present it to its public as two separate books. The first, <i>The -Head of the House of Coombe</i>, deals with social life in London during the -evolutionary period between the late Victorian years and the reign of Edward -VII and that of his successor, previous to the Great War. It brings Lord Coombe -and Donal, Feather and her girl Robin to the summer of 1914. It ends with the -ending of a world which can never again be the same. The second novel, -<i>Robin</i>, to be published later continues the story of the same characters, -facing existence, however, in a world transformed by tragedy, and in which new -aspects of character, new social, economic, and spiritual possibilities are to -be confronted, rising to the surface of life as from the depths of unknown -seas. Readers of <i>The Head of the House of Coombe</i> will follow the story -of Robin with intensified interest. -</p> - -</div><!--end chapter--> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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