“Have you written any letters?”

“I wrote to father and sent him fifty pounds.  It was out of my own allowance.  He seems even harder up than usual.  I’m afraid the latest system is not profitable.”

“I should not think it would be, for Mr. Selincourt,” replied Bernard Clowes politely.  “Monte Carlo never does pay unless one’s pretty sharp, and your father hasn’t the brains of a flea.  Was that the only letter you wrote?”

“Yes—­will you have some more bread and butter?”

“And what letters did you get?” Clowes pursued his leisured catechism while he helped himself daintily to a fragile sandwich.  This was all part of the daily routine, and Laura, if she felt any resentment, had long since grown out of showing it.

“One from Lucian.  He’s in Paris—­”

“With—?”

“No one, so far as I know,” Laura replied, not affecting to misunderstand his jibe.  Lucian Selincourt was her only brother and very dear to her, but there was no denying that his career had its seamy side.  He was not, like her father, a family skeleton—­he had never been warned off the Turf:  but he was rarely solitary and never out of debt.  “Poor Lucian, he’s hard up too.  I wish I could send him fifty pounds, but if I did he’d send it back.”

“What other letters did you have?”

Mrs. Clowes had had a sheaf of unimportant notes, which she was made to describe in detail, her husband listening in his hard patience.  When they were exhausted Laura went on in a hesitating voice, “And there was one more that I want to consult you about.  I know you’ll say we can’t have him, but I hardly liked to refuse on my own imitative, as he’s your cousin, not mine.  It was from Lawrence Hyde, offering to come here for a day or two.”

“Lawrence Hyde?  Why, I haven’t seen or heard of him for years,” Clowes raised his head with a gleam of interest.  “I remember him well enough though.  Good-looking chap, six foot two or three and as strong as a horse.  Well-built chap, too.  Women ran after him.  I haven’t seen him since we were in the trenches together.”

“Yes, Bernard.  Don’t you recollect his going to see you in hospital?”

“So he did, by Jove!  I’d forgotten that.  He’d ten days’ leave and he chucked one of them away to look me up.  Not such a bad sort, old Lawrence.”

“I liked him very much,” said Laura quietly.

“Wants to come to us, does he?  Why?  Where does he write from?”

“Paris.  It seems he ran across Lucian at Auteuil—­”

“Let me see the letter.”

Laura give it over.  “Calls you Laura, does he?” Clowes read it aloud with a running commentary of his own.  “H’m:  pleasant relationship, cousins-in-law. . .  ’Met Lucian . . . chat about old times’—­is he a bird of Lucian’s feather, I wonder?  He wasn’t keen on women in the old days, but people change a lot in ten years . . .  ’Like to come and see us while he’s in England . .