Chapter 31 - Page 2

"And it is a good best." Dowie was feeling tremulous
herself though she could not have explained why. She thought that
perhaps it was because she wished that Mademoiselle could have
been with her.

Robin kissed her when the last touch had been given.

"I'm going to run down the staircase," she said. "If I let myself
walk slowly I shall have time to feel queer and shy and I might
seem to CREEP into the drawing-room. I mustn't creep in. I must
walk in as if I had been to parties all my life."

She ran down and as she did so she looked like a white bird
flying, but she was obliged to stop upon the landing before the
drawing-room door to quiet a moment of excited breathing. Still
when she entered the room she moved as she should and held her head
poised with a delicately fearless air. The Duchess--who herself
looked her best in her fine old ivory profiled way--gave her a
pleased smile of welcome which was almost affectionate.

"What a perfect little frock!" she said. "You are delightfully
pretty in it."

"Is it quite right?" said Robin. "Mademoiselle chose it for me."

"It is quite right. 'Frightfully right,' George would say. George
will sit near you at dinner. He is my grandson--Lord Halwyn you
know, and you will no doubt frequently hear him say things are
'frightfully' something or other during the evening. Kathryn will
say things are 'deevy' or 'exquig'. I mention it because you may
not know that she means 'exquisite' and 'divine.' Don't let it
frighten you if you don't quite understand their language. They
are dear handsome things sweeping along in the rush of their bit
of century. I don't let it frighten me that their world seems to
me an entirely new planet."

Robin drew a little nearer her. She felt something as she had
felt years ago when she had said to Dowie. "I want to kiss you,
Dowie." Her eyes were pools of childish tenderness because she
so well understood the infinitude of the friendly tact which drew
her within its own circle with the light humour of its "I don't
let them frighten ME."

"You are kind--kind to me," she said. "And I am grateful--GRATEFUL."

The extremely good-looking young people who began very soon to
drift into the brilliant big room--singly or in pairs of brother
and sister--filled her with innocent delight. They were so well
built and gaily at ease with each other and their surroundings, so
perfectly dressed and finished. The filmy narrowness of delicate
frocks, the shortness of skirts accentuated the youth and girlhood and
added to it a sort of child fairy-likeness. Kathryn in exquisite
wisps of