"I want to speak to you about him," she said, turning round to him. "You won't think me interfering, will you? but I've meant to speak ever since the other day. I was afraid that, perhaps--don't think it dreadfully rude of me--you hadn't quite understood Robin. He's at a difficult age, you know, and there are a lot of things about him that are quite absurd. And I have been afraid that you might take those absurdities for the real things and fancy that that was all that was there. Cambridge--and other things--have made him think that a certain sort of attitude is essential if you're to get on. I don't think he even sincerely believes in it. But they have taught him that he must, at least, seem to believe. The other things are there all right, but he hides them--he is almost ashamed of any one suspecting their existence." "Thank you!" Harry said quietly. "It is very kind of you and I'm deeply grateful. It's quite true that Robin and I haven't seemed to hit it off properly. I expect that it is my fault. I have tried to see his point of view and have the same interests, but every effort that I've made has seemed to make things worse. He distrusts me, I think, and--well--of course, that hurts. All the things in which I had hoped we would share have no interest for him." "Don't you think, perhaps," she said, "that you've been a little too anxious--perhaps, a little too affectionate? I am speaking like this because I care for Robin so much. We have been such good friends for years now, and I think he has let me see a side of him that he has hidden from most people. He is curiously sensitive, and really, I think, very shy; and most of all, he has a perfect horror of being absurd. That is what I meant about your being affectionate. He would think, perhaps, that the rest were laughing at him. It's as if you were dragging something that was very sacred and precious out into the light before all those others. Boys are like that; they are terrified lest any one should know what good there is in them--it isn't quite good form." They were silent for some time. Harry was throwing her words like a searchlight on the events of the past week, and they revealed much that had been very dark and confused. But he was thinking of her. Their acquaintance seemed to have grown into intimacy already. "I can't thank you enough," he said again. "It is so nice of you," she said laughing, "not to have thought it presumptuous of me. But Robin is a very good friend of mine. Of course you will find out what a sterling fellow he is--under all that superficiality. He is one of my best friends here!" He got up to go. As he held out his hand, he said: "I will tell you frankly, Miss Bethel, that Pendragon hasn't received me with open arms. I don't know why it should--and twenty years in New Zealand knocks the polish off. But it has been delightful this evening--more than you know."