“Caroline is above fussing about inheritances. She is really a very fine person, in her frosty way. But naturally she was pleased to have been taken care of so handsomely, and Beesty was openly delighted. After all, with the trust money and Caroline’s personal fortune and what would come from himself and his side of the family, his kids were in the way of being rich even by my father’s demanding standards. Both Caroline and Beesty saw how I had been dealt with, but they were too tactful to say anything about it in front of Denyse.

“Not so Denyse herself. ‘This was Boy’s last chance to get you back on the rails, David,’ said she, ‘and for his sake I hope it works.’

“ ‘What particular rails are you talking about?’ I said. I knew well enough, but I wanted to hear what she would say. And I will admit I led her on to put her foot in it because I wanted a chance to dislike her even more than I did already.

“ ‘To be utterly frank, dear, he wanted you to be married, and to have a family, and to cut down on your drinking. He knew what a balancing effect a wife and children have on a man of great talents. And of course everybody knows that you have great talents—potentially.’ Denyse was not one to shrink from a challenge.

“ ‘So he has left me the toughest job in the family bundle, and some money for children I haven’t got,’ I said. ‘Do you happen to know if he had anybody in mind that he wanted me to marry? I’d like to be sure of everything that is expected of me.’

“Beesty was wearing his toad-under-the-harrow expression, and Caroline’s eyes were fierce. ‘If you two are going to fight, I’m going home,’ she said.

“ ‘There will be no fighting,’ said Denyse. ‘This is not the time or the place. David asked a straight question and I gave him a straight answer—as I have always done. And straight answers are something David doesn’t like except in court, where he can ask the questions that will give him the answers he wants. Boy was very proud of David’s success, so far as it went. But he wanted something from his only son that goes beyond a somewhat notorious reputation in the criminal courts. He wanted the continuance of the Staunton name. He would have thought it pretentious to talk of such a thing, but you know as well as I do that he wanted to establish a line.’

“Ah, that line. My father had not been nearly so reticent about mentioning it as Denyse pretended. She has never understood what real reticence is. But I was sick of the fight already. I quickly tire of quarrelling with Denyse. Perhaps, as she says, I only like quarrelling in court. In court there are rules. Denyse makes up her rules as she goes along. As I must say women tend to do. So the talk shifted, not very easily, to other things.