sh, for
one of Anthony's earliest improvements had been a boiler-house and
central heating, with radiators set under the windows, so that they
could always stand open.

Jan had not put on her dressing-gown, and her night-dress had rather
short, loose sleeves that fell back from her arms as she raised them.

He watched the white arm wielding the brush with great pleasure; he
decided he liked to look at it.

"Auntie Jan!"

She turned and flung her hair back from her face in a great silver
cloud.

"You awake, sonny! Did I make a noise?"

"No, I just woke. Auntie Jan, will Daddie ever come here?"

"I expect so."

"Well, listen. If he does, he shan't take your things, your pretty
twinkly things. I won't let him."

Jan stood as if turned to stone.

"He took Mummy's. I saw him; I couldn't stop him, I was so little. But
she _said_--she said it twice before she went away from that last
bungalow--she said: 'Take care of Auntie Jan, Tony; don't let Daddie
take her things.' So I won't."

Tony was sitting up. His room was all in darkness; two candles were lit
on Jan's dressing-table. He could see her, but she couldn't see him.

She came to him, stooped over him, and laid her cheek against his so
that they were both veiled with her hair. "Darling, I don't think poor
Daddie would want to take my things. You must try not to think hardly of
Daddie."

Tony parted the veil of hair with a gentle hand so that they could both
see the candles.

"You don't know my Daddie ... much," he said, "do you?"

Jan shuddered.

"I saw him," he went on in his queer little unemotional voice. "I saw
him take all her pretty twinkly things; and her silver boxes. I'm glad I
sleep here."

"Did she mind much?" Jan whispered.

"I don't know. She didn't see him take them, only me. She hadn't come to
bed. She never said nothing to me--only about you."

"I don't expect," Jan made a great effort to speak naturally, "that
Daddie would care about my things ... It's different, you see."

"I'm glad I sleep here," Tony repeated, "and there's William only just
across the passage."

CHAPTER XVI

"THE BLUDGEONINGS OF CHANCE"

They had been at Wren's End nearly three weeks, and sometimes Jan
wondered if she appeared to Tony as unlike her own conception of herself
as Tony's of his father was unlike what she had pictured him.

She knew Hugo Tancred to be dishonest, shifty, and wholly devoid of a
sense of honour, but she had up till quit