Chapter 10

Donal talked a great deal as he pranced home. Feather had excited
as well as allured him. Why hadn't she told Robin she was her
mother? Why did she never show her pictures in the Nursery and
hold her on her knee? She was little enough to be held on knees!
Did some mothers never tell their children and did the children
never find out? This was what he wanted to hear explained. He took
the gloved hand near him and held it close and a trifle authoritatively.

"I am glad I know you are my mother," he said, "I always knew."

He was not sure that the matter was explained very clearly. Not as
clearly as things usually were. But he was not really disturbed.
He had remembered a book he could show Robin tomorrow and he thought
of that. There was also a game in a little box which could be
easily carried under his arm. His mother was "thinking" and he was
used to that. It came on her sometimes and of his own volition he
always, on such occasion, kept as quiet as was humanly possible.

After he was asleep, Helen sent for Nanny.

"You're tired, ma'am," the woman said when she saw her, "I'm afraid
you've a headache."

"I have had a good deal of thinking to do since this afternoon,"
her mistress answered, "You were right about the nurse. The
little girl might have been playing with any boy chance sent in
her way--boys quite unlike Donal."

"Yes, ma'am." And because she loved her and knew her face and
voice Nanny watched her closely.

"You will be as--startled--as I was. By some queer chance the
child's mother was driving by and saw us and came in to speak to
me. Nanny--she is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless."

Nanny did start; she also reddened and spoke sharply.

"And she came in and spoke to you, ma'am!"

"Things have altered and are altering every day," Mrs. Muir said.
"Society is not at all inflexible. She has a smart set of her own--and
she is very pretty and evidently well provided for. Easy-going
people who choose to find explanations suggest that her husband
was a relation of Lord Lawdor's."

"And him a canny Scotchman with a new child a year. Yes, my certie,"
offered Nanny, with an acrid grimness. Mrs. Muir's hands clasped
strongly as they lay on the table before her.

"That doesn't come within my bailiewick," she said in her quiet
voice. "Her life is her own and not mine. Words are the wind that
blows." She stopped just a moment and began again. "We must leave
for Scotland by the earliest train."

"What'll he do?" the words escaped from the woman as if involuntarily.
She even drew a quick breath.