She was rather like a spiteful schoolgirl
entertaining herself by spoiling an envied holiday for a companion.
"Old men will run after you and you will have to be nice to them
whether you like it or not." A queer light came into her eyes.
"Lord Coombe is fond of girls just out of the schoolroom. But if
he begins to make love to you don't allow yourself to feel too
much flattered."
Robin sprang toward her.
"Do you think I don't ABHOR Lord Coombe!" she cried out forgetting
herself in the desperate cruelty of the moment. "Haven't I reason----"
but there she remembered and stopped.
But Feather was not shocked or alarmed. Years of looking things
in the face had provided her with a mental surface from which
tilings rebounded. On the whole it even amused her and "suited
her book" that Robin should take this tone.
"Oh! I suppose you mean you know he admires me and pays bills for
me. Where would you have been if he hadn't done it? He's been a
sort of benefactor."
"I know nothing but that even when I was a little child I could
not bear to touch his hand!" cried Robin. Then Feather remembered
several things she had almost forgotten and she was still more
entertained.
"I believe you've not forgotten through all these years that the
boy you fell so indecently in love with was taken away by his
mother because Lord Coombe was YOUR mother's admirer and he was
such a sinner that even a baby was contaminated by him! Donal
Muir is a young man by this time.
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