“You’d better not.  I’m too shabby underneath.”

“Sir Richard’s in the country, Mr. Roger.”

“Oh, so her ladyship’s alone?  Well, that’s how I generally find her, isn’t it?”

But Nannie—­with her eye on the stairs—­was not going to allow him any lingering in the hall.  She led him quickly to the drawing-room, opened it, and closed it behind him.  Then she herself retreated into a small smoking-den at the farther end of the hall, and sat there, without a light, with the door open—­watching.

Roger Delane instinctively straightened himself to his full height as he entered his sister’s drawing-room.  His overcoat, though much worn, was of an expensive make and cut; he carried the Malacca cane which had been his companion in the Brookshire roads; and the eyeglass that he adjusted as he caught sight of his sister completed the general effect of shabby fashion.  His manner was jaunty and defiant.

“Well, Marianne,” he said, pausing some yards from her.  “You don’t seem particularly glad to see me.  Hullo!—­has Dick been buying some more china?”

And before his sister could say anything, he had walked over to a table covered with various bric-a-brac, where, taking up a fine Nankin vase, he looked closely at the marks on its base.

Lady Winton flushed with anger.

“I think you had better leave the china alone, Roger.  I have only got a very few minutes.  What do you want?  Money, I suppose—­as usual!  And yet I warned you in my last letter that you would do this kind of thing once too often, and that we were not going to put up with it!” She struck the table beside her with her glove.

Delane put down the china and surveyed her.

“The vase is Ming all right—­better stuff than Dick generally buys.  I congratulate him.  Well, I’m sorry for you, my dear Marianne—­but you are my sister—­and you can’t help yourself!”

He looked at her, half-smiling, with a quiet bravado which enraged her.

“Don’t talk like that, Roger!  Tell me directly what it is you want.  You seem to think you can force me to see you at any time, whatever I may be doing.  But—­”

“Your last letter was ’a bit thick’—­you see—­it provoked me,” said Delane calmly.  “Of course you can get the police to chuck me out if you like.  You would be quite in your rights.  But I imagine the effect on the aristocratic nerves of Berkeley Square would be amusing.  However—­”

He looked round him—­

“As Carlyle said to the old Queen, ’I’m getting old, madam, and with your leave I’ll take a chair—­’”

He pushed an arm-chair forward.

“And let me make up the fire.  It’s beginning to freeze outside.”

Lady Winton moved quickly to the fireplace, holding out a prohibiting hand.

“There is quite enough fire, thank you.  I am going out presently.”

Delane sat down, and extended a pair of still shapely feet to the slender flame in the grate.