She herself was not in the least likely to be seized with a desire to sit under trees in an atmosphere heavy with nursemaids and children.
So Robin had been allowed to keep the key and until to-day she had not opened the lacquer box.

Was it quite by accident that she had found it?
She was not quite sure it was and she was asking herself questions, as she sat looking at it as it lay in her palm.
The face of the whole world had changed since the night when she had sat among banked flowers and palms and ferns, and heard the splashing of the fountain and the sound of the music and dancing, and Donal Muir's voice, all at the same time.

That which had happened had made everybody and everything different; and, because she lived in this particular house and saw much of special people, she realised that the growing shudder in the life about her was only the first convulsive tremor of an earthquake.

The Duchess began to have much more for her to do.

She called on her to read special articles in the papers, and to make notes and find references.