"No, I could will it to you—make it over to you, with the condition that it should go to the Foundling Hospital if you wouldn't accept it."
"I think that a will of that kind could be easily set aside on the ground of insanity," said Cuthbert, with a slight smile.
"I could find a way out of the difficulty, if I tried, I have no doubt," said Wyvis, frowning gloomily and pulling at his moustache.
"Don't try," said his brother, leaning forward and speaking persuasively. "Let things continue much as they are. I am content: Nora is content. Why should you not be so, too?" Then, as Wyvis shook his head: "Make your mind easy then if you must do something, by giving me a sum down, or a slice of your income, old man. Upon my word I wouldn't live in the old place if you gave it to me. It is picturesque—but damp. Come let's compromise matters."
"I love every stick and stone in the place," said Wyvis grimly.
"I know you do. I don't. I want to live in Paris or Vienna with Nora, and enjoy myself I don't want to paint pot-boilers. I say like the man in the parable, 'Give me the portion that belongeth to me,' and I'll go my way, promising, however, not to spend it in riotous living. Won't that arrangement suit you?"
Wyvis demurred at first, but was finally persuaded into making an arrangement of the kind that Cuthbert desired. He retained the Red House, but he bestowed on his brother enough to give him an ample income for the life that Cuthbert and Nora wished to lead. During his absence from England, Mrs. Brand and Julian were still to inhabit the Red House. And Wyvis announced his intention of going to South America to shoot big game, from which Cuthbert inferred that his heart, although bruised, was not broken yet.