“He didn’t promise to keep his temper or out of debt,” Christine said.

Edith sniffed loudly.

“Or away from other women.  Oh, it’s no good, Christine, I know what I know.  There’s always some other woman in the background.  Only yesterday I found a letter from Mrs. Saxburn—­that red-haired vixen he brought home to tea when there wasn’t money in the house to buy bread.  I tell you he doesn’t know what faithfulness means.”

Robert, rising for a moment above his own personal anguish, clenched his fist.  It was all very well—­he might hate his father, Christine might hate him, though he knew she didn’t, but Edith had no right.  She was an outsider—­a bounder——­

“He is faithful to his ideal,” Christine answered.  “He is always looking for it and thinking he has found it.  And except for Constance he has always been mistaken.”

“Thank you.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you,” Christine explained.  “There have been so many of them—­and all so terribly expensive—­never cheap or common——­”

They were dragging the carpet out into the landing.  Their voices sounded louder and more distinct.

“I could bear almost everything but his temper,” Edith persisted breathlessly.  “He’s like a madman——­”

“He’s ill—­sometimes I think he’s very ill——­”

“Oh, you’ve always got an excuse for him, Christine.  You never see him as he really is.  I can’t think why you didn’t marry him yourself.  I’m sure he asked you.  Jim couldn’t be alone with a woman ten minutes without proposing.  And everyone knows how fond you are of him and of that tiresome child——­”

Robert Stonehouse gasped.  The earth reeled under his feet.  The stump of the cigar rolled off the windowsill, and he himself tumbled from his chair and was sick—­convulsively, hideously sick.  For a moment he remained huddled on the floor, half unconscious, and then very slowly the green, soul-destroying mist receded and he found Christine bending over him, wiping his face, with her pocket-Handkerchief.

“Robert, darling, why didn’t you call out?”

“He’s been smoking,” Edith’s voice declared viciously from somewhere in the background.  “I can smell it.  The horrid little boy——­”

“I didn’t—­I didn’t——­” He kept his feet with an enormous effort, scowling at her.  He lied shamelessly, as a matter of course and without the faintest sense of guilt.  Everyone lied.  They had to.  Christine knew that as well as anyone.  Not that lying was of the slightest use.  His father’s temper fed on itself and was independent alike of fact or fiction.  But you could no more help lying to him than you could help flinching from a red-hot poker.  “I didn’t,” he repeated stubbornly, and all the while repeating to himself, “It’s my birthday—­and they’ve forgotten.  They don’t care.”  But he would rather have died then and there than have reminded them.  He would not even let them see how miserable he was, and to stop himself from crying he kept his eyes fixed on Edith Stonehouse, who in turn measured him with that exaggerated and artificial horror which she considered appropriate to naughty children.