He had done THAT THING she
remembered! Goodness could not have done it. Only badness.
When Dowson brought in a new doll and other wonderful things, a
little hand enclosed her wrist quite tightly as she was unpacking
the boxes. It was Robin's and the small creature looked at her
with a questioning, half appealing, half fierce.
"Did he send them, Dowson?"
"They are a present from me," Dowson answered comfortably, and
Robin said again,
"I want to kiss you. I like to kiss you. I do."
To those given to psychical interests and speculations, it might
have suggested itself that, on the night when the creature who had
seemed to Andrews a soft tissued puppet had suddenly burst forth
into defiance and fearless shrillness, some cerebral change had
taken place in her. From that hour her softness had become a thing
of the past. Dowson had not found a baby, but a brooding, little,
passionate being. She was neither insubordinate nor irritable,
but Dowson was conscious of a certain intensity of temperament
in her. She knew that she was always thinking of things of which
she said almost nothing. Only a sensible motherly curiosity, such
as Dowson's could have made discoveries, but a rare question put
by the child at long intervals sometimes threw a faint light.
There were questions chiefly concerning mothers and their habits
and customs. They were such as, in their very unconsciousness,
revealed a strange past history.
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