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very generously. You've had two thousand pounds and more in the last three years. It was a very difficult thing to do to decide on giving Beatrice and the child that money when my affairs were in such a chaotic state, and no doubt in the future I may be glad of two thousand pounds. No, Gerald, under the circumstances your family has been treated very fairly."
    Gerald stared at her. There was a black rage welling up in him; her seeming indifference to his plight infuriated him. Not only had she killed his hopes of eventually owning his company but his future was dead also. He hadn't realised up till now just how much he had depended on her generosity to her grandchild and eventual legacy to her daughter. This woman had been a source of security for him, an insurance policy. If things didn't go right, well, there was always Beat's mother. Not a little of his present success was due, he knew, to his connection through marriage with Cartner and Cartner.
    So bitter were his feelings that when Grace spoke again he did not hear her. But after a moment he turned on her and said, "What did you say?"
    "I was asking you, Gerald, not to tell Beatrice or the others about it just yet. Of course, they will have to know. You can tell Beatrice if you wish when you return home, but I'll explain to Jane and Stephen before the holidays are over."
    Gerald made no answer to this, but he thrust his lips out before bringing them in to form a tight line across his face. Then, turning abruptly on his heels, he left her.
    It was some moments before Grace moved from the seat, and then she went slowly to the wardrobe and took out her mink coat, and when she had put it on she looked at herself in the mirror. She could up to a point understand Gerald's feelings. In a coat such as this in a house such as this, it was hard to credit she was a woman without substantial means.
    Apart from the child, Gerald had the house to himself; they had all gone to church, and even if Yvonne had not been sick he knew that he couldn't have sat through an hour of waffling feeling as he did. He was ready to explode. He looked to where his small daughter lay asleep now, curled up in the depths of the couch. She had a clarty thousand and no more to look forward to. That was eating him as much as the fact that unless he had a windfall of some kind or another he would remain a working partner in Livsey's for the rest of his days.
    And for that stuck-up cow to keep it to herself and she supposed to be ill, in the middle of a breakdown. She couldn't possibly have been as bad as she made out otherwise she would have blurted out the whole business among some of the other stuff she had spewed up. Enough to put you to shame, some of the things she had said, and it took something to make him blush, by God it did. She was a deep one, was his mother-in-law . But he just couldn't get over it . her broke. He swung round and looked at the room. Keeping up all this bloody pomp and her broke, it didn't make sense. And then the Christmas boxes.
    Twenty-five pound cheques to each of them, even the children. It didn't seem much when you reckoned it up, a hundred and twenty-five pounds, but a hundred and twenty-five pounds was a hundred and twenty-five pounds when you were broke . I Broke, be damned . I her broke likely meant she had a bare three thousand a year to survive on.
    He must have a drink. Softly he walked past the couch and out of the room, and when he entered the dining-room he made straight for the cabinet standing in the corner. Opening its doors wide, he ran his finger along the line of bottles on the top shelf before selecting the brandy. And all this liquor. What did she keep this stuff for?
    Supposedly for her uncle and relations. That was my eye. She likely tippled on the quiet;
    there was no-one to check on her most of the time. Would you buy this amount of stuff if you were near penniless? He threw off a good measure of brandy, then as he stood savouring its warming effect he