"Let me look at your wrist, Robin," she said and she took it between her fingers.
"Oh! What a little wrist!" she exclaimed. "I—I am sure Grandmamma has not seen it. Grandmamma—" aloud to the Duchess, "Have you seen Robin's wrist? It looks as if it would snap in two."
There were only three or four people in the room and they were all intimates and looked interested.
"It is only that I am a little thin," said Robin. "Everybody is thinner than usual. It is nothing."
The Duchess' kind look somehow took in those about her in her answer.
"You are too thin, my dear," she said. "I must tell you frankly, Kathryn, that you will be called upon to take her place. I am going to send her away into the wilds. The War only ceases for people who are sent into wild places. Dr. Redcliff is quite fixed in that opinion. People who need taking care of must be literally hidden away in corners where war vibrations cannot reach them. He has sent Emily Clare away and even her friends do not know where she is."
Later in the day Lady Lothwell came and in the course of a few minutes drew near to her mother and sat by her chair rather closely. She spoke in a lowered voice.
"I am so glad, mamma darling, that you are going to send poor little Miss Lawless into retreat for a rest cure," she began. "It's so tactless to continually chivy people about their health, but I own that I can scarcely resist saying to the child every time I see her, 'Are you any better today?' or, 'Have you any cough?' or, 'How is your appetite?' I have not wanted to trouble you about her but the truth is we all find ourselves talking her over. The point of her chin is growing actually sharp. What is Mrs. Gareth-Lawless doing?" curtly.
"Giving dinners and bridge parties to officers on leave. Robin never sees her."
"Of course the woman does not want her about. She is too lovely for officers' bridge parties," rather sharply again.