Her quite wonderful eyes—so they struck Lord Coombe—flamed with a child’s outraged anguish. A thunder shower of tears broke and rushed down her cheeks, and he rose and, walking quietly to the window full of flowers, stood with his back to her for a few moments. She neither cared nor knew whether it was because her hysteric emotion bored or annoyed him, or because he had the taste to realize that she would not wish to be looked at. Unhappy youth can feel no law but its own.
But all was over during the few moments, and he turned and walked back to his chair.
“You want very much to do some work which will insure your entire independence—to take some situation which will support you without aid from others? You are not yet prepared to go out and take the first place which offers. You have been—as you say—too hideously frightened, and you know there are dangers in wandering about unguided. Mademoiselle Vallé,” turning his head, “perhaps you will tell her what you know of the Duchess of Darte?”
Upon which, Mademoiselle Vallé took hold of her hand and entered into a careful explanation.
“She is a great personage of whom there can be no doubt. She was a lady of the Court. She is of advanced years and an invalid and has a liking for those who are pretty and young. She desires a companion who is well educated and young and fresh of mind. The companion who had been with her for many years recently died. If you took her place you would live with her in her town house and go with her to the country after the season. Your salary would be liberal and no position could be more protected and dignified. I have seen and talked to her grace myself, and she will allow me to take you to her, if you desire to go.”
“Do not permit the fact that she has known me for many years to prejudice you against the proposal,” said Coombe. “You might perhaps regard it rather as a sort of guarantee of my conduct in the matter. She knows the worst of me and still allows me to retain her acquaintance. She was brilliant and full of charm when she was a young woman, and she is even more so now because she is—of a rarity! If I were a girl and might earn my living in her service, I should feel that fortune had been good to me—good.”
Robin’s eyes turned from one of them to the other—from Coombe to Mademoiselle Vallé, and from Mademoiselle to Coombe pathetically.
“You—you see—what has been done to me,” she said. “A few weeks ago I should have known that God was providing for me—taking care of me. And now—I am still afraid. I feel as if she would see that—that I am not young and fresh any more but black with evil. I am afraid of her—I am afraid of you,” to Coombe, “and of myself.”
Coombe rose, evidently to go away.
“But you are not afraid of Mademoiselle Vallé,” he put it to her. “She will provide the necessary references for the Duchess. I will leave her to help you to decide.”