“You are not of the women who only feed and bathe a child and keep her well dressed. You have been a sort of mother to her.” “I’ve tried to, your grace. I’ve loved her and watched over her and she’s loved me, I do believe.” “That is why I want to talk to you about her, Dowie. If you were the woman who merely comes and goes in a child’s life, I could not. She is—a very beautiful young thing, Dowie.” “From her little head to her slim bits of feet, your grace. No one knows better than I do.” The Duchess’ renowned smile revealed itself. “A beautiful young thing ought to see and know other beautiful young things and make friends with them. That is one of the reasons for their being put in the world. Since she has been with me she has spoken to no one under forty. Has she never had young friends?” “Never, your grace. Once two—young baggages—were left to have tea with her and they talked to her about divorce scandals and corespondents. She never wanted to see them again.” Dowie’s face set itself in lines of perfectly correct inexpressiveness and she added, “They set her asking me questions I couldn’t answer. And she broke down because she suddenly understood why. No, your grace, she’s not known those of her own age.” “She is—of the ignorance of a child,” the Duchess thought it out slowly. “She thinks not, poor lamb, but she is,” Dowie answered. The Duchess’ eyes met hers and they looked at each other for a moment. Dowie tried to retain a non-committal steadiness and the Duchess observing the intention knew that she was free to speak. “Lord Coombe confided to me that she had passed through a hideous danger which had made a lasting impression on her,” she said in a low voice. “He told me because he felt it would explain certain reserves and fears in her.” “Sometimes she wakes up out of nightmares about it,” said Dowie. “And she creeps into my room shivering and I take her into my bed and hold her in my arms until she’s over the panic. She says the worst of it is that she keeps thinking that there may have been other girls trapped like her—and that they did not get away.” The Duchess was very thoughtful. She saw the complications in which such a horror would involve a girl’s mind. “If she consorted with other young things and talked nonsense with them and shared their pleasures she would forget it,” she said. “Ah!” exclaimed Dowie. “That’s it.” The question in the Duchess’ eyes when she lifted them required an answer and she gave it respectfully. “The thing that happened was only the last touch put to what she’d gradually been finding out as she grew from child to young girl. The ones she would like to know—she said it in plain words once to Mademoiselle—might not want to know her. I must take the liberty of speaking plain, your grace, or it’s no use me speaking at all. She holds it deep in her mind that she’s a sort of young outcast.”