Something was awakening as something had awakened when Donal had
kissed a child under the soot sprinkled London trees.
CHAPTER XXXI
The whole day before the party was secretly exciting to Robin.
She knew how much more important it seemed to her than it really
was. If she had been six years old she might have felt the same
kind of uncertain thrills and tremulous wonders. She hid herself
behind the window curtains in her room that she might see the
men putting up the crimson and white awning from the door to the
carriage step. The roll of red carpet they took from their van had
a magic air. The ringing of the door bell which meant that things
were being delivered, the extra moving about of servants, the
florists' men who went into the drawing-rooms and brought flowers
and big tropical plants to re-arrange the conservatory and fill
corners which were not always decorated--each and every one of
them quickened the beating of her pulses. If she had belonged in
her past to the ordinary cheerful world of children, she would
have felt by this time no such elation. But she had only known of
the existence of such festivities as children's parties because once
a juvenile ball had been given in a house opposite her mother's
and she had crouched in an almost delirious little heap by the
nursery window watching carriages drive up and deposit fluffy pink
and white and blue children upon the strip of red carpet, and had
seen them led or running into the house.
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