For Roger's.
I've been so afraid the family would persuade him to stop in England. That we'd go on tangled up in the midst of them, stifled with family ties.
I was afraid Sophia would offer him an home and that he'd stay in England because it would mean greater comfort and amenities for me.
The trouble with Roger is that he will not listen.
He gets ideas in his head - and they're never the right ideas.
He doesn't know anything.
And he's enough of a Leonides to think that happiness for a woman is bound up with comfort and money.
But I will fight for my happiness - I will.
I will get Roger away and give him the life that suits him where he won't feel a failure.
I want him to myself - away from them all - right away..."
She had spoken in a low hurried voice with a kind of desperation that startled me.
I had not realised how much on edge she was. I had not realised, either, quite how desperate and possessive was her feeling for Roger.
It brought back to my mind that odd quotation of Edith de Haviland's.
She had quoted the line "this side of idolatry" with a peculiar intonation.
I wondered if she had been thinking of Clemency.
Roger, I thought, had loved his father better than he would ever love anyone else, better even than his wife, devoted though he was to her.
I realised for the first time how urgent was Clemency's desire to get her husband to herself.
Love for Roger, I saw, made up her entire existence.
He was her child, as well as her husband and her lover.
A car drove up to the front door.
"Hullo," I said. "Here's Josephine back."
Josephine and Magda got out of the car.
Josephine had a bandage round her head but otherwise looked remarkably well.
She said at once: "I want to see my goldfish," and started towards us and the pond.
"Darling," cried Magda, "you'd better come in first and lie down a little, and perhaps have a little nourishing soup."
"Don't fuss, mother," said Josephine.
"I'm quite all right, and I hate nourishing soup."
Magda looked irresolute.
I knew that Josephine had really been fit to depart from the hospital for some days, and that it was only a hint from Taverner that had kept her there.
He was taking no chances on Josephine's safety until his suspects were safe under lock and key.
I said to Magda:
"I daresay fresh air will do her good.
I'll go and keep an eye on her."
I caught Josephine up before she got to the pond.
"All sorts of things have been happening while you've been away," I said.
Josephine did not reply.
She peered with her short-sighted eyes into the pond.
"I don't see Ferdinand," she said.
"Which is Ferdinand?"
"The one with four tails."
"That kind is rather amusing.
I like that bright gold one."
"It's quite a common one."
"I don't much care for that moth-eaten white one."
Josephine cast me a scornful glance.
"That's a shebunkin.
They cost a lot - far more than goldfish."
"Don't you want to hear what's been happening, Josephine?"
"I expect I know about it."
"Did you know that another will has been found and that your grandfather left all his money to Sophia?"