‘Why?’ Alison couldn’t help asking.

‘Because Rosalie always likes to have the best dress there,’ Audrey said promptly, and Theo nodded in agreement.

‘Oh.’ Alison felt apprehensive. But it didn’t seem quite right to let the children discuss Rosalie with her on these lines. So she merely said, ‘Rosalie is very pretty, isn’t she?’

‘She thinks so,’ said Audrey.

‘She is,’ said Theo at the same moment.

Alison thought it best to change the subject.

‘Have you always had a governess until now?’ she asked.

‘We did until Theo went to his prep. school, and then Mother said I’d better go to boarding-school, too.’ Audrey seemed to be the one who usually made the explanations. ‘Miss Kennedy-that was our last one-stayed on for a little while. I think she just did writing letters and that sort of thing for Mother in term time, and then of course she was there to spoil our holidays when we came home.’

Alison wondered uneasily whether this were to be her role in future: unpaid nursery governess in the holidays and general run-about for her exacting aunt at other times. Her heart sank a little further.

‘Can I come and help you unpack?’ Audrey asked.

‘If you like.’ Alison got up. ‘There isn’t a great deal to do, but I should like your company if Theo doesn’t mind being on his own.’

‘Oh, no, that’s all right, thank you,’ Theo said, and she thought they both looked rather touchingly gratified at having their wishes consulted.

It was perfectly true. She was glad of the little girl’s company. It helped to stem the tide of loneliness and fear which threatened more than once to engulf her.

‘Not that I don’t expect to stand on my own feet,’ Alison thought unhappily. ‘I didn’t expect to be made a fuss of, but it’s so-so blighting to feel on every hand that you’re a perfect nuisance.’

When everything was unpacked, Audrey took herself off to play draughts with Theo before going to bed.

When the little girl had gone, Alison sat on the side of her bed and stared out of the window at the trees in the square.

She was probably being a fool to think of going to that party to-night, she told herself. Aunt Lydia quite evidently hadn’t wanted her, and Alison felt instinctively that Rosalie’s welcome would be no warmer.

Better go quietly to bed and keep out of the way, accept at once the position which Aunt Lydia was firmly outlining for her. After all, she was only there on sufferance. And Aunt Lydia had evidently entirely forgotten the days when she had come home to Mother’s family and been welcomed at once as one of them.

But Uncle Theodore had spoken no less than the truth when he had said she was ‘just the age to enjoy parties’- and so few of them had come her way.

Alison might be scared and lonely and forlorn, but at the back of that the most distinct feeling of all was a very definite and obstinate desire to go to that party.

It seemed such a harmless wish, really. It couldn’t possibly matter to Aunt Lydia if just one quiet girl were added to her guests. And, on her first day out of school for more than two years, Alison found the prospect of an evening in her lonely little bedroom very disagreeable.

‘I’m going,’ she decided defiantly. ‘After all, Uncle Theodore obviously never thought of my doing anything else.’

Her spurt of bravery lasted while she was dressing, but when she was ready she went slowly over to the glass to see if her reflection would do anything to bolster up her fading courage.

The light was poor, and the room showed darkly behind her like the background of an old picture. Uncomfortably aware that she looked anything but smart or ‘with it,’ Alison wondered if perhaps the girl in the glass looked a little bit like an old-fashioned picture with her long, fair hair and childish fringe.

The simple white dress which had seemed so pretty when she had gone up in it to receive ‘First Prize in English Literature, and Second in European History’ didn’t somehow suggest a smart London party, however small and informal.

‘But I don’t care. I’m going,’ Alison told herself in a husky but determined whisper.

And two minutes later she was descending the wide, shallow stairs with a firmness she was far from feeling.

A friendly servant in the hall below volunteered the information that ‘madam is in the long drawing-room’, and pointed out the door to her.

Long was the right word, thought Alison with dismay as she stood at the door and saw, across terrifying vistas of space, Aunt Lydia-a picture of slender elegance in the most beautiful black evening dress she had ever seen.

The girl in the short ice-blue dress who was leaning her arm on the mantelpiece and looking down into the fire must, of course, be Rosalie.

At Alison’s entry, her aunt gave a slight exclamation, and Rosalie turned. Her eyes were ice-blue too, and her hair, which seemed to be gathered together on her beautifully poised little head in a careless pile of curls, was a wonderful shade somewhere between auburn and bronze.

She didn’t say a single word of greeting as she watched her young cousin all the way across the long drawing-room. Then Aunt Lydia said:

‘Is that the only dress you have, Alison?’

‘Yes.’ Alison felt the colour deepen in her cheeks.

‘Oh, dear.’ Her aunt’s air suggested that things had really become too much for her.

‘What’s the matter with it?’ Alison wished that nervousness wouldn’t make her sound so rude.

‘Nothing,’ Rosalie said, speaking at last in a slow, cool voice. ‘Nothing at all-except that it’s rather like a nightdress.’

Fury suddenly burnt up Alison’s nervousness.

‘Thank you,’ she said swiftly. ‘To dear Alison, with love from Cousin Rosalie, I suppose?’

‘Now, don’t bicker, girls,’ Aunt Lydia said without the slightest show of interest. ‘The dress is dreadfully unfortunate, of course, but, well-’ She shrugged.

‘At least it shows which of us is the poor relation, you mean,’ retorted Alison, whose temper was getting out of hand.

‘But that’s just it,’ drawled Rosalie, looking all over her in a way that made her wince. ‘Who wants poor relations hanging about? They’re always so embarrassing, and quite dreadfully in the way.’

‘Hush, Rosalie,’ said her mother mildly, while the furious, incredulous tears started into Alison’s eyes. She was no match for Rosalie in a duel of this sort, and, with a little gasp of anger and misery, she turned to rush out of the room and upstairs again.

But at that moment the first of the guests began to arrive, and it was impossible to make her escape.

Alison scarcely knew what she said in answer to the one or two perfunctory remarks which were made to her. In each case her aunt had introduced her carelessly as, ‘My little niece, Alison, just home from school.’ And her tone of tolerant boredom would have prevented anyone from wishing to make the little niece’s acquaintance.

It’s too bad of her,’ thought Alison wretchedly. ‘Making me sound like a schoolgirl.’ It had been difficult enough being deliberately kept at school until one was twenty, without being made to feel like a child among grown-ups now.

Oh, why, why had her aunt and cousin said such cruel and hurting things? They had not only destroyed any pleasure she could have in the party; they had destroyed every bit of confidence and poise she had.

She knew she was smiling too much, from sheer nervousness, but the muscles of her face seemed beyond her control, and she kept on finding herself with her back almost pressed against the wall. It required a real physical effort to launch herself among the gay, laughing, chattering crowd. And when she did, no one took the slightest notice of her.

They all appeared to know each other-called each other by Christian names or preposterous nicknames, exchanged quick-fire repartee, not perhaps specially witty, but all bearing the hall-mark of their own particular type and language. They were well dressed, stylish, absolutely sure of themselves.