“It isn’t a compliment,” he answered, still watching her in the slightly absent manner. “It is—a tragic truth.” He passed his hand lightly across his eyes as if he swept something away, and then both looked and spoke exactly as before. “I have decided to buy the long lease of this house. It is for sale,” he said, casually. “I shall buy it for the child.” “For Robin!” said Feather, helplessly. “Yes, for Robin.” “It—it would be an income—whatever happened. It is in the very heart of Mayfair,” she said, because, in her astonishment—almost consternation—she could think of nothing else. He would not buy it for her. He thought her too silly to trust. But, if it were Robin’s—it would be hers also. A girl couldn’t turn her own mother into the street. Amid the folds of her narrow being hid just one spark of shrewdness which came to life where she herself was concerned. “Two or three rooms—not large ones—can be added at the back,” he went on. “I glanced out of a window to see if it could be done.” Incomprehensible as he was, one might always be sure of a certain princeliness in his inexplicable methods. He never was personal or mean. An addition to the slice of a house! That really _was_ generous! Entrancement filled her. “That really is kind of you,” she murmured, gratefully. “It seems too much to ask!” “You did not ask it,” was his answer. “But I shall benefit by it. Nothing _could be_ nicer. These rooms are so much too small,” glancing about her in flushed rapture, “And my bedroom is dreadful. I’m obliged to use Rob’s for a dressing-room.” “The new rooms will be for Robin,” he said. An excellent method he had discovered, of entirely detaching himself from the excitements and emotions of other persons, removed the usual difficulties in the way of disappointing—speaking truths to—or embarrassing people who deserved it. It was this method which had utterly cast down the defences of Andrews. Feather was so wholly left out of the situation that she was actually almost saved from its awkwardness. “When one is six,” he explained, “one will soon be seven—nine—twelve. Then the teens begin to loom up and one cannot be concealed in cupboards on a top floor. Even before that time a governess is necessary, and, even from the abyss of my ignorance, I see that no respectable woman would stand either the Night or the Day Nursery. Your daughter—” “Oh, don’t call her _that!_” cried Feather. “My daughter! It sounds as if she were eighteen!” She felt as if she had a sudden hideous little shock. Six years _had_ passed since Bob died! A daughter! A school girl with long hair and long legs to keep out of the way. A grown-up girl to drag about with one. Never would she do it! “Three sixes are eighteen,” Coombe continued, “as was impressed upon one in early years by the multiplication table.”