Her eyes flashed. 'That's because they're a spineless, lily-livered lot without a thought in their heads except horse-racing and rice-growing.'

His face blackened, his underlip shot out. 'Thank you, madame, for the compliments. Spineless and lily-livered they may be, as you so sweetly put it, but at least not one of them is eternally trying to squeeze money from me as does your worthy father. He's a first-class leech.'

She gasped. Blind with anger they stared at each other.

Joseph was sorry to have said so much. After all, the financial arrangements between himself and Aaron were no woman's concern. They had always had a tacit agreement to keep her in ignorance. He tried to make allowances for her natural upset at his news; it was in order to minimize the shock that he had come himself to tell her. But she was infuriating in her eternal concentration on her father and indifference to his own reactions. How pretty she looked, though, with her eyes sparkling instead of brooding and remote as he so often saw them.

Hector walked in then, staggering under a loaded tray. The sight of approaching food mollified Joseph. He seated himself at the table and ladled a huge helping of shrimp and rice.

'Let's not quarrel, Theo. Sit down and join me. I judge from the looks of the victuals that Dido is indeed a good cook,' he said, offering an olive branch.

Theo was too angry and hurt to accept it. That he should dare to criticize her father! That he should dare to begrudge any financial help which Aaron might need, and needed, she knew, only because he was so foolishly generous at times! Joseph was rich: he could well afford to be generous too: but he wasn't. He was compounded, she thought passionately, of small niggling traits, like the rest of his family. Caution, convention, prudence, with no trace of imagination or vision or genuine sympathy.

'I have already eaten,' she said angrily, 'and, if you will forgive me, I think I shall retire. I am tired and the news has been a shock.'

He gulped a great tumbler of wine, wiped his mouth on his handkerchief. 'I'll come with you, Theo. I, too, am tired. We will go to bed immediately.'

She turned to face him, and the inward shudder of repulsion seemed to diminish her body, so that she looked smaller, suddenly eclipsed.

'Eleanore will make the bed for you in there'—she indicated one of the small bedchambers. 'The boy is sometimes restless in his sleep. You will rest better, and I—I have a headache.'