They were alone for a few minutes together, one evening early in December. Old Lady Yardley’s whist, at which her nurse had made the fourth, was just over. These sepulchral games were now, in the dimness that was falling ever duskier over her mind, no more than the mere approximate symbol of a game; she held her cards and played them quite fortuitously, and smiled as she gathered the random tricks. But after a few hands of this phantom game had been dealt and disposed of, she was quite content when told that her two rubbers were over, and that she had won them both, though she would whimper in some vague distress if she thought she was not going to get her whist. Even Colin had become now to her a shadow among shadows; just occasionally some faint ray from her mind illuminated him, but for the most part he was but a piece of that grey background, ever receding, of the visible world. To-night, however, some thought of him quickened her, just as she was being wheeled out of the room, though all evening she had seemed unconscious of his presence, for she turned in her chair and said, “My Colin is coming back from Eton before long, and it will be well with Stanier again.” Colin had got up and was half way along the gallery on his passage to his own room, leaving Violet there. But at this he came back, and stood in front of the fire. “When does ‘her Colin’--I suppose she means that brat of yours and mine--come home?” he asked. Violet gave him the date, some five days before Christmas. “I suppose you’ve made a calendar, as one used to do at school,” he sneered, “and tear the days off as they pass.” “Oh, no: I can remember without that,” said she. “There are eight days more.” “And what happens at Christmas?” he asked. “The usual intoxicating family gathering?” “Aunt Hester’s coming,” said Violet, “and my mother.” “Very exhilarating,” observed Colin. “Then why don’t you go to some friend for Christmas, if you feel like that?” said she. “There’s no reason why you should be here, with a handful of women.” “There is, if you’ll excuse my contradicting you,” he said. “I must make Dennis’s Christmas happy and joyful. And after all I have a certain right to be at Stanier if I like. Or have you planned to give Dennis a taste of what it will be like to be master here, when I’m out of the way, just as my father gave you and me a taste of it one year, after your discarded Raymond was out of the way? How well I remember that somehow! Raymond was still at Cambridge, and my father made you and me hostess and host at a big party, before Raymond came down. Perhaps you’ve counted on my absence at Christmas, knowing how exhilarating I find the company of my aunts, and are asking a large party with Dennis to play host. Sure you haven’t?” The question was too preposterous to need an answer, and he continued: