Robin, encouraged, squatted on the hearth rug, the big dog beside her, and clasped her hands over her knee.
"Oh, I don't mean just Madame Forsyth and my guardian, though I don't think he cares, now, or that cross old housekeeper; I mean—all the Mill people. You see the Mills have grown very fast and there are lots and lots of people working in them, but Mr. Norris, he's the superintendent, is very old-fashioned and he'll never improve things." Robin racked her brains to recall Dale's and Adam Kraus' exact words. "He's letting the people live in awful houses and they don't have any fun or—or anything. And Dale—he's Beryl's brother—says they'd work much better if they had everything nice. He says the Forsyths don't care, that they just think of the Mill people as parts of a machine to make money for them, and not as human beings. Why, there was a girl, Sarah Castle—" and Robin, her tongue loosed, told eloquently of Sarah Castle and of Susy and Granny and the old cottage "up the river," and then—because it made it seem so real to tell about it—of her House of Laughter.
"Of course," she finished, "if I were a boy I could do much more—or even if I were big. You see, there's been what Mr. Harkness calls a gloom over the Manor for a long time; and my great-aunt's been so sad over that that she couldn't think of anything else—and maybe I'll be doing something if I just show the Mill people that a Forsyth, even if she's only a girl, does care—a little bit. Don't you think so?"
At her appeal the Dowager Queen turned such a haughty face upon her and answered in such a cold voice: "I'm sure I do not know," that Robin turned crimson with embarrassment. Of course, a Queen could not even be remotely interested in the Manor and the Mills—especially if she had to worry over a whole kingdom herself. She had been silly to rattle on the way she had!
Brina, quite unknowingly, came to the rescue with a tray of cakes and a pot of cocoa.
Their hostess, her annoyance put aside, smiled graciously again, and poured the cocoa into little cups while the firelight flashed from the brooch on her dress. Brina went back and forth with heavy tread, sullenly watchful of her mistress' smallest need. The girls sat close to the table upon which still lay the book of cathedral prints and sipped their cocoa and ate their cakes. The wintry sun shone in through the curtained windows, giving the room, with its pale glow, a melancholy cheerfulness.
"Must you really go?" asked their hostess, politely, when, a half-hour later, Robin and Beryl exclaimed at the lateness of the hour.
"Why, we never meant to stay so long! It has been so nice." Robin wondered, if she held out her hand, would the Queen take it? She ventured it with such a shy, appealing movement that the old lady clasped it in hers, then dropped it abruptly, as though annoyed by her own impulsiveness.
"The afternoon has passed very pleasantly for me." The Queen's voice was measuredly polite. "I thank you for thinking of me—in my out-of-the-way corner, and bringing me such lovely gifts." Her eyes turned from the flowers which Brina had put in a squat pewter pitcher to the book which lay on the table. Then she turned to Robin and levelled a glance upon her which held a queer challenge.
"If you succeed—with your—what did you call it—House of Laughter, let me know, sometime. I shall be most interested in your experiment."