Chapter 7

The days of gold which linked themselves one to another with strange
dawns of pearl and exquisite awakenings, each a miracle, the gemmed
night whose blue darkness seemed studded with myriads of new stars, the
noons whose heats or rains were all warm scents of flowers and fragrant
mists, wrought themselves into a chain of earthly beauty. The hour in
which the links must break and the chain end was always a faint spectre
veiled by kindly mists which seemed to rise hour by hour to soften and
hide it.

But often in those days did it occur that the hurrying and changing
visitors to the house in Eaton Square, glancing at Robin as she sat
writing letters, or as she passed them in some hall or room, found
themselves momentarily arrested in an almost startled fashion by the
mere radiance of her.

"She is lovelier every time one turns one's head towards her," the
Starling said--the Starling having become a vigorous worker and the
Duchess giving welcome to any man, woman or child who could be counted
on for honest help. "It almost frightens me to see her eyes when she
looks up suddenly. It is like finding one's self too close to a star. A
star in the sky is all very well--but a star only three feet away from
one is a kind of shock. What has happened to the child?"

She said it to Gerald Vesey who between hours of military training was
helping Harrowby to arrange a matinee for the benefit of the Red Cross.
Harrowby had been rejected by the military authorities on account of
defective sight and weak chest but had with a promptness unexpected by
his friends merged himself into unprominent, useful hard work which
frequently consisted of doing disagreeable small jobs men of his type
generally shied away from.

"Something has happened to her," answered Vesey. "She has the flight of
a skylark let out of a cage. Her moving is flight--not ordinary walking.
I hope her work has kept her away from--well, from young gods and
things."

"The streets are full of them," said Harrowby, "marching to defy death
and springing to meet glory--marching not walking. Young Mars and Ajax
and young Paris with Helen in his eyes. She might be some youngster's
Helen! Why do you hope her work has kept her away?"

Vesey shook his Greek head with a tragic bitterness.

"Oh! I don't know," he groaned. "There's too much disaster piled high
and staring in every one of their flushing rash young faces. On they go
with their heads in the air and their hearts thumping, and hoping and
refusing to believe in the devil and hell let loose--and the whole thing
stares and gibbers at them."

But each day her eyes looked larger and more rapturously full