“Fairly off. But they might come on again. I wish you’d go and see her. You might tell me what you thought.”
“That is a very odd thing to ask of an aged and respectable mother,” said Lady Grote, looking about twenty-five.
“No, it isn’t. I could ask you to do anything, because you would understand. Of course it’s all chaff——”
She laid her hand on his, interrupting.
“My dear, you’ve said something that isn’t all chaff,” she said. “You told me you could ask me to do anything because I would understand. Oh, Robin, don’t ever forget that you felt that. It’s an enchanting thing for a mother to have said to her by her son. Oh, you bone of my bone! I almost wish you would do something quite out of the pale, in order to see whether I didn’t stick to you. Do be had up for some really awful charge, like taking a penny from a blind beggar.... There’s that damned telephone ringing. Just see what it wants, or tell it quite straight that it can’t have it.”
Robin listened, and as he listened, stiffened slightly.
“Oh, yes,” he said, with so icy a politeness that his mother instantly guessed to whom he was speaking.
“Yes, I’m afraid that she’s particularly engaged just now.”
“Hold on a minute, Robin,” she said. “I want to say one word to Mr. Kuhlmann.”