Well, then, let her go. Robin
thinks she's giving you your chance--well, _I_ say, give the girl her
own."
"I tell you Robin's different--she doesn't want money or clothes!"
"Well, pretty things--and good food--can make even a 'different' girl's
heart lighter. Come, old man, go off with me on this cruise and work
your head off and at the end of the year--if Robin's not happy there,
well, you can make other plans. I'm like Robin, I believe that give you
a year, you'll do something rather big."
James Forsyth suddenly lifted a face so boyishly helpless, so defeated,
that Allendyce's heart went out to him. He understood, all at once, what
little Robin had meant when she had said, "You don't know Jimmie!" He
certainly was not like other men.
"I feel such a--quitter. I promised Robin's mother--I'd make up to the
child for her being lame--the way _she_ would have, if she'd lived. And
I've failed. Why, only last night she went to bed hungry." There
followed a moment of tense silence, then the man went on dully, in a
tone that implied yielding. "I suppose I may know all the circumstances
that led up to--this.
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