"Mademoiselle Vallé is an intelligent woman," the Duchess said. "Send her to me; I shall talk to her. Then she can bring the child."
And so it was arranged that Robin should be taken into the house in the old fashioned square to do for the Duchess what a young relative might have done. And, a competent person being needed to take charge of the linen, "Dowie" would go to live under the same roof.
Feather's final thrust in parting with her daughter was:
"Donal Muir is a young man by this time. I wonder what his mother would do now if he turned up at your mistress' house and began to make love to you." She laughed outright. "You'll get into all sorts of messes but that would be the nicest one!"
The Duchess came to understand that Robin held it deep in her mind that she was a sort of young outcast.
"If she consorted," she thought, "with other young things and shared their pleasures she would forget it."
She talked the matter over with her daughter, Lady Lothwell.
"I am not launching a girl in society," she said, "I only want to help her to know a few nice young people. I shall begin with your children. They are mine if I am only a grandmother. A small dinner and a small dance—and George and Kathryn may be the beginning of an interesting experiment."