"Wilmarth is looking after that. Trade has somehow fallen off, but it is out of season. What are you to do?" he asks, cautiously.
"First, begin to pay the legacies,—fifteen thousand to the girls."
"Well, you can't. There are two notes falling due, and the whole thing will have to be squeezed,—if it can be raised. Floyd, you are a lucky chap, with a fortune ready made to your hand. I wish I stood in your shoes. I hate business!"
He says this with a kind of vicious fling.
The handsome, ease-loving face deepens into a frown. It is eager for enjoyment and indifferent to consequences, at once fascinating and careless.
"Would you really like to keep the business, Eugene?" asks the elder.
"I wouldn't keep it a day if Wilmarth could take the whole thing. But there are so many complications and so much money to pay out. I really do not see what is to be left for me," discontentedly.
"If the other two make anything, your half-share ought to be worth something."
"But you see it never can pay the—the family."
"It does not seem to me that father would have made just such a will if he had not believed it equitable or possible. I shall ask Connery to call a meeting to-morrow or as soon as possible. When does this note fall due?"