“Stand up,” she said.
Robin stood up because she could not well refuse to do so, but she coloured because she was suddenly ashamed.
“You’re not little, but you’re not tall,” her mother said. “That’s against you. It’s the fashion for women to be immensely tall now. Du Maurier’s pictures in Punch and his idiotic Trilby did it. Clothes are made for giantesses. I don’t care about it myself, but a girl’s rather out of it if she’s much less than six feet high. You can sit down.”
A more singular interview between mother and daughter had assuredly rarely taken place. As she looked at the girl her resentment of her increased each moment. She actually felt as if she were beginning to lose her temper.
“You are what pious people call ‘going out into the world’,” she went on. “In moral books mothers always give advice and warnings to their girls when they’re leaving them. I can give you some warnings. You think that because you have been taken up by a dowager duchess everything will be plain sailing. You’re mistaken. You think because you are eighteen and pretty, men will fall at your feet.”
“I would rather be hideous,” cried suddenly passionate Robin. “I hate men!”
The silly pretty thing who was responsible for her being, grew sillier as her irritation increased.
“That’s what girls always pretend, but the youngest little idiot knows it isn’t true. It’s men who count. It makes me laugh when I think of them—and of you. You know nothing about them and they know everything about you. A clever man can do anything he pleases with a silly girl.”
“Are they all bad?” Robin exclaimed furiously.
“They’re none of them bad. They’re only men. And that’s my warning. Don’t imagine that when they make love to you they do it as if you were the old Duchess’ granddaughter. You will only be her paid companion and that’s a different matter.”