And even as this passed through her mind, Robin's answer repeated it.
"I will do it whether it is difficult or not," she said, "but--" she actually got up from her ottoman with a quiet soft movement and stood before them--not a defiant young figure, only simple and elementally sweet-- "I am not ashamed," she said.

"I am not ashamed and _I_ do not matter at all." There was that instant written upon Coombe's face--so far at least as his old friend was concerned--his response to the significance of this.
It was the elemental thing which that which moved him required; it was what the generations and centuries of the house of Coombe required--a primitive creature unashamed and with no cowardice or weak vanity lurking in its being.

The Duchess recognised it in the brief moment of almost breathless silence which followed.
"You are very splendid, child," he said after it, "though you are not at all conscious of it." "Sit down again." The Duchess put out a hand which drew Robin still nearer to her.

"Explain to her now," she said.
Robin's light soft body rested against her when it obeyed.

It responded to more than the mere touch of her hand; its yielding was to something which promised kindness and even comfort--that something which Dowie and Mademoiselle had given in those days which now seemed to have belonged to another world.