She's
lived upstairs like a little dog in its kennel."
"Well," Dowson reflected aloud, "it sounds almost silly to talk
of a child's hating any one, but that bit of a thing's eyes had
fair hate in them when she looked up at him where he stood. That
was what puzzled me."
CHAPTER XV
Before Robin had been taken to the seaside to be helped by the
bracing air of the Norfolk coast to recover her lost appetite
and forget her small tragedy, she had observed that unaccustomed
things were taking place in the house. Workmen came in and out
through the mews at the back and brought ladders with them and
tools in queer bags. She heard hammerings which began very early
in the morning and went on all day. As Andrews had trained her not
to ask tiresome questions, she only crept now and then to a back
window and peeped out. But in a few days Dowson took her away.
When she came back to London, she was not taken up the steep dark
stairs to the third floor. Dowson led her into some rooms she had
never seen before. They were light and airy and had pretty walls
and furniture. A sitting-room on the ground floor had even a round
window with plants in it and a canary bird singing in a cage.
"May we stay here?" she asked Dowson in a whisper.
"We are going to live here," was the answer.
And so they did.
At first Feather occasionally took her intimates to see the
additional apartments.
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