To those given to psychical interests and speculations, it might have suggested itself that, on the night when the creature who had seemed to Andrews a soft tissued puppet had suddenly burst forth into defiance and fearless shrillness, some cerebral change had taken place in her. From that hour her softness had become a thing of the past. Dowson had not found a baby, but a brooding, little, passionate being. She was neither insubordinate nor irritable, but Dowson was conscious of a certain intensity of temperament in her. She knew that she was always thinking of things of which she said almost nothing. Only a sensible motherly curiosity, such as Dowson’s could have made discoveries, but a rare question put by the child at long intervals sometimes threw a faint light. There were questions chiefly concerning mothers and their habits and customs. They were such as, in their very unconsciousness, revealed a strange past history. Lights were most unconsciously thrown by Mrs. Gareth-Lawless herself. Her quite amiable detachment from all shadow of responsibility, her brilliantly unending occupations, her goings in and out, the flocks of light, almost noisy, intimates who came in and out with her revealed much to a respectable person who had soberly watched the world. “The Lady Downstairs is my mother, isn’t she?” Robin inquired gravely once. “Yes, my dear,” was Dowson’s answer. A pause for consideration of the matter and then from Robin: “All mothers are not alike, Dowson, are they?” “No, my dear,” with wisdom. Though she was not yet seven, life had so changed for her that it was a far cry back to the Spring days in the Square Gardens. She went back, however, back into that remote ecstatic past. “The Lady Downstairs is not—alike,” she said at last, “Donal’s mother loved him. She let him sit in the same chair with her and read in picture books. She kissed him when he was in bed.” Jennings, the young footman who was a humourist, had, of course, heard witty references to Robin’s love affair while in attendance, and he had equally, of course, repeated them below stairs. Therefore, Dowson had heard vague rumours but had tactfully refrained from mentioning the subject to her charge. “Who was Donal?” she said now, but quite quietly. Robin did not know that a confidante would have made her first agony easier to bear. She was not really being confidential now, but, realizing Dowson’s comfortable kindliness, she knew that it would be safe to speak to her. “He was a big boy,” she answered keeping her eyes on Dowson’s face. “He laughed and ran and jumped. His eyes—” she stopped there because she could not explain what she had wanted to say about these joyous young eyes, which were the first friendly human ones she had known. “He lives in Scotland,” she began again. “His mother loved him. He kissed me. He went away. Lord Coombe sent him.” Dawson could not help her start. “Lord Coombe!” she exclaimed.