How curiously Lady Etynge watched her as she spoke. She did not look displeased, but there was something in her face which made Robin afraid that she was, perhaps, after all, not the girl who was fortunate enough to quite “do.”
She felt her hopes raised a degree, however, when Lady Etynge smiled at her.
“Do you know, I feel that is very pretty of you!” she said. “It quite delights me—as I am an idolizing mother—that my mere talk of Hélène should have made you like her well enough to think you might care to live with her. And I confess I am modern enough to be pleased with your wishing to earn your own living.”
“I must,” said Robin. “I must! I could not bear not to earn it!” She spoke a little suddenly, and a flag of new colour fluttered in her cheek.
“When Hélène comes, you must meet. If you like each other, as I feel sure you will, and if Mrs. Gareth-Lawless does not object—if it remains only a matter of being suitable—you are suitable, my dear—you are suitable.”
She touched Robin’s hand with the light pat which was a caress, and the child was radiant.
“Oh, you are kind to me!” The words broke from her involuntarily. “And it is such good fortune! Thank you, thank you, Lady Etynge.”
The flush of her joy and relief had not died out before the footman, who had opened the door, appeared on the threshold. He was a handsome young fellow, whose eyes were not as professionally impassive as his face. A footman had no right to dart a swift side look at one as people did in the street. He did dart such a glance. Robin saw, and she was momentarily struck by its being one of those she sometimes objected to.
Otherwise his manner was without flaw. He had only come to announce to his mistress the arrival of a caller.
When Lady Etynge took the card from the salver, her expression changed. She even looked slightly disturbed.