Part 2 (2/2)

”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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 bas.e.m.e.nt where there was an earthy smell and an abundance of c.o.c.kroaches. The Servants' Hall had been given that name in the catalogue of the fas.h.i.+onable 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 cus.h.i.+ons 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.

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