“She will let me go,” she said. “You _know_ she will let me go, Mademoiselle, darling. You _know_ she will.” There was a frank comprehension and finality in the words which made a full revelation of facts Mademoiselle herself had disliked even to allow to form themselves into thoughts. The child knew all sorts of things and felt all sorts of things. She would probably never go into details, but she was extraordinarily, harrowingly, _aware_. She had been learning to be aware for years. This had been the secret she had always kept to herself. “If you are planning this,” Mademoiselle said, as reasonably as before, “we must work very seriously for the next few years.” “How long do you think it will take?” asked Robin. She was nearing sixteen—bursting into glowing blossom—a radiant, touching thing whom one only could visualize in flowering gardens, in charming, enclosing rooms, figuratively embraced by every mature and kind arm within reach of her. This presented itself before Mademoiselle Vallé with such vividness that it was necessary for her to control a sigh. “When I feel that you are ready, I will tell you,” she answered. “And I will do all I can to help you—before I leave you.” “Oh!” Robin gasped, in an involuntarily childish way, “I—hadn’t thought of that! How could I _live_ without you—and Dowie?” “I know you had not thought of it,” said Mademoiselle, affectionately. “You are only a dear child yet. But that will be part of it, you know. A governess or a secretary, or a young lady in an office translating letters cannot take her governess and maid with her.” “Oh!” said Robin again, and her eyes became suddenly so dewy that the person who passed her at the moment thought he had never seen such wonderful eyes in his life. So much of her was still child that the shock of this sudden practical realization thrust the mature and determined part of her being momentarily into the background, and she could scarcely bear her alarmed pain. It was true that she had been too young to face her plan as she must. But, after the long walk was over and she found herself in her bedroom again, she was conscious of a sense of being relieved of a burden. She had been wondering when she could tell Mademoiselle and Dowie of her determination. She had not liked to keep it a secret from them as if she did not love them, but it had been difficult to think of a way in which to begin without seeming as if she thought she was quite grown up—which would have been silly. She had not thought of speaking today, but it had all come about quite naturally, as a result of Mademoiselle’s having told her that she was really very pretty—so pretty that it made people turn to look at her in the street. She had heard of girls and women who were like that, but she had never thought it possible that she——! She had, of course, been looked at when she was very little, but she had heard Andrews say that people looked because she had so much hair and it was like curled silk.