Lord Evelyn stopped in his walk and listened.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” said Denis, throwing away his cigar-end.  “I don’t want to say anything against Peter to you.  But ... one must judge by facts, you know.  I don’t mean that Peter means any harm; but, as I say, he’s weak.  I’m fond of Peter, you know; I wish to goodness he wouldn’t play the fool as he does, mixing himself up with his precious relations and helping them in their idiotic schemes for swindling money out of people—­but there it is; he will do it; and as long as he does it I don’t feel moved to have much to do with him.  I should send him money if he asked me personally, of course, even if I knew it would only go into his brother’s pocket; but I’m not going to do it at his sister-in-law’s command.  If you ask me whether I feel inclined to help Hilary Margerison and his wife, my answer is simply no I don’t.  They’re merely scum; and why should one have anything to do with scum?”

Lucy looked at him silently for a while.  Then she said slowly, “I see.  Yes, I see you wouldn’t want to, of course.  They are scum.  And you’re not.  But I am, I think.  I belong to the same sort of people they do.  I could swindle and cheat too, I expect.  It’s the people at the bottom who do that.  They’re my relations, you see, not yours.”

“My dear Lucy, only Peter is your relation.”

“Peter and Thomas.  And I count the rest too, because they’re Peter’s.  So let me do all that is to be done, Denis.  Don’t you bother.  I’ll take them money.”

“Let them alone, Lucy.  You’d better, you know.  What’s the good?”

“I don’t know,” said Lucy.  “None, I expect.  None at all; because Peter wouldn’t take it from me without you.”

She came a little nearer him, and put her hand on his knee like a wistful puppy.

“Denis,” she said, “I wish you would.  They know already that I care.  But I wish you would.  Peter’d like you to.  He’d be more pleased than if I did; much more.  Peter cares for you and me and Thomas extraordinarily much; and you can’t compare carings, but the way he cares for you is the most wonderful of all, I believe.  If you went to him ... if you showed him you cared ... he’d take it from you.  He wouldn’t take it from me without you, because he’d suspect you weren’t wanting him to have it.  Denis, won’t you go to Peter, as you used to do long ago, before he was in disgrace and poor, before he was scum?  Can’t you, Denis?”

Denis had coloured faintly.  He always did when people were emotional.  Lucy seldom was; she had a delicious morning freshness that was like the cool wind on the hills in spring.

“Peter never comes here, Lucy, does he.  If he wanted to see me, I suppose he would.”

Lucy was looking strangely at the beautiful face with the faint flush rising in it.  She apparently thought no reply necessary to his words, but said again, “Can’t you, Denis?  Or is it too hard, too much bother, too much stepping out of the way?”