'I never do quite understand Robin,' said Wilmet. 'She seems the simplest, soberest girl in the world; and yet I suppose that folly of Alice's put things into her head, for she has a strange propensity to think people are paying her attention. Even at Barèges I saw symptoms of it, which I put a stop to at once.'
'I can't think it of any one so honest and sensible as the Robin.'
'I know it, unfortunately; and it is the more curious that she has only moderate good looks, and no other tokens of vanity. It is particularly unlucky in her position.'
'You don't imagine there's anything going on!'
'I hope not.'
'I have a great deal too much confidence in the Robin to suspect her.'
'Not of consciously doing wrong, but of having been flattered, and now perhaps in a difficulty. However, I shall say nothing till we have seen more. She may be only tired.'
Felix—with all that was on his hands—had likewise noted the absence of the Robin's chirp, and looked for her when he came back from the ringers' supper, to which Clement and Lance had followed him. They then went off to Clement's library for a consultation about some music; and Felix, repairing to the drawing-room, found nothing there but a lonely cockchafer, knocking his head against a lonely lamp on the lonely round table in the centre—not an enlivening spectacle; but hearing steps on the gravel, he went out, and found John pacing under the wall with a cigar, and Bernard emulously following in his wake.
'Where are all the others?' he asked; 'it is not far from ten.'
'Wilmet went up to the babies,' said John; 'the others are about somewhere.'