Chapter 30

What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been
possible for a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest
mother of her day and have emerged from her training either
obstinate or illogical. Lady Lothwell listened to as much of the
history of Robin as her mother chose to tell her and plainly felt
an amiable interest in it. She knew much more detail and gossip
concerning Mrs. Gareth-Lawless than the Duchess herself did. She
had heard of the child who was kept out of sight, and she had
been somewhat disgusted by a vague story of Lord Coombe's abnormal
interest in it and the ugly hint that he had an object in view.
It was too unpleasantly morbid to be true of a man her mother had
known for years.

"Of course you were not thinking of anything large or formal?"
she said after a moment of smiling hesitation.

"No. I am not launching a girl into society. I only want to help
her to know a few nice young people who are good-natured and
well-mannered. She is not the ordinary old lady's companion and
if she were not so strict with herself and with me, I confess I
should behave towards her very much as I should behave to Kathryn
if you could spare her to live with me. She is a heart-warming
young thing. Because I am known to have one of my eccentric fancies
for her and because after all her father WAS well connected, her
present position will not be the obstacle. She is not the first
modern girl who has chosen to support herself."

"But isn't she much too pretty?"

"Much. But she doesn't flaunt it."

"But heart-warming--and too pretty! Dearest mamma!" Lady Lothwell
laughed again. "She can do no harm to Kathryn, but I own that
if George were not at present quite madly in love with a darling
being at least fifteen years older than himself I should pause
to reflect. Mrs. Stacy will keep him steady--Mrs. Alan Stacy, you
know--the one with the magnificent henna hair, and the eyes that
droop. No boy of twenty-two can resist her. They call her adorers
'The Infant School'."

"A small dinner and a small dance--and George and Kathryn may be
the beginning of an interesting experiment. It would be pretty
and kind of you to drop in during the course of the evening."

"Are you hoping to--perhaps--make a marriage for her?" Lady Lothwell
asked the question a shade disturbedly. "You are so amazing,
mamma darling, that I know you will do it, if you believe in it.
You seem to be able to cause the things you really want, to evolve
from the universe."

"She is the kind of girl whose place in the universe is in the
home of some young man whose own place in the universe is in