Chapter 13 - Page 2

flesh--gave me a second's furious shudder."

Feather quite broke in upon him.

"Are you--are you FOND of children?"

"No," he was really abrupt. "I never thought of such a thing in
my life--as being FOND of things."

"That was what--I mean I thought so." Feather faltered, as if in
polite acquiescence with a quite natural fact.

Coombe proceeded:

"As I went up the stairs I heard screams and I thought that
the pinching had begun. I got up quickly and opened the door and
found the woman lying flat on the floor by the bed, dragging out
the child who had hidden under it. The woman's face was devilish,
and so was her voice. I heard her threats. She got on her feet and
dragged the child up and held her between her knees. She clapped
her hand over mouth to stifle her shrieks. There I stopped her.
She had a fright at sight of me which taught her something." He
ended rather slowly. "I took the great liberty of ordering her
to pack her box and leave the house--course," with a slight bow,
"using you as my authority."

"Andrews!" cried Feather, aghast. "Has she--gone?"

"Would you have kept her?" he inquired.

"It's true that--that PINCHING" Feather's voice almost held tears,
"--really HARD pinching is--is not proper. But Andrews has been
invaluable. Everyone says Robin is better dressed and better kept
than other children. And she is never allowed to make the least
noise--"

"One wouldn't if one were pinched by those devilish, sinewy fingers
every time one raised one's voice. Yes. She has gone. I ordered
her to put her charge to bed before she packed. I did not leave
her alone with Robin. In fact, I walked about the two nurseries
and looked them over."

He had walked about the Night Nursery and the Day Nursery! He--the
Head of the House of Coombe, whose finely acrid summing up of
things, they were all secretly afraid of, if the truth were known.
"They" stood for her smart, feverishly pleasure-chasing set. In
their way, they half unconsciously tried to propitiate something
in him, always without producing the least effect. Her mental
vision presented to her his image as he had walked about the horrid
little rooms, his somewhat stiffly held head not much below the
low ceilings. He had taken in shabby carpets, furniture, faded
walls, general dim dinginess.

"It's an unholy den for anything to spend its days in--that third
floor," he made the statement detachedly, in a way. "If she's six,
she has lived six years there--and known nothing else."

"All London top floors are like it," said