Chapter 15 - Page 2

awakened his somewhat
chill self-absorption to the recognition of any child's existence.

"To be exact we none of us really know anything in particular about
his mental processes." Harrowby pondered aloud. "He's capable of
any number of things we might not understand, if he condescended
to tell us about them--which he would never attempt. He has a
remote, brilliantly stored, cynical mind. He owns that he is of an
inhuman selfishness. I haven't a suggestion to make, but it sets one
searching through the purlieus of one's mind for an approximately
reasonable explanation."

"Why 'purlieus'?" was the Starling's inquiry. Harrowby shrugged
his shoulders ever so lightly.

"Well, one isn't searching for reasons founded on copy-book axioms,"
he shook his head. "Coombe? No."

There was a silence given to occult thought.

"Feather is really in a rage and is too Feathery to be able to
conceal it," said Starling.

"Feather would be--inevitably," Harrowby lifted his near-sighted
eyes to her curiously. "Can you see Feather in the future--when
Robin is ten years older?"

"I can," the Starling answered.

* * * * *

The years which followed were changing years--growing years. Life
and entertainment went on fast and furiously in all parts of London,
and in no part more rapidly than in the slice of a house whose
front always presented an air of having been freshly decorated,
in spite of summer rain and winter soot and fog. The plants in
the window boxes seemed always in bloom, being magically replaced
in the early morning hours when they dared to hint at flagging.
Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, it was said, must be renewed in some such
mysterious morning way, as she merely grew prettier as she neared
thirty and passed it. Women did in these days! Which last phrase
had always been a useful one, probably from the time of the Flood.
Old fogeys, male and female, had used it in the past as a means of
scathingly unfavourable comparison, growing flushed and almost
gobbling like turkey cocks in their indignation. Now, as a phrase, it
was a support and a mollifier. "In these days" one knew better how
to amuse oneself, was more free to snatch at agreeable opportunity,
less in bondage to old fancies which had called themselves beliefs;
everything whirled faster and more lightly--danced, two-stepped,
instead of marching.

Robin vaguely connected certain changes in her existence with the
changes which took place in the fashion of sleeves and skirts
which appeared to produce radical effects in the world she caught
glimpses of. Sometimes sleeves were closely fitted to people's
arms, then