"
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.
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