She did not even consider it. Nor did she permit her resentment to become apparent to Gregory Matthews, for that would have been very stupid, and might have led to the loss of an extremely comfortable home for which she was not expected to pay as much as one farthing. The home had its disadvantages, of course. It was not her own, and the presence of her sister-in-law was always an irritation, but since poor Harriet was the antithesis of everything Gregory Matthews thought a female should be it needed really very little trouble to enlist his support in any disagreement she happened to have with her sister-in law. Patience and unfailing sweetness had achieved their object: at the end of a five-year sojourn at the Poplars Zoë Matthews had contrived to make herself, if not the mistress of the house, at least the cherished guest whose comfort must be everyone's first consideration. “Such a ruthless woman - my dear Aunt Zoë,” Randall Matthews had once murmured, glancing maliciously up under his long lashes.

Randall was in Stella's thoughts as she waited for her brother to conclude his conversation with Nigel Brooke. When he put the receiver down at last she said abruptly: “Do you suppose uncle left everything to Randall, Guy?”

“You bet he did—most of it, anyway,” replied Guy. “Randall's been working for it for months, if you ask me—always turning up here for no known reason except to oil up to uncle by suddenly being attentive to him. It's so damned unfair! I come down from Oxford, and get a job absolutely bang-off, and stick to it, and all Randall does is to drift around looking willowy and run through a packet of money (because Uncle Hubert left a fair spot, so Aunt Harriet told me) and never do a stroke of work, or attempt to! It makes me sick! Besides, he's so utterly poisonous.”

Stella lit a cigarette. “I suppose he'll turn up next. And say foul things to everybody in a loving voice. Do you think uncle's left mother any money?”