“Isn’t there any lady in your house?” he put it to her. She brightened a little, relieved to think she had something to tell him.
“There’s the Lady Downstairs,” she said. “She’s so pretty—so pretty.”
“Is she——” he stopped and shook his head. “She couldn’t be your mother,” he corrected himself. “You’d know about her.”
“She wears pretty clothes. Sometimes they float about and sparkle and she wears little crowns on her head—or flowers. She laughs,” Robin described eagerly. “A great many people come to see her. They all laugh. Sometimes they sing. I lie in bed and listen.”
“Does she ever come upstairs to the Nursery?” inquired Donal with a somewhat reflective air.
“Yes. She comes and stands near the door and says, ‘Is she quite well, Andrews?’ She does not laugh then. She—she looks at me.”
She stopped there, feeling suddenly that she wished very much that she had more to tell. What she was saying was evidently not very satisfactory. He seemed to expect more—and she had no more to give. A sense of emptiness crept upon her and for no reason she understood there was a little click in her throat.
“Does she only stand near the door?” he suggested, as one putting the situation to a sort of crucial test. “Does she never sit on a big chair and take you on her knee?”
“No, no,” in a dropped voice. “She will not sit down. She says the chairs are grubby.”
“Doesn’t she love you at all?” persisted Donal. “Doesn’t she kiss you?”