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discreetly been modernised. The front door led into a spacious hall with the staircase running up one side of it. On one side was the large dining room, on the other a smaller room which was used as an office and at one time had been her schoolroom. Her father still conducted a certain amount of business connected with the Stock Exchange over the telephone, and a nondescript young woman came several times a week to deal with his correspondence. The sitting room, or drawing room, was at the back next to the kitchen accommodation which was connected to the hall by a baize-covered door. This was the domain of the couple who ran the house for them. Mrs Matheson was the housekeeper, and her husband was butler-cum-every-thing else, and her father's devoted attendant.
    Sonya went upstairs and knocked on her father's bedroom door. At this hour he would have gone to bed. She entered in response to his 'come in'. It was a large pleasant room overlooking the garden at the back, high-ceilinged like all the rooms in the old house, with an open fire blazing in the grate, for though central heating had been installed, Eliot Vincent was always cold. Heavy curtains were drawn against the autumn night.
    He lay in the wide high bed, propped up by a mound of pillows, an open book under his hand. He was still a handsome man, though his face was drawn with lines of suffering. His grey hair was thick and plentiful, and his eyes were the same colour as his daughter's. Against all rules of hygiene his dog, Tessa, a black and white springer spaniel, was curled up at the foot of the bed, disdaining the basket on the floor. As Sonya came in, she raised her head with its long drooping ears and wagged her tail, her brown eyes soft and welcoming. Much less so were the grey ones belonging to the man on the bed.
    'You're very late,' he complained, glancing at the clock on his bedside table.
    'Not really. It's only just after ten.'
    'Sven Petersen must have given a lengthy exhibition.' He eyed her suspiciously.
    'There was a reception afterwards and I couldn't rush away without congratulating him.'
    'Lionising him, I suppose,' Eliot said peevishly. 'He's all I was once.' Exactly what she had told Sven herself. 'Well, he deserves his success. I hope you found his performance instructive.'
    This remark irritated Sonya. Whatever she did, wherever she went, must have some bearing upon the destiny he planned for her. Her success had become an obsession with him.
    'He was quite good,' she said indifferently.
    'He's more than good. You spoke to him?'
    'He spoke to me, because I'm your daughter. He ... he wants to meet you.'
    Eliot looked gratified. 'He remembered my name?'
    'And your fame. He proposes to call upon you.'
    Eliot moved restlessly in the bed.
    'I'm sure he'll find my present helplessness edifying,' he said bitterly.
    'I told him you didn't see anybody.'
    'You did? And why shouldn't I meet him if I want to?' The invalid was in a cantankerous mood.
    'No reason at all,' Sonya replied patiently. 'But I didn't think you would want to.'
    She did not want Sven to visit her home, just why she was not sure, but intuitively she felt his presence would mean trouble.
    'Well, you thought wrong,' her father snapped. 'I would like to meet him if only to see how the present generation of skaters compares with the old.'
    'It ... it might upset you, and he's a foreigner, a Swede.' Sonya reminded him, as if Sven's nationality made him undesirable.
    'A serious-minded race,' Eliot commented. 'They take education very seriously, including sports training. Our own athletes are too frivolous, that's why they're always beaten.'
    'Not always, and there are other more valid reasons ...'
    'Don't contradict me. I know what I'm talking about, you don't. I've done my best to keep you uncorrupted, but I'm beginning to doubt if the influence of the club is a good one. You've been different since I allowed you to mingle with the members.'
    'I've grown up,' Sonya pointed out, 'and you