Lady Coryston and her daughter had made a rapid and silent meal. Marcia
noticed that her mother was unusually pale, and attributed it partly to the
fatigue and bad air of the House of Commons, partly to the doings of her
eldest brother. What were they all going to meet for after dinner--her
mother, her three brothers, and herself? They had each received a formal
summons. Their mother "wished to speak to them on important business." So
Arthur--evidently puzzled--had paired for the evening, and would return
from the House at nine-thirty; James had written to say he would come, and
Coryston had wired an hour before dinner--"Inconvenient, but will turn up."

What was it all about? Some business matter clearly. Marcia knew very well
that the family circumstances were abnormal. Mothers in Lady Coryston's
position, when their husbands expire, generally retire to a dower-house,
on a jointure; leaving their former splendors--the family mansion and the
family income--behind them. They step down from their pedestal, and
efface themselves; their son becomes the head of the family, and the
daughter-in-law reigns in place of the wife. Nobody for many years past
could ever have expected Lady Coryston to step down from anything. Although
she had brought but a very modest dowry, such from earliest days had been
the strength and dominance of her character, that her divine right of rule
in the family had never been seriously questioned by any of her children
except Coryston; although James, who had inherited money from his
grandmother, was entirely independent of her, and by the help of a detached
and humorous mind could often make his mother feel the stings of criticism,
when others were powerless. And as for Coryston, who had become a
quasi-Socialist at Cambridge, and had ever since refused to suit his
opinions in the slightest degree to his mother's, his long absences abroad
after taking his degree had for some years reduced the personal friction
between them; and it was only since his father's death, which had occurred