“I cannot hark back regretfully to stage coaches,” said Lord Coombe. “Even I was not born early enough for that. But in the days of my youth and innocence express trains seemed almost supernatural. One could drive a pair of horses twenty miles to make a country visit, but one could not drive back the same day. One’s circle had its limitations and degrees of intimacy. Now it is possible motor fifty miles to lunch and home to dine with guests from the remotest corners of the earth. Oceans are crossed in six days, and the eager flit from continent to continent. Engagements can be made by cable and the truly enterprising can accept an invitation to dine in America on a fortnight’s notice. Telephones communicate in a few seconds and no one is secure from social intercourse for fifteen minutes. Acquaintances and correspondence have no limitations because all the inhabitants of the globe can reach one by motor or electricity. In moments of fatigue I revert to the days of Queen Anne with pleasure.” While these changes went on, Robin lived in her own world in her own quarters at the rear of the slice of a house. During the early years spent with Dowson, she learned gradually that life was a better thing than she had known in the dreary gloom of the third floor Day and Night Nurseries. She was no longer left to spend hours alone, nor was she taken below stairs to listen blankly to servants talking to each other of mysterious things with which she herself and the Lady Downstairs and “him” were somehow connected, her discovery of this fact being based on the dropping of voices and sidelong glances at her and sudden warning sounds from Andrews. She realized that Dowson would never pinch her, and the rooms she lived in were pretty and bright. Gradually playthings and picture books appeared in them, which she gathered Dowson presented her with. She gathered this from Dowson herself. She had never played with the doll, and, by chance a day arriving when Lord Coombe encountered Dowson in the street without her charge, he stopped her again and spoke as before. “Is the little girl well and happy, Nurse?” he asked. “Quite well, my lord, and much happier than she used to be.” “Did she,” he hesitated slightly, “like the playthings you bought her?” Dowson hesitated more than slightly but, being a sensible woman and at the same time curious about the matter, she spoke the truth. “She wouldn’t play with them at all, my lord. I couldn’t persuade her to. What her child’s fancy was I don’t know.” “Neither do I—except that it is founded on a distinct dislike,” said Coombe. There was a brief pause. “Are you fond of toys yourself, Dowson?” he inquired coldly. “I am that—and I know how to choose them, your lordship,” replied Dowson, with a large, shrewd intelligence.