The Duchess understood what the heroic look had meant, and her
respect for it was great. Its intention had not been to suggest
inclusion of George and Kathryn in her pun, it had only with pure
justice put it to her to ask herself what her own personal decision
in such a matter would be.
"You do feel as if you were her mother," she said. "And you are a
practical, clear-minded woman. It is only if I myself am willing
to take such a step that I have a right to ask it of other people.
Lady Lothwell is the mother I must speak to first. Her children
are mine though I am a mere grandmother."
Lady Lothwell was her daughter and though she was not regarded
as Victorian either of the Early or the Middle periods, Dowie as
she returned to her own comfortable quarters wondered what would
happen.
CHAPTER XXX
What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been
possible for a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest
mother of her day and have emerged from her training either
obstinate or illogical. Lady Lothwell listened to as much of the
history of Robin as her mother chose to tell her and plainly felt
an amiable interest in it. She knew much more detail and gossip
concerning Mrs. Gareth-Lawless than the Duchess herself did. She
had heard of the child who was kept out of sight, and she had
been somewhat disgusted by a vague story of Lord Coombe's abnormal
interest in it and the ugly hint that he had an object in view.
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