“Hullo! I just came to say good night.”

Iris held up her face politely.

“Do you know where my Daddy is? He hasn’t been up to kiss me yet.”

“I believe he’s in the garden. Have a look, Janet. He said he was going out to smoke.”

Janet leant on the window-ledge. She could not hear what was said, but she could see. With her hands turning cold and a lump in her throat she watched Gladys’ hand lie on Donald’s arm, then she saw his arm go round her, and saw her head drop forward.

Sheila watched Janet’s back. She saw it stiffen.

“Well?” she asked triumphantly. “Is he there?”

Janet, shocked though she was, thought of Iris. She tried to speak normally, but her voice was only a whisper.

“I’ll go and call him.”

Sheila, charmed at the way her scheme had worked, skipped to the door.

“No, let me.”

Janet sat down again beside Iris.

“Sing something,” Iris demanded.

Janet swallowed. “What?”

“‘Over the Rainbow.’”

“It’s difficult,” Janet suggested, unwilling to refuse Iris anything on her birthday, but almost sure she couldn’t sing.

“I’ll help you. ‘Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high . . .’ Now go on.”

Janet managed somehow. Iris was half asleep before she had finished. Donald stood in the doorway, listening and watching. It was soothing to his ears and eyes after Gladys’ ravaged face and her tearing sobs.

“Very nice too,” he said as Janet’s voice wavered into silence. She started. He was the last person she wanted to see.

Iris opened her eyes.

“It was a pity you couldn’t come to the cinema. I like going in a motor-car better than on a bus.”

He walked on tiptoe across the room.

“Is that the only reason I was missed?”

Iris sat up and held out her arms.

“Come here, Daddy. Of course it wasn’t. Why are you whispering and walking soft like a cat? Don’t you want Gladys to know you’ve come in here?”

He sat on the edge of the bed.

“She thinks, quite rightly, you ought to be asleep.”

“It was a shame you couldn’t come an’ see Pop-eye,” said Iris drowsily. “An’ Gladys couldn’t come neither because of old Poppy Broadstairs.”

“Iris!” Donald’s voice was shocked. “You mustn’t call him that when he lunches tomorrow. He’s Mr. Broadstairs, head of a public school.”

Iris yawned.

“Colonel Haines calls him that damned old fool, Poppy Broadstairs. I heard him say so to Dr. Nelson.”

Donald spoke severely.

“The colonel can call him what he likes, but to you he’s Mr. Broadstairs. You understand?”

Iris held up her bear.

“Give teddy a kiss.”