Part 17 (2/2)

”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 pa.s.sion for a little boy, whose mamma s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 ”emanc.i.p.ated”; the sign thereof being the demanding of latchkeys and the setting up of bachelor apartments. The relatives had astonis.h.i.+ngly settled down, with the unmoved pa.s.sage of time, and more modern emanc.i.p.ation 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 impa.s.sioned. He was not impa.s.sioned 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.

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