floor, and a great branch of Judas tree in blossom lighting up a corner.
The memory provoked in her a thrill of sensuous pleasure.

Meanwhile Lady Coryston was walking slowly up and down, her hands behind
her. She looked very thin and abnormally tall; and Marcia saw her profile,
sharply white, against the darkness of the wall. A vague alarm struck
through the daughter's mind. What was her mother about to say or do? Till
now Marcia had rather lazily assumed that the meeting would concern some
matter of family property--some selling or buying transaction--which a
mother, even in the abnormally independent position Lady Coryston, might
well desire to communicate to her children. There had been a family meeting
in the preceding year when the Dorsetshire property had been sold under a
recent Act of Parliament. Coryston wouldn't come. "I take no interest in
the estates "--he had written to his mother. "They're your responsibility,
not mine."

And yet of course Coryston would inherit some day. That was taken for
granted among them. What were Tory principles worth if they did not some
time, at some stage, secure an eldest son, and an orthodox succession?
Corry was still in the position of heir, when he should normally have
become owner. It was very trying for him, no doubt. But exceptional women
make exceptional circumstances. And they were all agreed that their mother
was an exceptional woman.

But whatever the business, they would hardly get through without a scene,
and during the past week there had been a number of mysterious interviews
with lawyers going on.... What was it all about? To distract her thoughts
she struck up conversation.

"Did you see Enid Glenwilliam, mother, in Palace Yard?"