“Oh,” said Lucy, dismissing that as absurd, “they can’t.  Of course they can’t.  They never could ...  Denis.”

“Lucy.”  Denis absently put out a hand to meet hers.

“How much shall we give them, Denis?”

Denis dropped Punch onto the floor, and lay back with his hands clasped behind his fair head.  Lucy, looking at his up-turned, foreshortened, cleanly-modelled face, thought with half of her mind what a perfect thing it was.  Sudden aspects of Denis’s beauty sometimes struck her breathless, as they struck Peter.

“The Margerison family wants money, I understand,” said Denis, who hadn’t been listening attentively.

“Very badly, Denis.”

Denis nodded.  “They always do, of course....  Well, is it our business to fill the bottomless Margerison purse?”

Lucy sat very still, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“Our business?  I don’t know.  But, of course, if Peter and Peter’s people want anything, we shall give it them.”

“But I gather it’s not Peter that asks?  Peter never asks, does he?”

“No,” said Lucy.  “Peter never asks.  Not even for Thomas.”

“Well, I should be inclined to trust Peter rather than his charming family.  Peter’s name seems to be dragged into that letter a good deal, but it doesn’t follow that Peter sanctioned it.  I’m not going to annoy Peter by sending him what he’s never asked for.  I should think probably Peter knows they can get on all right as they are, and that this letter must be taken with a good deal of salt.  I expect the egregious Hilary only wants the money for some new enterprise of his own, that will fail, as usual.  Anyhow, I really don’t fancy having any further dealings with Hilary Margerison or his wife; I’ve had enough there.  He’s the most impossible cad and swindler.”

“Swindlers all, swindlers all,” said Lord Evelyn, getting up and pacing up and down the room, his hands behind his back.

Lucy, after a moment, said simply, “I shall give them something, Denis.  I must.  Don’t you see?  Whoever it was, I would.  Because anyhow, they’re poor and we’re rich, and they want things we can give them.  It’s so obvious that when people ask one for things they must have them if one can give them.  And when it’s Peter who’s in want, and Peter’s baby, and Peter’s people ...”

“You see,” said Denis, “I doubt about Peter or the baby benefiting by anything we give them.  It will all go down the drain where Hilary Margerison’s money flows away.  Give it to Peter or give it to his relations, it’ll come to the same thing.  Peter gives them every penny he gets, I don’t doubt.  You know what Peter is; he’s as weak as a baby in his step-brother’s hands; he lets himself be dragged into the most disgraceful transactions because he can’t say no.”

Lucy looked up at him, open-eyed, pale, quiet.

“You think of Peter like that?” she said, and her voice trembled a little.