What happened next turned the woman quite sick with the shock of amazement. The child had, in the past, been a soft puppet. She had been automatic obedience and gentleness. Privately Andrews had somewhat looked down on her lack of spirit, though it had been her own best asset. The outbreak downstairs had been an abnormality.
And now she stood before her with hands clenched, her little face wild with defiant rage.
“I’ll scream! I’ll scream! I’ll scream!” she shrieked. Andrews actually heard herself gulp; but she sprang up and forward.
“You’ll scream!” she could scarcely believe her own feelings—not to mention the evidence of her ears, “you’ll scream!”
The next instant was more astonishing still. Robin threw herself on her knees and scrambled like a cat. She was under the bed and in the remotest corner against the wall. She was actually unreachable, and she lay on her back kicking madly, hammering her heels against the floor and uttering piercing shrieks. As something had seemed to let itself go when she writhed under the bushes in the Gardens, so did something let go now. In her overstrung little mind there ruled for this moment the feeling that if she was to be pinched, she would be pinched for a reason.
Andrews knelt by the side of the bed. She had a long, strong, thin arm and it darted beneath and clutched. But it was not long enough to attain the corner where the kicking and screaming was going on. Her temper became fury before her impotence and her hideous realization of being made ridiculous by this baby of six. Two floors below the afterglow of the little dinner was going on. Suppose even far echoes of the screams should be heard and make her more ridiculous still. She knew how they would laugh and her mistress would make some silly joke about Robin’s being too much for her. Her fury rose so high that she had barely sense to realize that she must not let herself go too far when she got hold of the child. Get hold of her she would and pay her out—My word! She would pay her out!
“You little devil!” she said between her teeth, “Wait till I get hold of you.” And Robin shrieked and hammered more insanely still.
The bed was rather a low one and it was difficult for any one larger than a child to find room beneath it. The correct and naturally rigid Andrews lay flat upon her stomach and wriggled herself partly under the edge. Just far enough for her long and strong arm, and equally long and strong clutching fingers to do their work. In her present state of mind, Andrews would have broken her back rather than not have reached the creature who so defied her. The strong fingers clenched a flying petticoat and dragged at it fiercely—the next moment they clutched a frantic foot, with a power which could not be broken away from. A jerk and a remorseless dragging over the carpet and Robin was out of the protecting darkness and in the gas light again, lying tumbled and in an untidy, torn little heap on the nursery floor. Andrews was panting, but she did not loose her hold as she scrambled, without a rag of professional dignity, to her feet.
“My word!” she breathlessly gave forth. “I’ve got you now! I’ve got you now.”
She so looked that to Robin she seemed—like the ugly man downstairs—a sort of wicked wild beast, whose mere touch would have been horror even if it did not hurt. And the child knew what was coming. She felt herself dragged up from the floor and also dragged between Andrew’s knees, which felt bony and hard as iron. There was no getting away from them. Andrews had seated herself firmly on a chair.