“Come and let Lord Coombe look at you,” she said. So it revealed itself to her that it was he—this ugly one—who had done it, and hatred surged up in her soul. It was actually in the eyes she raised to his face, and Coombe saw it as he had seen the sidelong glance and he wondered what it meant. “Shake hands with Lord Coombe,” Feather instructed. “If you can make a curtsey, make one.” She turned her head over her shoulders, “Have you taught her to curtsey, Andrews?” But Andrews had not and secretly lost temper at finding herself made to figure as a nurse who had been capable of omission. Outwardly she preserved rigid calm. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. I will at once, if you wish it.” Coombe was watching the inner abhorrence in the little face. Robin had put her hand behind her back—she who had never disobeyed since she was born! She had crossed a line of development when she had seen glimpses of the new world through Donal’s eyes. “What are you doing, you silly little thing,” Feather reproved her. “Shake hands with Lord Coombe.” Robin shook her head fiercely. “No! No! No! No!” she protested. Feather was disgusted. This was not the kind of child to display. “Rude little thing! Andrews, come and make her do it—or take her upstairs,” she said. Coombe took his gold coffee cup from the mantel. “She regards me with marked antipathy, as she did when she first saw me,” he summed the matter up. “Children and animals don’t hate one without reason. It is some remote iniquity in my character which the rest of us have not yet detected.” To Robin he said, “I do not want to shake hands with you if you object. I prefer to drink my coffee out of this beautiful cup.” But Andrews was seething. Having no conscience whatever, she had instead the pride of a female devil in her perfection in her professional duties. That the child she was responsible for should stamp her with ignominious fourth-ratedness by conducting herself with as small grace as an infant costermonger was more than her special order of flesh and blood could bear—and yet she must outwardly control the flesh and blood. In obedience to her mistress’ command, she crossed the room and bent down and whispered to Robin. She intended that her countenance should remain non-committal, but, when she lifted her head, she met Coombe’s eyes and realized that perhaps it had not. She added to her whisper nursery instructions in a voice of sugar. “Be pretty mannered, Miss Robin, my dear, and shake hands with his lordship.” Each person in the little drawing-room saw the queer flame in the child-face—Coombe himself was fantastically struck by the sudden thought that its expression might have been that of an obstinate young martyr staring at the stake. Robin shrilled out her words: “Andrews will pinch me—Andrews will pinch me! But—No!—No!” and she kept her hand behind her back. “Oh, Miss Robin, you naughty child!” cried Andrews, with pathos. “Your poor Andrews that takes such care of you!”