“She has such a queer house, I think,” he explained. “She has a nurse and such pretty clothes and she is so pretty herself, but I don’t believe she has any toys or books in her nursery.” “Where is her mother?” “She must be dead. There is no lady in her house but the Lady Downstairs. She is very pretty and is always laughing. But she is not her mother because she doesn’t like her and she never kisses her. I think that’s the queerest thing of all. No one had _ever_ kissed her till I did.” His mother was a woman given to psychological analysis. Her eyes began to dwell on his face with slightly anxious questioning. “Did you kiss her?” she inquired. “Yes. I kissed her when I said good morning the first day. I thought she didn’t like me to do it but she did. It was only because no one had ever done it before. She likes it very much.” He leaned farther over the writing table and began to pour forth, his smile growing and his eyes full of pleasure. His mother was a trifle alarmedly struck by the feeling that he was talking like a young man in love who cannot keep his tongue still, though in his case even the youngest manhood was years away, and he made no effort to conceal his sentiments which a young man would certainly have striven to do. “She’s got such a pretty little face and such a pretty mouth and cheeks,” he touched a Jacqueminot rose in a vase. “They are the colour of that. Today a robin came with the sparrows and hopped about near us. We laughed and laughed because her eyes are like the robin’s, and she is called Robin. I wish you would come into the Gardens and see her, mother. She likes everything I do.” “I must come, dear,” she answered. “Nanny thinks she is lovely,” he announced. “She says I am in love with her. Am I, mother?” “You are too young to be in love,” she said. “And even when you are older you must not fall in love with people you know nothing about.” It was an unconscious bit of Scotch cautiousness which she at once realized was absurd and quite out of place. But—! She realized it because he stood up and squared his shoulders in an odd young-mannish way. He had not flushed even faintly before and now a touch of colour crept under his fair skin. “But I _do_ love her,” he said. “I _do_. I can’t stop.” And though he was quite simple and obviously little boy-like, she actually felt frightened for a moment. CHAPTER IX On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was standing in Feather’s drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand and wearing the look of a man who is given up to reflection. “I saw Mrs. Muir today for the first time for several years,” he said after a silence. “She is in London with the boy.” “Is she as handsome as ever?” “Quite. Hers is not the beauty that disappears. It is line and bearing and a sort of splendid grace and harmony.” “What is the boy like?” Coombe reflected again before he answered.