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the space that separated him from the door where his father stood. Lowell stared at him with frightened tear-filled eyes, her lips trembling. For a moment I think she thought what I know I did—that Randall Nash would strike him as he passed, and then… Angus stopped in the door and turned back to his sister.
    “I said next time that beast of yours snapped at me, I’d break his neck,” he said coolly. “Well, that goes for all your pet connections, Sis.”
    Lowell held out her hands. “Oh, I didn’t mean it, Angie,” she whispered, choking back the scalding tears.
    He gave her a quick twisted grin. “I know it. Well, so long. Don’t let ’em get you down.”
    He said it to Lowell, but I knew, and I think everyone else did, that it was Iris he was speaking to.
    He turned and walked out, without a glance at his father.
    Iris, her face a mask of pale inscrutability, started after him. Randall Nash deliberately closed the door. “You can stay where you are,” he said slowly. “And let this be the last time that young man comes into my house. Is that quite clear?”
    For a moment Iris stood in front of him, erect and rigid, her eyes meeting his without wavering.
    “Quite,” she said. Then she shrugged her slim shoulders and turned back to the rest of us with a cool smile.
    “I can only offer you my husband’s deepest apologies. He is not entirely himself this afternoon.”
    She came back to the fire and held her hands out to the blaze. Mac had moved around until he was between Lowell and her father.
    “I think you’re a bit hard on him, sir,” he said stolidly. “The whole thing was my fault. I’m very sorry.”
    Randall Nash jerked his head around, his jaws working, and gave him a long savage stare. It hadn’t occurred to him, apparently, that Mac—or anyone, for that matter, but Iris— would stand up against him. Even Lowell looked alarmed for a moment, and then smiled, proudly, I thought. I glanced at Steve Donaldson. He was leaning against the carved window-trim, his hands in his pockets, teeth tightly clamped on his pipe, his face a little flushed.
    Iris turned from the fire.
    “You haven’t spoken to Grace, Randall.”
    He started. He hadn’t even seen me.
    “Hello,” I said.
    He came forward silently, so without any change in the stony expression on his face that I couldn’t for a second decide whether he didn’t recognize me, or whether he did and wanted me to get out too. As he gave my hand a cold perfunctory shake it occurred to me suddenly that I wasn’t sure that if I’d seen his face close up, separated from his gaunt powerful body, I should have recognized him at once. He had changed unbelievably. His eyes were bloodshot and haunted, his mouth ribbed with bitter grey lines.
    “I hope we can get together about the garden wall,” he said shortly.
    “I noticed this morning it was crumbling again.”
    “Your tenants wouldn’t let me point up your side because of the trumpet vine.”
    I had followed him to the end of the long room. We stood there looking out over the snow-mantled garden at the slump in the center of the wall. My own house beyond it was warm and friendly with its lighted windows and the wreath of white smoke curling up from the broad chimney above the snowtopped roof. I had a sudden sharp longing to be there— not here beside this bitter old man whom I felt I scarcely knew anymore.
    “It’ll grow again,” I said.
    “I’ll foot the bill of course.—It’s the bit over the vault that’s down.”
    Lowell’s voice, suddenly crisp and clear in the room, sent a cold shiver down my spine.
    “Do tell Steve what charming people the Nashes used to be, dad,” she said.
    I turned. She was standing by the Christmas tree with the roll of tinsel again, her smart brittle finish so completely restored that it was Hard to believe that not three minutes ago she was a frightened crumpled youngster on the verge of tears. She was feeding the tinsel up to Mac, balanced again