‘You would do well to consider whether they might not be even better.’ Then, after a pause, ‘Better – and closer.’

There didn’t seem to be any way out of asking her what she meant.

Miss Cara’s eyes went from one to the other, but she did not speak. He said,

‘I don’t think I know what you mean. We are very good friends.’

‘I mean that you might be something more.’

His ‘I don’t think so,’ set her frowning. She said very deliberately,

‘Candida is a Benevent. She is considered both pretty and charming. She will have a good deal of money.’ She forced her voice and made it say, ‘She will have Underhill.’

There was another pause. He would have to speak now, but just what was he going to say? Enough, but not too much. There was no sense in pulling the roof down over his head – nasty for him, nasty for Jenny, and nasty for Candida. He met Miss Cara’s anxious eyes. Her hands fluttered out a little towards him and drew back. Her ‘Don’t make Olivia angry’ was as plain as if the words had been spoken. He said,

‘Yes – ’

The frown deepened. Olivia Benevent spoke sharply.

‘My dear Derek, you are not really stupid, so why pretend that you are? You have already agreed with me that Candida is a charming girl, that she is much admired, and that you are very good friends. She comes of a family to which, I think we may say, you are already bound by ties of affection, and she will be a very considerable heiress. You are our adopted nephew. Owing to the terms on my grandfather’s will we are not in a position to make the provision for you which we should have wished. In an earlier and more practical age we should simply have arranged a marriage between you and our niece, and I have no doubt that it would have turned out very happily. As it is, all I can do is to point out the advantages of such a marriage.’

It was impossible to let her go on. He said in a protesting voice,

‘But my dears, she doesn’t care for me like that – she doesn’t really.’

Miss Olivia said, ‘Nonsense! You are here in the house with her – you have every opportunity of making love to her. But you are just throwing them away. I have been watching you, and you have simply been wasting your time. It cannot go on.’

He had remainded standing. He backed away now towards the window.

‘You know, you have got this all wrong – you really have. Candida wouldn’t have me if I asked her.’

‘You cannot know that unless you do ask her. She naturally would not make the first advances. She would expect you to let her see that you care for her.’

‘But I don’t. At least not like that.’

Miss Cara pressed a handkerchief to her eyes and spoke in a trembling voice.

‘She would make you very happy, my dear. She has a very kind heart.’

‘Dear Aunt Cara – ’

‘I have grown very fond of her. It would make me very happy.’

Well, there was nothing for it. He put out a hand towards them and said,

‘You know there is nothing I would like better than to please you, but it isn’t any good, because, you see, I am fond of somebody else.’

They sat and stared at him, a tear just trickling down Miss Cara’s cheek, Miss Olivia with a hard blank look. For once it was the elder sister who spoke first.

‘Oh, my dear boy!’

Olivia Benevent just went on looking at him. The silence had grown heavy before she said,

‘Indeed?’ Just the one word. And then, after a glacial pause, ‘Who is she?’

He was burning his boats, but he didn’t care. It was going to be worth everything to be able to say Jenny’s name out loud and have done with all the secrecy. You slip into it, and before you know where you are it is sliming you all over.

He said, ‘Jenny Rainsford,’ and Miss Olivia came back at him like the crack of a whip.

‘A young woman in a second-rate garage!’

‘You don’t know anything about her.’

‘I know what Louisa Arnold told me.’

‘No one could have told you anything that wasn’t good about Jenny – there isn’t anything else to tell! Her father died, and she worked for her sisters. If Miss Arnold told you anything, she told you that.’

‘She mentioned it. I am afraid it didn’t interest me. A girl who is left penniless would naturally have to work. I see nothing remarkable about that. And I am afraid that I do not admire her choice of what she would no doubt call a job. Louisa mentioned that her father was a gentleman. I should think he would have been a good deal distressed at his daughter’s deliberate descent into quite another class.’

Derek bit his lip. There was no sense in having a quarrel about it. It wouldn’t help Jenny, and they had been very good to him. He took a step towards the door, and all at once Olivia Benevent blazed.

‘Is this your gratitude? Is this the return you make for all we have done for you? Don’t you realise what you are throwing away? Do you think we shall still take an interest in you when you have gone down into the gutter? Do you imagine for one moment – ’

Her voice had risen to a scream, but he heard Miss Cara’s piteous ‘No, no!’ She put a hand on the arm of her chair and tried to rise, but before she had steadied herself to take even one step she gave a gasp and fell forward. If Derek had not been moving already he would not have been in time to catch her, but as it was, he did just manage to break her fall. It all went faster than it can be told. Derek exclaimed, Miss Olivia cried out sharply, and the door was opened. It disclosed Joseph standing just beyond the threshold. As he was afterwards to testify, what he saw was Miss Cara lying on the floor with Derek Burdon standing over her, and what he heard was Miss Olivia saying on a note of mounting hysteria,

‘You’ve killed her – you’ve killed her – you’ve killed her!’

Chapter Twenty-one

It having been ascertained that Miss Cara was not dead but merely in a swoon, she was lifted and laid on a massive Victorian couch. Miss Olivia went down on her knees beside her, and Joseph went for Anna. Presently, when she had recovered consciousness, Derek carried her up to her room. As far as Olivia was concerned he might not have been there at all. She had words for Anna and for Joseph, but not for him. Her glance passed over him as if he were not there.

Since Candida was having the last of her driving lessons, he had a good excuse for getting out of the way for some hours. He told her about the scene.

‘Darling, it was completely shattering. I’ve seen her a bit on the high horse before now, but nothing like this, I give you my word. I can’t imagine what has happened to her.’

‘She doesn’t like being crossed,’ said Candida. ‘Aunt Cara doesn’t do it ever, and you haven’t much. And then I come here, and she doesn’t like me a lot anyhow, so when I start crossing her it gets her back up.’

‘Why did you start crossing her?’

‘I couldn’t help it – not if I didn’t want to be a trodden slave! She started on about Stephen being an architect and so I couldn’t have lunch with him or anything like that, and I couldn’t let her get away with that sort of thing – now could I?’

‘Well-’

‘I wasn’t going to anyhow! That is the way poor little Aunt Cara has been ground down until she hasn’t got a will of her own or enough courage for anything except to say yes when Aunt Olivia says yes, and no when Aunt Olivia says no.’

Derek looked at her, half laughing, half serious.

‘If Stephen is the bone of contention, you paraded it a bit last night, didn’t you?’

She coloured brightly.

‘I suppose I did.’

‘Anything in it?’

‘Oh, Derek, yes!’

‘Have you fixed it up?’

She nodded.

‘Last night.’

He took his left hand off the wheel and patted her shoulder.

‘He’s a good chap. Jenny and I are fixing things up too.’

He told her about Jenny and the garage, slowing the car down and even stopping on the grass verge before they came to the straggle of bungalows outside the town. At the end he said,