She drew up a chair in front of her brother.
"Harold, if you have no consideration for us, none for your own position, none for the neighbourhood, if you will at all costs force this woman upon us, don't you think that you might still spare a thought for your son ?" Robert Pettifer had kept his eyes open that evening as well as his wife.
He took a step down into the room.

He was anxious to take no part in the dispute; he desired to be just; he was favourably inclined towards Stella Ballantyne; looking at her he had been even a little moved.

But Dick was the first consideration.

He had no children of his own, he cared for Dick as he would have cared for his son, and when he went up each morning by the train to his office in London there lay at the back of his mind the thought that one day the fortune he was amassing would add a splendour to Dick's career.

Harold Hazlewood alone of the three seemed to have his eyes sealed.
"Why, what on earth do you mean, Margaret ?" Margaret Pettifer sat down in her chair.
"Where was Dick yesterday afternoon ?" "Margaret, I don't know." "I do.