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minimum of effort, and Susan tried to study her impartially as they sat down.
    Her stepmother was small and chic, with a delicately-proportioned face and large, grey-green eyes which belied the practical side of her personality, giving her the startled expression of a faun. People had called her appealing and sweet and even beautiful, but she was none of these things alone. She had a shrewd, observant mind, allied to a tough constitution, and she had been trained to assess people in the business world in the hard school of experience. She was also aware of the folly of speaking her mind without restraint or reaching a decision too quickly, but, above all, she had tact.
    Charm, Susan called it, as indeed it was, that elusive ‘something’ which lifts a woman above the ordinary and never deserts her during the whole of her lifetime.
    Today Evelyn wore red, a deep, subtle cranberry colour which suited her to perfection. The waiter had relieved her of the bulky checked travelling coat and she seemed smaller than ever as she sank into the depths of her comfortable chair. Pregnancy suited her. It gave her a glow which radiated from her unusual eyes to transform her whole face, and Susan envied her the composure of her clasped hands and her whole, relaxed manner as she waited for her tea.
    “I’ve so much I want to ask you,” she confessed, “I don’t know where to begin.”
    “Let me tell you about London,” Evelyn offered. “You should come up there more often, Sue. You’re young, and you ought to go to parties and trip around the shops.”
    “And struggle for buses, or get squeezed to death on the Underground, or rushed off my feet in an effort to get from one place to the next on time? No, thank you!” Susan decided. “London’s not for me. I like it up here, in the quiet of my hills. They’re not so quiet, either,” she went on, “when you come to think about it. There’s always plenty to do, quite apart from work.”
    “Horses, and that sort of thing?”
    “Not just horses,” Susan laughed. “I’ve sold Hope’s Star, by the way.” She did her best to keep her voice steady. “She went at the Kelso sales. It was foolish trying to keep two horses,” she added flatly.
    “Do you know who bought her?” Evelyn asked, her voice full of ready sympathy.
    “Yes,” Susan’s tone was abrupt. “He seems to be buying up everything around here, but we don’t have to know him,” she warned. “He bought Bucksfoot from Fergus Graeme, and now he has Hope’s Star,” she added disconsolately. “It must give you a tremendous feeling of power to have so much money, Evelyn.”
    “Not necessarily, but it does help. One can have the things one wants in a strictly material sense, of course, but not everything," Evelyn pointed out. “Why did Fergus decide to part with Bucksfoot?”
    “For the same reason I had to sell Hope’s Star. Colin has gone to Canada and Fergus is on his own at the Mains.” Susan looked down at her plate. “I’m not complaining,” she added hastily. “We have to begin with economies if we’re going to save Denham’s.”
    “What a place this is!” Evelyn remarked without answering that final observation. “Always crowded and always the same! I used to come here with your father when we wanted a short run out in the evening or he decided to play golf.” She drew in a deep breath. “He was very fond of Peebles.”
    Susan turned in her chair.
    “Did he know?” she asked.
    Evelyn poured out their tea.
    “About the baby? I think he did, just before he died,” she said. “I wasn’t sure then—not absolutely sure.”
    “And he still left his will the way he did?”
    “Yes.” Evelyn looked up from the tea cups. “What else could he have done, Sue? He had faith in my judgment, you see.”
    The quiet statement had been chosen to end all argument on the subject, Susan realized, at least for the present. Evelyn had been left the controlling interest in Denham’s, which was