“Are you—are you fond of children?”
“No,” he was really abrupt. “I never thought of such a thing in my life—as being fond of things.”
“That was what—I mean I thought so.” Feather faltered, as if in polite acquiescence with a quite natural fact.
Coombe proceeded:
“As I went up the stairs I heard screams and I thought that the pinching had begun. I got up quickly and opened the door and found the woman lying flat on the floor by the bed, dragging out the child who had hidden under it. The woman’s face was devilish, and so was her voice. I heard her threats. She got on her feet and dragged the child up and held her between her knees. She clapped her hand over mouth to stifle her shrieks. There I stopped her. She had a fright at sight of me which taught her something.” He ended rather slowly. “I took the great liberty of ordering her to pack her box and leave the house—course,” with a slight bow, “using you as my authority.”
“Andrews!” cried Feather, aghast. “Has she—gone?”
“Would you have kept her?” he inquired.
“It’s true that—that pinching” Feather’s voice almost held tears, “—really hard pinching is—is not proper. But Andrews has been invaluable. Everyone says Robin is better dressed and better kept than other children. And she is never allowed to make the least noise—”
“One wouldn’t if one were pinched by those devilish, sinewy fingers every time one raised one’s voice. Yes. She has gone. I ordered her to put her charge to bed before she packed. I did not leave her alone with Robin. In fact, I walked about the two nurseries and looked them over.”
He had walked about the Night Nursery and the Day Nursery! He—the Head of the House of Coombe, whose finely acrid summing up of things, they were all secretly afraid of, if the truth were known. “They” stood for her smart, feverishly pleasure-chasing set. In their way, they half unconsciously tried to propitiate something in him, always without producing the least effect. Her mental vision presented to her his image as he had walked about the horrid little rooms, his somewhat stiffly held head not much below the low ceilings. He had taken in shabby carpets, furniture, faded walls, general dim dinginess.