It was a crushing memory, an exhausting vision of countless breakfast trays carried up and down innumerable stairs, of endless haggling over pence, of the endless drudgery of sweeping, dusting, cleaning, from basement to attics; while the impotent mother, staggering on swollen legs, cooked in a grimy kitchen, and poor Stevie, the unconscious presiding genius of all their toil, blacked the gentlemen's boots in the scullery.

But this vision had a breath of a hot London summer in it, and for a central figure a young man wearing his Sunday best, with a straw hat on his dark head and a wooden pipe in his mouth.

Affectionate and jolly, he was a fascinating companion for a voyage down the sparkling stream of life; only his boat was very small.

There was room in it for a girl-partner at the oar, but no accommodation for passengers.

He was allowed to drift away from the threshold of the Belgravian mansion while Winnie averted her tearful eyes.