“What do you mean?” said Philip sharply. His proximity to her made in some way the anger between them absurd: they were so close that they could not look at one another. “Oh, nothing ... nothing....” She closed her lips. “Please ...” Philip insisted. “Why am I a bad companion for Henry?” “Because you make him drink ... disgusting!” she brought out furiously: when she had spoken her eyes went to Katherine’s face—then, as she saw Katherine’s eyes fixed on Philip’s, her face hardened. “Yes. You know it’s true,” she repeated. Henry broke in. “What do you say, Aunt Aggie? What do you mean? Drink—I—what?” “You know that it’s true, Henry. That night that you dined with Philip in London—You came back—disgraceful. Philip had to carry you. You fell on the top of the stairs. He had to lift you up and carry you into your room. I watched it all. Well—I didn’t mean to say anything. I’m sorry, Harriet, if I—perhaps not quite the right time—but I—I—” Her voice sank to muttering; her hands shook like leaves on the table-cloth and her tooth was saying: “Go for him! Go for him! Go for him!” And for Philip it was as though, after all these weeks of waiting, not only the family but the whole place had at last broken into its definite challenge. Beyond the room he could feel the garden, the lawn, the oak, the sea-road, the moor, even Rafiel itself, with its little square window-pane harbour, crowding up to the window, listening, crying to him: “You’ve got to be broken! You’ve got to go or be broken!...” The definite moment had come at last. His eyes never left Katherine’s face as he answered: “It’s perfectly true. I don’t know how it happened, but we had been having supper quite soberly together, and then Henry was suddenly drunk. I swear he’d had simply nothing to drink. He was quite suddenly drunk, all in a moment. I was never more surprised in my life. I suppose I should have prevented it, but I swear to you it would have surprised anyone—really, you would have been surprised, Mrs. Trenchard.” Henry, whose face was first flaming, then white, said, sulkily: “It wasn’t Philip’s fault.... I wasn’t used to it. Anyway, I don’t see why there need be such a fuss about it. What Aunt Aggie wants to drag it in now for just when everyone’s tired after Sunday. It isn’t as though I were _always_ drunk—just once—everyone’s drunk sometime.” “I’ve never said anything,” Aunt Aggie began.