"I'm a little distressed at the moment, but it isn't my looks."
"Well, what with Blair, Hayward, and Bennet, it can't be bankruptcy; so I suppose it's a woman."
"Yes, but not the way you mean."
"Thinking of getting married? You ought to, Rob."
"You said that before."
"You want an heir for Blair, Hayward, and Bennet, don't you?" The calm certainty of Blair, Hayward, and Bennet had always pricked Kevin into small gibes, Robert remembered.
"There is no guarantee that it wouldn't be a girl. Anyhow, Nevil is taking care of that."
"The only thing that young woman of Nevil's will ever give birth to is a gramophone record. She was gracing a platform again the other day, I hear. If she had to earn the money for her train fares she mightn't be so willing to dash about the country being the Vocal Minority." He sat down with his drink. "I needn't ask if you are up on business. Sometime you really ought to come up and see this town. I suppose you dash off again tomorrow after a 10 a.m. interview with someone's solicitors."
"No," Robert said. "With Scotland Yard."
Kevin paused with his glass half-way to his mouth. "Robert, you're slipping," he said. "What has the Yard to do with your Ivory Tower?"