Christine, try and look as though you were pleased. Get into a pretty
dress and join us. Must do him well, you know. Never do for a man
like that to get a wrong impression. And I want him to see Robert. He
knew Constance before we were married. Put him into his best
clothes----"

"He hasn't got any," Christine had interrupted bitterly.

For a moment it had seemed as though the fatal boundary line would be
crossed. Stonehouse had stared at his son, his eyes brightening to an
electric glare as they picked out the patches of the shabby sailor-suit
and the frantic, mollifying smile on Robert's face had grown stiff as
he had turned himself obediently about.

"Disgraceful. I wonder you women are not ashamed, the way you neglect
the child--I shall take him to Shoolbred's first thing to-morrow and
have him fitted out from top to toe----" The gathering storm receded
miraculously. "However, he can't appear like that. For God's sake,
get the house tidy, at any rate----"

So Robert had been bustled up stairs and the bailiff lured into the
kitchen, where fortunately he had become so drunk that he had had no
opportunity to explain to the French chef and the two waiters the real
reason for his presence and his whole-hearted participation in the
feast.

From the top of the stairs Robert had watched Christine go into dinner
on his father's arm, and Edith Stonehouse follow with a black-coated
stranger who had known his mother. He had listened to the talk and his
father's laughter--jovial and threatening--and once he had dived