have been worrying about it a good bit, but
that isn't what I want to speak about. I'll go through with it--Breach
of Promise--or whatever it is--if only you wouldn't think me--well,
quite an utter rotter."

"I wish," said Harry quietly, "that you would sit down. I'm sure that
you would find it easier to talk."

Robin looked at him for a moment and then at the chair--then he sat
down.

"You see, somehow grandfather's dying has made things seem different to
one--it has made one younger somehow. I used to think that I was
really very old and knew a lot; but his death has shown me that I know
nothing at all--really nothing. But there have been a lot of things
all happening together--your coming back, that business with
Dahlia--Miss Feverel, you know--a dressing down that I got from Miss
Bethel the other evening, and then grandfather's dying----"

He paused again and cleared his throat. He looked straight into the
fire, and, every now and again, he gave a little choke and a gasp which
showed that he was moved.

"A chap doesn't like talking about himself," he went on at last; "no
decent chap does; but unless I tell you everything from the beginning
it will never be clear--I must tell you everything----"

"Please--I want to hear."

"Well, you see, before you came back, I suppose that I had really lots
of side. I never used to think that I had, but I see now that what
Mary said the other night was perfectly right--it wasn't only that I
'sided' about myself, but about my set and my people and everything.
And then you came back. You see we didn't any of us very much think
that we wanted you. To begin with, you weren't exactly like my
governor; not having seen you all my life I hadn't thought much about
you at all, and your letters were so unlike anything that I knew that I
hadn't believed them exactly. We were very happy as we were. I
thought that I had everything I wanted. And then you didn't do things
as we did; you didn't like the same books and pictures or anything, and
I was angry because I thought that I must know about those things and I
couldn't understand you. And then you know you made things worse by
trying to force my liking out of me, and chaps of my sort are awfully
afraid of showing their feelings to any one, least of all to a man----"
Robin paused.

"Yes," said Harry, "I know."

"But all this isn't an excuse really; I was a most awful cad, and
there's no getting away from it. But I think