“Robin’s a man now?”
“Yes, a little man. I do hope the gaiters will fit him. I haven’t dared to try them on yet. And I’ve got him the dearest little whip you ever saw.”
“Jane will have to look to her paces. I’m sorry you’re not coming, Rose.”
But he did not try to persuade her. He believed that she had a very sweet reason behind her abstention. She had had Robin all to herself for many months; perhaps she thought the father ought to have his turn now, perhaps to-day she was handing over her little son to his father for the education which always comes from a man. Her sudden unselfishness—Dion believed it was that—touched him to the heart. But it made him long to do something, many things, for her.
“I’m determined that you and Welsley shan’t part from each other forever,” he said. “We’ll hit on some compromise. This house is on our hands, anyhow, till the spring.”
“Perhaps we could sublet it,” said Rosamund, trying to speak with brisk cheerfulness.
“We’ll talk it over again to-night.”
“And now for Robin’s gaiters!”
They fitted perfectly; “miraculously” was Rosamund’s word for the way they fitted.
“His legs might a-been poured into them almost, a-dear,” was nurse’s admirably descriptive comment on the general effect produced.