"It's your being almost Early Victorian, mamma, which makes it
easy for you to initiate things. You will initiate little Miss
Lawless. It was rather neat of her to prefer to drop the 'Gareth.'
There has been less talk in late years of the different classes
'keeping their places'--'upper' and 'lower' classes really strikes
one as vulgar."
"We may 'keep our places'," the Duchess said. "We may hold on to
them as firmly as we please. It is the places themselves which
are moving, my dear. It is not unlike the beginning of a landslide."
Robin went to Dowie's room the next evening and stood a moment in
silence watching her sewing before she spoke. She looked anxious
and even pale.
"Her grace is going to give a party to some young people, Dowie,"
she said. "She wishes me to be present. I--I don't know what to
do."
"What you must do, my dear, is to put on your best evening frock
and go downstairs and enjoy yourself as the other young people
will. Her grace wants you to see someone your own age," was Dowie's
answer.
"But I am not like the others. I am only a girl earning her living
as a companion. How do I know--"
"Her grace knows," Dowie said. "And what she asks you to do it is
your duty to do--and do it prettily."
Robin lost even a shade more colour.
"Do you realize that I have never been to a party in my life--not
even to a children's party, Dowie? I shall not know how to behave
myself.
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