Chapter 20 - Page 2

is a gentleman does," she confided to Mademoiselle Valle, "but
as if he had been taught to do it and to call attention to it as
if no one had ever known how to do it properly before. It is so
flourishing in its stiff way that it's rather vulgar."

"That is only personal fancy on your part," commented Mademoiselle.

"I know it is," admitted Robin. "But--" uneasily, "--but that
isn't what I dislike in him most. It's his eyes, I suppose they
are handsome eyes. They are blue and full--rather too full. They
have a queer, swift stare--as if they plunged into other people's
eyes and tried to hold them and say something secret, all in one
second. You find yourself getting red and trying to look away."

"I don't," said Mademoiselle astutely--because she wanted to hear
the rest, without asking too many questions.

Robin laughed just a little.

"You have not seen him do it. I have not seen him do it myself very
often. He comes to call on--Mamma"--she never said "Mother"--"when
he is in London. He has been coming for two or three seasons. The
first time I saw him I was going out with Dowie and he was just
going upstairs. Because the hall is so small, we almost knocked
against each other, and he jumped back and made his bow, and he
stared so that I felt silly and half frightened. I was only fifteen
then."

"And since then?" Mademoiselle Valle inquired.

"When he is here it seems as if I always meet him somewhere. Twice,
when Fraulein Hirsch was with me in the Square Gardens, he came
and spoke to us. I think he must know her. He was very grand and
condescendingly polite to her, as if he did not forget she was
only a German teacher and I was only a little girl whose mamma
he knew. But he kept looking at me until I began to hate him."

"You must not dislike people without reason. You dislike Lord
Coombe."

"They both make me creep. Lord Coombe doesn't plunge his eyes
into mine, but he makes me creep with his fishy coldness. I feel
as if he were like Satan in his still way."

"That is childish prejudice and nonsense."

"Perhaps the other is, too," said Robin. "But they both make me
creep, nevertheless. I would rather DIE than be obliged to let
one of them touch me. That was why I would never shake hands with
Lord Coombe when I was a little child."

"You think Fraulein Hirsch knows the Baron?" Mademoiselle inquired
further.

"I am sure she does. Several times, when she has gone out to walk
with me, we have met him. Sometimes he only passes us and salutes,
but sometimes he stops and