Even with her he could be obstinate and cruel—­cruel because she was so much less than his mother had become—­and there were times when, with a queer unchildish power of self-visualization, he saw himself as a small fair-haired monster growing black and blacker with the dark and evil spirit that was in him.  But Christine never seemed to see him like that.  There was some borrowed halo about his head that blinded her.  It did not matter how bad he was, she had always love and excuses ready for him.  And she was literally all he had in the world.

But even she had not been able to make his birthday a success.  Indeed, ever since that one outstanding day all the celebrations had been failures, though he had never ceased to look forward to them.  For days before his last birthday he had suspected everyone of secret delicious plottings on his behalf.  He had come down to breakfast shaking with anticipation.  All through the morning he had waited for the surprise that was to be sprung on him, hanging at everyone’s heel in turn, and it was only towards dusk that he knew with bitter certainty that he had been forgotten.  A crisis had wiped him and his birthday out altogether.  And then he had cried, and James Stonehouse, moved to generous remorse, had rushed out and bought a ridiculously expensive toy having first borrowed money from Christine and scolded her at the top of his booming voice for her heartless neglect of his son’s happiness.

Christine had argued with him in her quiet obstinate way.

“But, Jim dear, you can’t afford it——­”

There had been one of those awful rows.

And Robert had crept that night, unwashed, into bed, crying more bitterly than ever.

But this time he had really had no hope at all.  Yesterday had seen a crisis and a super-crisis.  In the afternoon the butcher had stood at the back door and shouted and threatened, and he had been followed almost immediately by a stout shabby man with a bald head and good-natured face, who announced that he had come to put a distraint on the furniture which, incidentally, had never been paid for.  Edith Stonehouse, with an air of outraged dignity, had lodged him in the library and regaled him on a bottle of stout and the remnants of a cold joint, and it was understood that there he would remain until such time as Christine raised 40 pounds from somewhere.

These were mere incidents—­entirely commonplace—­but at six o’clock James Stonehouse himself had driven up in a taxi, to the driver of which he had appeared to hand the contents of all his pockets, and a moment later stormed into the house in a mood which was, if anything, more devastating than his ungovernable rages.  He had been exuberant—­exultant—­his good-humour white-hot and dangerous.  Looking into his brilliant blue eyes with their two sharp points of light, it would have been hard to tell whether he was laughing or mad with anger.  His moods were like that—­too close to be distinguished from one another with any safety.  Christine, who had just come from interviewing the bailiff, had looked grave and disapproving.  She knew probably, that her disapproval was useless and even disastrous, but there was an obstinate rectitude in her character that made it impossible for her to humour him.  But Edith Stonehouse and Robert had played up out of sheer terror.