“I have seen the child with you several times when you have not been aware of it,” Coombe said to her before he went downstairs. “She has evidently been well taken care of as far as her body is concerned. If you were not venomous—if you had merely struck her, when you lost your temper, you might have had another trial. I know nothing about children, but I know something about the devil, and if ever the devil was in a woman’s face and voice the devil was in yours when you dragged the little creature from under the bed. If you had dared, you would have killed her. Look after that temper, young woman. Benby shall keep an eye on you if you take another place as nurse, and I shall know where you are.”
“My lord!” Andrews gasped. “You wouldn’t overlook a woman and take her living from her and send her to starvation!”
“I would take her living from her and send her to starvation without a shadow of compunction,” was the reply made in the fine gentleman’s cultivated voice, “—if she were capable of what you were capable of tonight. You are, I judge, about forty, and, though you are lean, you are a powerful woman; the child is, I believe, barely six.” And then, looking down at her through his glass, he added—to her quite shuddering astonishment—in a tone whose very softness made it really awful to her, “Damn you! Damn you!”
“I’ll—I swear I’ll never let myself go again, my lord!” the woman broke out devoutly.
“I don’t think you will. It would cost you too much,” he said.
Then he went down the steep, crooked little staircase quite soundlessly and Andrews, rather white and breathless, went and packed her trunk. Robin—tired baby as she was—slept warm and deeply.
CHAPTER XIII
It was no custom of his to outstay other people; in fact, he usually went away comparatively early. Feather could not imagine what his reason could be, but she was sure there was a reason. She was often disturbed by his reasons, and found it difficult to adjust herself to them. How—even if one had a logically brilliant mind—could one calculate on a male being, who seemed not exactly to belong to the race of men.
As a result of the skirt dancing, the furniture of the empty drawing-room was a little scattered and untidy, but Feather had found a suitable corner among cushions on a sofa, after everyone had gone leaving Coombe alone with her. She wished he would sit down, but he preferred to stand in his still, uncomfortable way.
“I know you are going to tell me something,” she broke the silence.