He had gone off laughing, speaking like a schoolboy, but though Bruce could control his tongue, and include Rob with the other two girls, he could not keep his eyes from regarding her with a look that told her there was only one girl in all the world for Bruce Rutherford.
"Bother such nonsense!" ejaculated Rob impatiently, shaking her shoulders as she saw her clouded face in the gilt mirror, below the village green and the white cottages.
"What nonsense, Robin?" asked Miss Charlotte's soft voice, and Rob turned towards her, glad for the moment that her cousin could not see her face.
"Only growing up, being a young woman, Cousin Peaceful," she said. "I was taking down these trophies of my story-telling days, the absurd things Battalion B used to send me, and I was thinking what good times we used to have, and what a pity it was that we couldn't be boys and girls forever instead of sober men and women."
"I haven't noticed any very great sobriety so far, Robin dear," remarked Miss Charlotte quietly. "Do you feel sorry to see the story unfolding for Wythie and Basil?"
"Oh, I hate it! No, I don't!" cried Rob. "I'm glad about it, of course—Wythie goes on as quietly as if she were a little rosebud opening—sunflower, would be a better simile, because she looks up to Basil in the most sunflowerish way imaginable. But it is rather horrid, though it is nice, now don't you think so, Cousin Peace?"
"I think Robin is not fully fledged yet," said Cousin Peace wisely, and Rob was silenced by the portentous little word at the end of her sentence.
Cousin Peace had firmly refused to consider becoming one of the family in the little grey house unless she were allowed to use the lean-to room which was never occupied; no one, she declared, should be disturbed by her coming, though Rob promptly reminded her that they were sure to be disturbed by her wherever she might be, for she was such a disturbing element. Rob was constantly caressing Cousin Peace by loving pretence of her being a great trial.
The Greys had all objected to giving Miss Charlotte the lean-to room, but when it was ready for her Wythie cried out in surprised delight: "Why, it's the very nicest room in the whole house!"
It was a dear little room. The old-fashioned, fine furniture remained in its place. Soft green and white short curtains framed the small paned windows, plain green carpet covered the floor, long boxes of flowers stood before the half windows on the south side of the room, under the lean-to, and a few good pictures hung on the straight sides of the walls. Though Cousin Peace could never see her surroundings, her senses were so delicate that one felt impelled to surround her with the finest beauty, beauty which she, more than most people, would have revelled in had she not been debarred from seeing it. But Rob said truly that "Cousin Peace's insight was much keener than most people's outsight"; it was hard to believe that she did not get all the colour and outline of every picture, flower, and sunset that came before her.