After the servants had left the room, Julia, breaking the rules of her "medicine-man," took a glass of brandy and a cigarette. "You haven't even looked at my Christmas present," she said to Aliette; and she would have liked to add, if the words had not seemed so ill-omened, "I sha'n't give you one at all next year, if you don't take more interest in it." Aliette reached for her hand-bag (which she had hung, a habit of hers, on the back of her chair) and took out the envelope Julia had given her before luncheon. Throughout the meal she had been dreading this moment, because, obviously, the envelope contained a check--and she hated the idea of accepting a check from Ronnie's mother. Slitting the flap with her fruit-knife, picking out the stamped paper, she saw at a glance that the check was for five hundred pounds. Her heart leaped. Five hundred pounds meant freedom from Powolney Mansions, the possibility of taking some little abode where she and Ronnie could be happy. Then reluctance overwhelmed her. "It's too good of you," she protested. "But I can't, really I can't take all this money." "Rubbish!" snapped Julia in her bruskest manner. "Why shouldn't you take money from me? All my money really belongs to Ronnie. If his father had had any sense he'd have left it to him. Besides, you need it. You can't go on staying at that appalling boarding-house for ever." "But we can't take it! Can we, man?" Aliette's eyes appealed to Ronnie; who said, trying to be gay: "You mustn't rob yourself for us, mater." "I'm not robbing myself. Sir Peter sold three of the Little Overdine properties a fortnight ago." "Did he, though? Whom to?" "The tenants." "Really!" Ensued an awkward silence, during which Ronnie stared at the check, Julia at her "daughter-in-law," and Aliette at the pair of them. "You need it more than I do," reiterated Julia at last. "But don't you see," Aliette's voice was very gentle, "It's just because we do need this money that we oughtn't to take it?" "You're two very stubborn young people," said Julia, half in anger and half good-humoredly. "But as it's Christmas day, and as I'm nearly old enough to be Aliette's grand-mother, you'll have to humor me." She took the check in her own hands, and returned it to Aliette's bag, which she closed with a little snap of decision--at the precise moment when Kate announced "Mr. Paul Flower." The distinguished litterateur entered languidly; extended both flabby hands to his hostess; and allowed himself to be persuaded into drinking a glass of port. "My dear Paul," remonstrated Julia, glad of the interruption, "you were invited for luncheon, and it's now nearly half-past three." "My dear Julia,"--the new-comer raised his glass to the light, and inspected the ruby glow of the wine with some care--"after all these years you ought to know that I never take luncheon." "Not even on Christmas day?" put in Aliette.