Chapter 16

The interview which took place between Feather and Lord Coombe a
few days later had its own special character.

"A governess will come here tomorrow at eleven o'clock," he said.
"She is a Mademoiselle Valle. She is accustomed to the educating
of young children. She will present herself for your approval.
Benby has done all the rest."

Feather flushed to her fine-spun ash-gold hair.

"What on earth can it matter!" she cried.

"It does not matter to you," he answered; "it chances--for the
time being--to matter to ME."

"Chances!" she flamed forth--it was really a queer little flame of
feeling. "That's it. You don't really care! It's a caprice--just
because you see she is going to be pretty."

"I'll own," he admitted, "that has a great deal to do with it."

"It has everything to do with it," she threw out. "If she had a
snub nose and thick legs you wouldn't care for her at all."

"I don't say that I do care for her," without emotion. "The situation
interests me. Here is an extraordinary little being thrown into
the world. She belongs to nobody. She will have to fight for her
own hand. And she will have to FIGHT, by God! With that dewy lure
in her eyes and her curved pomegranate mouth! She will not know,
but she will draw disaster!"

"Then she had better not be taught anything at all," said Feather.
"It would be an amusing thing to let her grow up without learning
to read or write at all. I know numbers of men who would like the
novelty of it. Girls who know so much are a bore."

"There are a few minor chances she ought to have," said Coombe.
"A governess is one. Mademoiselle Valle will be here at eleven."

"I can't see that she promises to be such a beauty," fretted
Feather. "She's the kind of good looking child who might grow up
into a fat girl with staring black eyes like a barmaid."

"Occasionally pretty women do abhor their growing up daughters,"
commented Coombe letting his eyes rest on her interestedly.

"I don't abhor her," with pathos touched with venom. "But a big,
lumping girl hanging about ogling and wanting to be ogled when she
is passing through that silly age! And sometimes you speak to me
as a man speaks to his wife when he is tired of her."

"I beg your pardon," Coombe said. "You make me feel like a person
who lives over a shop at Knightsbridge, or in bijou mansion off
Regent's Park."

But he was deeply aware that, as an outcome of the anomalous
position he occupied, he not infrequently felt