Robin | Page 6

questioning gaze upon.
"When I saw this," he said, "this--exquisitely smiling at me in a sunny
garden--the tomb opened under my feet and I stood on the brink of
it--twenty-five again."
He made clear to her certain facts which most persons would have
ironically disbelieved. He ended with the story of Robin.
"I am determined," he explained, "to stand between the child and what
would be inevitable. Her frenzy of desire to support herself arises from
her loathing of the position of accepting support from me. I sympathise
with her entirely."
"Mademoiselle Vallé is an intelligent woman," the Duchess said. "Send
her to me; I shall talk to her. Then she can bring the child."
And so it was arranged that Robin should be taken into the house in the
old fashioned square to do for the Duchess what a young relative might
have done. And, a competent person being needed to take charge of the
linen, "Dowie" would go to live under the same roof.
Feather's final thrust in parting with her daughter was:

"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 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!"
* * * * *
The Duchess came to understand that Robin held it deep in her mind
that she was a sort of young outcast.
"If she consorted," she thought, "with other young things and shared
their pleasures she would forget it."
She talked the matter over with her daughter, Lady Lothwell.
"I am not launching a girl in society," she said, "I only want to help her
to know a few nice young people. I shall begin with your children.
They are mine if I am only a grandmother. A small dinner and a small
dance--and George and Kathryn may be the beginning of an interesting
experiment."
* * * * *
The Duchess was rarely mistaken. The experiment was interesting. For
George--Lord Halwyn--it held a certain element of disaster. It was he
who danced with Robin first. He had heard of the girl who was a sort of
sublimated companion to his grandmother. He had encountered
companions before. 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.
He led her to the conservatory. He was extremely young and his
fleeting emotions had never known a tight rein. An intoxicating
hot-house perfume filled his nostrils. Suddenly he let himself go and
was kissing the warm velvet of her slim little neck.
"You--you--you've spoiled everything in the world!" she cried.
"Now"--with a desolate, horrible little sob--"now I can only go

back--back." She spoke as if she were Cinderella and he had made the
clock strike twelve. Her voice had absolute grief in it.
"I say,"--he was contrite--"don't speak like that. I beg pardon. I'll grovel.
Don't-- Oh, Kathryn! Come here!"
This last because his sister had suddenly appeared.
Kathryn bore Robin away. Boys like George didn't really matter, she
pointed out, though of course it was bad manners. She had been kissed
herself, it seemed. As they walked between banked flowers she added:
"By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of the
Balkan countries. Lord Coombe has just come in and is talking it over
with grandmamma."
As they neared the entrance to the ballroom she paused with a new kind
of impish smile.
"The very best looking boy in all England," she said, "is dancing with
Sara Studleigh. He dropped in by chance to call and grandmamma
made him stay. His name is Donal Muir. He is Lord Coombe's heir.
Here he comes. Look!"
He was now scarcely two yards away. Almost as if he had been called
he turned his eyes toward Robin and straight into hers they
laughed--straight into hers.
The incident of their meeting was faultlessly correct; also, when Lady
Lothwell appeared, she presented him to Robin as if the brief ceremony
were one of the most ordinary in existence.
They danced for a time without a word. She wondered if he could not
feel the beating of her heart.
"That--is a beautiful waltz," he said at last, as if it were a sort of
emotional confidence.
"Yes," she answered. Only, "Yes."

Once round the great ballroom, twice, and 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. I hoped it was--after I first began to suspect. I hoped
it was."
"It is--it is."
"Did we