don't really want her. I'll do Catty's work and he'll do the garden. So
he can stay, can't he?"

"He _can_, Mary, but I don't think he will."

"Of course I won't. If you hadn't waited to mix me up with Alderson I
could have cleared out and got there by this time. You don't suppose I
was going to sponge on my mother for ever, do you?"

He stood there, defying Uncle Edward and Uncle Victor, defying their
thoughts of him. She wondered whether he had forgotten the two hundred
pounds and whether they were thinking of it. They didn't answer, and
Roddy, after fixing on them a look they couldn't meet, strode out of the
room.

She thought: How like Mark he is, with his tight, squared shoulders,
holding his head high. His hair was like Mark's hair, golden brown, close
clipped to the nape of his neck. When he had gone it would be like Mark's
going.

"It's better he should go," Uncle Victor said. "For his own sake."

Uncle Edward said, "Of course it is."

His little blue eyes glanced up from the side of his nose, twinkling. His
mouth stretched from white whisker to white whisker in a smile of
righteous benevolence. But Uncle Victor's eyes slunk away as if he were
ashamed of himself.

It was Uncle Victor who had paid the two hundred pounds.