“You’ll keep your nose out of it!” Raymond said savagely. “That was one thing Father told you that was true! You’d get your damned smug face scratched open if you approached Martha, as you call it! If Father told her to keep her mouth shut, she will; if he didn’t, there’s nothing you or I can do about it, and — hell, I won’t buy my place here!”
“Of course, if you believe that your father’s wishes would influence the woman to such a great extent—”
“She was his mistress for years. Didn’t you know? Cared for him, too. I never knew why: he wasn’t any more faithful to her than to any of the rest of them.”
“Need we go into that?” said Phineas disgustedly. “I was certainly unaware of this — this extremely unsavoury relationship, and I should prefer not to discuss it. But I must point out to you that matters are very precariously poised, and you have need to behave with the greatest circumspection. If anything should — er — leak out, I feel sure I can rely on your sense of delicacy to keep my sister’s name out of it. There is really no reason why it should ever be known who your mother was, even if—”
He broke off, shrinking back instinctively in his chair for Raymond had taken a hasty step towards him with such a look of fury in his face that he thought for a moment that he was going to be assaulted.
But Raymond did not touch him. “Get out!” he said. His voice grating unpleasantly. “Get out, and take your sister with you! If you cross this threshold again, you fat hypocrite, I’ll throw you out myself?”
Phineas rose with more haste than was consonant with his dignity. “I realise that you are not yourself, Raymond. so I shall leave you. It was not my wish that my sister should have accompanied me. I was, in fact, very much against it, but her very natural feelings towards you were such that she could not rest until she had seen you.”
“I don’t want to see her! Can’t you grasp that the very sight of her makes me sick? O God, it makes me sick to think… “He stopped, and covered his eyes with a shaking hand. “You’d better go.”
Phineas retreated to the door. “I can assure you I have no desire — But I must insist on being told what you mean to do.”
“I don’t know.”