ng--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!"

"Well, in a sense, yes. But his long absence--his different way of
looking at things--make it rather hard. It would be better, wouldn't
it, to settle it here, without its going further."

"To _settle_ it, yes--but we can't--we don't--we are leaving things
quite alone--waiting--when we ought to do something."

Robin knew that she was showing him that his father was still outside
the circle--that for herself and Uncle Garrett recent events had made
no difference.

But was he outside the circle? Why should he be? At any rate he would
soon be hea