"
"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.
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