Chapter 3 - Page 2

It was not only the slaughter and
helplessness which pictured itself before her--it was stories half
hinted at about girls like herself--girls who were trapped and
overpowered--carried into lonely or dark places where no one could hear
them. Sometimes George and the Duchess forgot her because she was so
quiet--people often forgot everything but their excitement and
wrath--and every one who came in to talk, because the house had become a
centre of activities, was full of new panics or defiances or rumours of
happenings or possibilities.

The maelstrom had caught Robin herself in its whirling. She realised
that she had changed with the rest. She was no longer only a girl who
was looked at as she passed along the street and who was beginning to be
happy because she could earn her living. What was every girl in these
days? How did any girl know what lay before her and those who protected
the land she lived in? What could a girl do but try in some way to
help--in any way to help the fight and the fighters. She used to lie
awake and think of the Duchess' plans and concentrate her thought on the
mastering of details. There was no hour too early or too late to find
her ready to spring to attention. The Duchess had set her preparations
for future possibilities in train before other women had quite begun to
believe in their existence. Lady Lothwell had at first laughed quite
gaily at certain long lists she found her mother occupied with--though
this, it is true, was in early days.

But Robin, even while whirled by the maelstrom, could not cease thinking
certain vague remote thoughts. The splashing of fountains among flowers,
and the sound of music and dancing were far away--but there was an echo
to which she listened unconsciously as Donal Muir did. Something she
gave no name to. But as the, as yet unheard, guns sent forth vibrations
which reached far, there rose before her pictures of columns of marching
men--hundreds, thousands, young, erect, steady and with clear
eyes--marching on and on--to what--to what? Would _every_ man go? Would
there not be some who, for reasons, might not be obliged--or able--or
ready--until perhaps the, as yet hoped for, sudden end of the awful
thing had come? Surely there would be many who would be too young--or
whose youth could not be spared because it stood for some power the
nation needed in its future.

She had taken out and opened the lacquered box while thinking these
things. She was thinking them as she looked at the key in her hand.

"It is not quiet anywhere now," she said to herself. "But there will be
some corner under a tree in the Gardens where it will _seem_ quiet if
one sits quite still there. I will go and try."

There were very