eathlessness.

"I don't quite understand the situation. It seems the little thing
insists on earning her own living and she is a sort of companion and
secretary to the Duchess. Mother, she is just the same!"

The last words were a sort of exclamation. As he uttered them, there
came back to her the day when--a little boy--he had seemed as though he
were speaking as a young man might have spoken. Now he was a young man,
speaking almost as if he were a little boy--involuntarily revealing his
exaltation.

As she had felt half frightened years before, so she felt wholly
frightened now. He was not a little boy any longer. She could not sweep
him away in her arms to save him from danger. Also she knew more of the
easy, fashionably accepted views of the morals of pretty Mrs.
Gareth-Lawless, still lightly known with some cynicism as "Feather." She
knew what Donal did not. His relationship to the Head of the House of
Coombe made it unlikely that gossip should choose him as the exact young
man to whom could be related stories of his distinguished relative, Mrs.
Gareth-Lawless and her girl. But through the years Helen Muir had
unavoidably heard things she thought particularly hideous. And here the
child was again "just the same."

"She has only grown up." His laugh was like a lightly indrawn breath.
"Her cheek is just as much like a rose petal. And that wonderful little
look! And her eyelashes. Just the same! Do girls usually grow up like
that? It was the look most. It's a sort of asking and giving--both at
once."

There it was! And she had nothing to say. She could only sit and look at
him--at his beautiful youth all alight with the sudden flame of that
which can set a young world on fire and sweep on its way either carrying
devastation or clearing a path to Paradise.

His own natural light unconsciousness was amazing. He only knew that he
was in delightful high spirits. The dancing, the music, the early
morning were, he thought, accountable for it.

She bent forward to kiss his cheek and she patted his hand.

"My dear! My dear!" she said. "How you have enjoyed your evening!"

"There never was anything more perfect," with the light laugh again.
"Everything was delightful--the rooms, the music, the girls in their
pretty frocks like a lot of flowers tossed about. She danced like a bit
of thistledown. I didn't know a girl could be so light. The back of her
slim little neck looks as fine and white and soft as a baby's. I am