But, Oh!--" He was reminded of the day when she had fallen
at his feet, and clasped his rigid and reluctant knees. This was
something of the same feeble desperation of mood. "Oh, WHY couldn't
someone like that have wanted to marry ME! See!" she was like
a pathetic fairy as she spread her nymphlike arms, "how PRETTY I
am!"
His gaze held her a moment in the singular fashion with which she
had become actually familiar, because--at long intervals--she kept
seeing it again. He quite gently took her fingers and returned
her to her sofa.
"Please sit down again," he requested. "It will be better."
She sat down without another imbecile word to say. As for him, he
changed the subject.
"With your permission, Benby will undertake the business of the
lease and the building," he explained. "The plans will be brought
to you. We will go over them together, if you wish. There will be
decent rooms for Robin and her governess. The two nurseries can be
made fit for human beings to live in and used for other purposes.
The house will be greatly improved."
It was nearly three o'clock when Feather went upstairs to her
dozing maid, because, after he had left her, she sat some time in
the empty, untidy little drawing-room and gazed straight before
her at a painted screen on which shepherdesses and swains were
dancing in a Watteau glade infested by flocks of little Loves.
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