“I’m going to run down the staircase,” she said. “If I let myself walk slowly I shall have time to feel queer and shy and I might seem to _creep_ into the drawing-room. I mustn’t creep in. I must walk in as if I had been to parties all my life.” She ran down and as she did so she looked like a white bird flying, but she was obliged to stop upon the landing before the drawing-room door to quiet a moment of excited breathing. Still when she entered the room she moved as she should and held her head poised with a delicately fearless air. The Duchess—who herself looked her best in her fine old ivory profiled way—gave her a pleased smile of welcome which was almost affectionate. “What a perfect little frock!” she said. “You are delightfully pretty in it.” “Is it quite right?” said Robin. “Mademoiselle chose it for me.” “It is quite right. ‘Frightfully right,’ George would say. George will sit near you at dinner. He is my grandson—Lord Halwyn you know, and you will no doubt frequently hear him say things are ‘frightfully’ something or other during the evening. Kathryn will say things are ‘deevy’ or ‘exquig‘. I mention it because you may not know that she means ‘exquisite’ and ‘divine.’ Don’t let it frighten you if you don’t quite understand their language. They are dear handsome things sweeping along in the rush of their bit of century. I don’t let it frighten me that their world seems to me an entirely new planet.” Robin drew a little nearer her. She felt something as she had felt years ago when she had said to Dowie. “I want to kiss you, Dowie.” Her eyes were pools of childish tenderness because she so well understood the infinitude of the friendly tact which drew her within its own circle with the light humour of its “I don’t let them frighten _me_.” “You are kind—kind to me,” she said. “And I am grateful—_grateful_.”