"Yes—the poor thing was scared silly. He didn't tell a soul he was going and after he reached New York he telephoned."
"Dale says everyone at the Mills is talking about you, Robin—and what you did."
"Why," Robin's face sobered, "I didn't do—anything."
"Well, Dale says your going in to poor old Granny the way you did has made everyone like you. And they were getting awfully worked up against the Forsyths and the Mills. I will admit it seems funny to me—making such a fuss over such a little thing. I wish—as long as you're all right now—you had done something real heroic, like jumping into the river to save someone or going into a burning building."
"Oh, I'd have never had the courage to do that," protested Robin, shuddering.
At that moment the nurse put her head in the door.
"Three minutes are up," she warned.
"Please, can't she stay?" begged Robin, in alarm.
"I must go home, anyway, Robin, to tell mother. You have no idea how anxious she is—everyone is. People hang around our door. I suppose they think we have the latest news about you. Well, we have, now. And, Robin—mother was awfully angry about my—leaving you the way I did. She begged me to come back, long ago. I'm sorry, now, I didn't. Good-bye, Robin. I'll be back, tomorrow."
Beryl walked to the village in a deep absorption of thought. Certain values she had fostered had tumbled about and had to be put in order. Here were not only hundreds of mill folk making a "fuss" over what Robin had done, but the household of the Manor as well—old Budge, usually as adamant as a brick wall, crying! No one loved the heroic more than Beryl, but to her thinking it lay in a spectacular, and with a dramatic indifference, risking one's own life for another, not in a little unnecessary sentimental impulse. When she had heard of what Robin had done she had declared her "crazy" to go near the Castles, to which her mother had indignantly replied: "And are you thinking the blessed child ever thinks of herself at all?" That was the quality, of course, about Robin that you never guessed from anything she said but that you just felt. And the Mill people were feeling it now.