With a whimsical shake of the head Coryston returned to his chair. Lady
Coryston took up the folded paper.

"Coryston guessed rightly. These are the passages from my will which
concern the estates. I should like to have explained before reading them,
in a way as considerate to my eldest son as possible" she looked steadily
at Coryston--"the reasons which have led me to take this course. But--"

"No, no! Business first and pleasure afterward!" interrupted the eldest
son. "Disinherit me and then pitch into me. You get at me unfairly while
I'm speculating as to what's coming."

"I think," said Marcia, in a tone trembling with indignation, "that
Coryston is behaving abominably."

But her brothers did not respond, and Coryston looked at his sister with
lifted brows. "Go it, Marcia!" he said, indulgently.

Lady Coryston began to read.

Before she had come to the end of her first paragraph Coryston was pacing
the drawing-room, twisting his lips into all sorts of shapes, as was his
custom when the brain was active. And with the beginning of the second,
Arthur sprang to his feet.

"I say, mother!"

"Let me finish?" asked Lady Coryston with a hard patience.

She read to the end of the paper. And with the last words Arthur broke out: