"Wait! But we can't wait!" cried Robin. "She'll move at once. Probably the letters are in the lawyer's hands already." "Then there's nothing to be done," said Garrett comfortably, settling back again into his book--he was, he flattered himself, a man of most excellent practical sense. "No, it really seems, Robin, as if we had better wait," said Clare. "We must have patience. Perhaps after all she has taken no steps." But Robin was angry. He had long ago forgotten his share in the business; he had adopted so successfully the role of injured sufferer that his own actions seemed to him almost meritorious. But he was very angry with them. Here they were, in the face of a family crisis, deliberately adopting a policy of _laissez-faire_; he had done his best and had failed, but he was young and ignorant of the world (that at least he now admitted), but they were old, experienced, wise--or, at least, they had always seemed to him to stand for experience and wisdom, and yet they could do nothing--nay, worse--they seemed to wish to do nothing--Oh! he was angry with them! The whole room with its silver and knick-knacks--its beautifully worked cushions and charming water-colours, its shining rows of complete editions and dainty china stood to him now for incapacity. Three weeks ago it had seemed his Holy of Holies. "But we can't wait," he repeated--"we can't! Don't you see, Aunt Clare, she isn't the sort of girl that waiting does for? She'd never dream of waiting herself." Dahlia seemed, by contrast with their complacent acquiescence, almost admirable. "Well, dear," Clare answered, "your uncle and I have both tried--I think that we may be alarming ourselves unnecessarily. I must say she didn't seem to me to bear any grudge against you. I daresay she will leave things as they are----" "Then why keep the letters?" "Oh, sentiment. It would remind her, you see----" But Robin could only repeat--"No, she's not that kind of girl," and marvel, perplexedly, at their short-sightedness. And then he approached the point-- "There is, of course," he said slowly, "one other person who might help us----" He paused. Garrett put his book down and looked up. Clare leaned towards him. "Yes?" Clare looked slightly incredulous of any suggested remedy--but apparently composed and a little tired of all this argument. But, in reality, her heart was beating furiously. Had it come at last?--that first mention of his father that she had dreaded for so many days. "I really cannot think----" from Garrett. "Why not my father?" Again it seemed to Clare that she and Harry were struggling for Robin ... since that first moment of his entry they had struggled--she with her twenty years of faithful service, he with nothing--Oh! it was unfair! "But, Robin," she said gently--"you can't--not, at least, after what has happened. This is an affair for ourselves--for the family." "But _he_ is the family!"