. I didn't know
what mothers were. I never knew another child until I met Donal in the
Gardens. No one had ever kissed me until he did. When I was older I
didn't know anything about love and marrying--really. It seemed only
something one read about in books until Donal came. You and Mademoiselle
made me happy, but I was like a little nun." She paused a moment and
then said thoughtfully, "Do you know, Dowie, I have never touched a
baby?"

"I never thought of it before," Dowie answered with a slightly caught
breath, "but I believe you never have."

The girl leaned forward and her own light breath came a shade more
quickly, and the faint colour on her cheek flickered into a sweeter warm
tone.

"Are they very soft, Dowie?" she asked--and the asking was actually a
wistful thing. "When you hold them do they feel very light--and
soft--and warm? When you kiss them isn't it something like kissing a
little flower?"

"That's what it is," said Dowie firmly as one who knows. "A baby that's
loved and taken care of is just nothing but fine soft lawns and white
downiness with the scent of fresh violets under leaves in the rain."

A vaguely dreamy smile touched Robin's face and she bent over the
pictures again.

"I felt as if they must be like that though I had never held one," she
murmured. "And Donal--told me." She did not say when he had told her but
Dowie knew. And unearthly as the thing was, regarded from her
standpoint, she was not frightened, because she said mentally to
herself, what was happening was downright healthy and no harm could come
of it. She felt safe and her mind was at ease even when Robin shut the
little book and placed it on the table again.

"I'll go to bed again," she said. "I shall sleep now."

"To be sure you will," Dowie said.

And they went out of the Tower room together, but before she followed
her Dowie slipped aside and quietly opened the window.

CHAPTER XXIX

Coombe House had been transformed into one of the most practical nursing
homes in London. The celebrated ballroom and picture gallery were filled
with cots; a spacious bedroom had become a perfectly equipped operating
room; nurses and doctors moved everywhere with quiet swiftness. Things
were said to be marvellously well done because Lord Coombe himself held
reins which diplomatically guided and restrained amateurishness and
emotional infelicities.

He spent most of his time, when he was in the house, in the room on the
e