Suppose it costs us five hundred pounds. I don’t know that it would, but just for the sake of argument suppose it did. I don’t know how much interest we get on that for a year, but by the time the income tax has come off there is so little left that I can’t see that it really matters whether we get it or not – and we should have had our cruise. You know, darling, it is all very well for you – you get out a great deal more than I do – but there are times when I feel that I might have better health if I could get away from Grove Hill. I said so to Ella Harrison, and she said of course what I really needed was to meet fresh people and to have more interests in life. As she says, I am really quite a young woman still. I was only seventeen when you were born, and even so, she wouldn’t believe me when I told her you were twenty-seven.’

Althea gave a short laugh.

‘Was that intended as a compliment for me?’

Mrs Graham had a small satisfied smile as she said,

‘Well, darling, I am afraid not. She just couldn’t believe I had a daughter as old as that. She said she always thought your father must have been married before, and that you were a step-child. Very ridiculous of course, but I could see she meant it.’

Standing behind her mother and looking into the mirror on the rather elaborate dressing-table, Althea could see the two faces reflected there. Even with her hair full of setting-combs and curlers Mrs Graham was a pretty woman. The legend of her marriage at sixteen was of course apocryphal. She had been twenty-one, and Althea was born the following year. Mrs Graham was therefore forty-eight, and she knew perfectly well that Althea was aware of it, but she had been moving the date of her marriage back for years. Beyond sixteen she would, unfortunately, not be able to go, and the trouble was that Althea looked her age and more. She must be induced to take more interest in herself – to encourage the wave in her hair and use a little discreet make-up.