"I think you must all be mad," said Robin angrily. "You can't persuade me that nobody ever kisses anybody over in Germany."
"Oh yes they do—oh yes they do," cried Annalise, wringing her hands, "but neither there nor anywhere else—in England, anywhere in the world—do the sons of pastors—the sons of pastors—" She seemed to struggle for breath, and twisted and untwisted her apron round her hands in a storm of agitation while Robin, utterly astonished, stared at her—"Neither there nor anywhere else do they—the sons of pastors—kiss—kiss royal princesses."
It was now Robin's turn to say "What?"
XVI
He went up to Cambridge the next morning. Term had not begun, but he went; a Robin with all the briskness gone out of him, and if still with something of the bird left only of a bird that is moulting. His father was mildly surprised, but applauded the apparent desire for solitary study. His mother was violently surprised, and tried hard to get at his true reasons. She saw with the piercing eye of a relation—that eye from which hardly anything can ever be hidden—that something had happened and that the something was sobering and unpleasant. She could not imagine what it was, for she did not know he had been to Creeper Cottage the night before and all the afternoon and at dinner he had talked and behaved as usual. Now he did not talk at all, and his behaviour was limited to a hasty packing of portmanteaus. Determined to question him she called him into the study just before he started, and shut the door.
"I must go mater," he said, pulling out his watch; he had carefully avoided her since breakfast though she had laid many traps for him.
"Robin, I want to tell you that I think you splendid."
"Splendid? What on earth for? You were telling me a very different sort of thing a day or two ago."
"I am sorry now for what I said on Sunday."