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He half-turned, staring at the girl with a new expression – puzzled, resentful, suspicious… He went out into the corridor and stood there smoking a cigarette and frowning to himself…

III

In the big blue and gold drawing-room at Gorston Hall Alfred Lee and Lydia, his wife, sat discussing their plans for Christmas. Alfred was a squarely built man of middle age with a gentle face and mild brown eyes. His voice when he spoke was quiet and precise with a very clear enunciation. His head was sunk into his shoulders and he gave a curious impression of inertia. Lydia, his wife, was an energetic, lean greyhound of a woman. She was amazingly thin, but all her movements had a swift, startled grace about them.

There was no beauty in her careless, haggard face, but it had distinction. Her voice was charming.

Alfred said: ‘Father insists! There’s nothing else to it.’

Lydia controlled a sudden impatient movement. She said: ‘Must you always give in to him?’

‘He’s a very old man, my dear – ’

‘Oh, I know – I know!’

‘He expects to have his own way.’

Lydia said dryly: ‘Naturally, since he has always had it! But some time or other, Alfred, you will have to make a stand.’

‘What do you mean, Lydia?’

He stared at her, so palpably upset and startled, that for a moment she bit her lip and seemed doubtful whether to go on.

Alfred Lee repeated: ‘What do you mean, Lydia?’

She shrugged her thin, graceful shoulders. She said, trying to choose her words cautiously: ‘Your father is – inclined to be – tyrannical – ’

‘He’s old.’

‘And will grow older. And consequently more tyrannical. Where will it end? Already he dictates our lives to us completely. We can’t make a plan of our own! If we do, it is always liable to be upset.’

Alfred said: ‘Father expects to come first. He is very good to us, remember.’

‘Oh! good to us!’

‘Very good to us.’ Alfred spoke with a trace of sternness.

Lydia said calmly: ‘You mean financially?’

‘Yes. His own wants are very simple. But he never grudges us money. You can spend what you like on dress and on this house, and the bills are paid without a murmur. He gave us a new car only last week.’

‘As far as money goes, your father is very generous, I admit,’ said Lydia. ‘But in return he expects us to behave like slaves.’

‘Slaves?’

‘That’s the word I used. You are his slave, Alfred. If we have planned to go away and Father suddenly wishes us not to go, you cancel your arrangements and remain without a murmur! If the whim takes him to send us away, we go… We have no lives of our own – no independence.’

Her husband said distressfully: ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like this, Lydia. It is very ungrateful. My father has done everything for us…’

She bit off a retort that was on her lips. She shrugged those thin, graceful shoulders once more.

Alfred said: ‘You know, Lydia, the old man is very fond of you – ’