Robin

Robin, by Frances Hodgson
Burnett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robin, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Robin
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Release Date: July 30, 2006 [EBook #18945]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBIN ***

Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

ROBIN
BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
AUTHOR OF "THE SHUTTLE" "THE SECRET GARDEN" "THE

HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE" ETC.
NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE YEARS BEFORE
Outline Arranged by Hamilton Williamson
from
THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE
In the years when Victorian standards and ideals began to dance an
increasingly rapid jig before amazed lookers-on, who presently found
themselves dancing as madly as the rest--in these years, there lived in
Mayfair, in a slice of a house, Robert Gareth-Lawless and his lovely
young wife. So light and airy was she to earthly vision and so
diaphanous the texture of her mentality that she was known as
"Feather."
The slice of a house between two comparatively stately mansions in the
"right street" was a rash venture of the honeymoon.
Robert--well born, irresponsible, without resources--evolved a carefully
detailed method of living upon nothing whatever, of keeping out of the
way of duns, and telling lies with aptness and outward gaiety. But a
year of giving smart little dinners and going to smart big dinners ended

in a condition somewhat akin to the feat of balancing oneself on the
edge of a sword.
Then Robin was born. She was an intruder and a calamity, of course.
That a Feather should become a parent gave rise to much wit of light
weight when Robin was exhibited in the form of a bundle of lace.
It was the Head of the House of Coombe who asked:
"What will you do with her?"
"Do?" Feather repeated. "What is it people 'do' with babies? I don't
know. I wouldn't touch her for the world. She frightens me."
Coombe said:
"She is staring at me. There is antipathy in her gaze." He stared back
unwaveringly also, but with a sort of cold interest.
"The Head of the House of Coombe" was not a title to be found in
Burke or Debrett. It was a fine irony of the Head's own. The peerage
recorded him as a marquis and added several lesser attendant titles.
To be born the Head of the House is a weighty and awe-inspiring
thing--one is called upon to be an example.
"I am not sure what I am an example of--or to," he said, on one
occasion, in his light, rather cold and detached way, "which is why I at
times regard myself in that capacity with a slightly ribald lightness."
A reckless young woman once asked him:
"Are you as wicked as people say you are?"
"I really don't know. It is so difficult to decide," he answered. "Perhaps
I am as wicked as I know how to be. And I may have painful
limitations or I may not."
He had reached the age when it was safe to apply to him that vague

term "elderly," and marriage might have been regarded as imperative.
But he had remained unmarried and seemed to consider his abstinence
entirely his own affair.
Courts and capitals knew him, and his opportunities were such as gave
him all ease as an onlooker. He saw closely those who sat with knit
brows and cautiously hovering hand at the great chess-board which is
formed by the map of Europe.
As a statesman or a diplomat he would have gone far, but he had been
too much occupied with Life as an entertainment, too self-indulgent for
work of any order. Having, however, been born with a certain type of
brain, it observed and recorded in spite of him, thereby adding flavour
and interest to existence. But that was all.
Texture and colour gave him almost abnormal pleasure. For this reason,
perhaps, he was the most perfectly dressed man in London.
It was at a garden-party that he first saw Feather. When his eyes fell
upon her, he was talking to a group of people and he stopped speaking.
Some one standing quite near him said afterwards that he had, for a
second or so, became pale--almost as if he saw something which
frightened him. He was still rather pale when Feather