“Lord! He doesn’t need much encouragement,” said Colin. “I fancy he encourages himself quite sufficiently when I’m not there to help him. To-morrow I shall just look at the cellar-book, and see how much he has encouraged himself since I’ve been away. Don’t misunderstand me now, wilfully or unintentionally, and think that I grudge him drinking a bottle or two of port every night, even though he’s rapidly finishing all the 1860 vintage which is quite irreplaceable. What I object to is that I should have to sit there and see him growing more purple and nauseous while he’s doing it. But clearly, as long as he’s with us, I can’t be so inhospitable as to stint my own uncle and your father of the only thing he cares about. Certainly I wish he would take to whisky, so that other guests of mine might get a few glasses of wine before he has finished it all, but Uncle Ronald doesn’t begin on whisky till he goes to the smoking-room.... The filthy old pig. Cigarette, darling? It will soothe you.” Violet got up. “Colin, I can’t stay and listen to you talking about my father like that,” she said. “It amuses you to make him drink, and it’s horrible of you.” Colin lit his cigarette with great deliberation. “Well, if you can’t stay and listen to me,” he said, “you can go away. But you’re not going: you want to hear what I’ve got to say next. Ah! You sit down again, I notice.” He threw the match away, and again put his arm through Violet’s. “I don’t grudge him his wine,” he said, “because I want everybody to do as he pleases. He may drink himself into his grave as soon as he likes or sooner for all I care, and in fact I give him the shovel, so to speak, to dig himself in. But what I do grudge is the damnable infliction of his company on me. And Uncle Ronald seems to think that Stanier belongs to him. I hinted, ever so gently to-night, that I supposed he would settle down in London when he comes back from Aix, and he said that was out of the question, because he couldn’t possibly think of leaving Granny. Now I hated that. To begin with Granny has no more use for him than she has for a toothache, and also it’s quite untrue. Supposing Granny--it doesn’t seem likely--were to die, he wouldn’t dream of leaving Stanier, unless I kicked him out. And what I hated most was his notion that he has a right to live at Stanier, and guzzle and snore his days away. He’s got a house in London; let him go and live there, and since he can’t leave Granny, I suppose he’ll take her with him. Aunt Margaret will go too then, though it doesn’t matter what Aunt Margaret does, as it’s impossible to tell whether she’s there or not. Sometimes I’m afraid of sitting down on her by mistake: it’s dreadfully difficult to be aware of her. Of course when one is aware of her, she’s a crashing bore. She fills up space somehow, without putting anything there. Such a lady, too! All her nature is swallowed up in being a lady. After all, Vi, they’ve paid Stanier a nice long visit.