"Yes, I suppose so. It's difficult to believe all the same, because he would hardly buy a big place without consulting his wife, and she's been down here for the last two or three weeks, without going away. We've seen her constantly, and she's never mentioned such a thing."
"Oh, you still see her?"
"Yes. There's no quarrel with her! There'd be no quarrel with William if he were what he used to be. However, I don't want to talk about it. He'll go his own way, I suppose. If it's really true that he's thinking of buying another place, I suppose his way and mine will diverge more than ever."
"Well now, my dear Edmund, can't I do something about it? You're both friends of mine. You're more my friend than William is, but still you're both friends, of very long standing. I don't like to see you at loggerheads, and I don't see any reason for it. Besides, it's an exceptionally bad thing in this case, because there's your property, very much reduced now I'm sure, like everybody's property, and there's William with a great deal of money—really a great deal of money he must have made, or he wouldn't have been able to—well, he wouldn't be able to buy another big landed property, as apparently he's thinking of doing. You ought to be working in together, you two, not drifting apart like this."
"Yes; I know." He spoke rather sadly. "But as for William's money, I'm sick of his money, Crowborough. It seems to stand for everything. What we've actually quarrelled about is a very small thing. I know that, and I'm not going over it with you. No, you can't do anything; thank you, all the same. It began by William using his money in what I thought was an unjustifiable way. All the way through, at Hayslope, there am I adjusting things to the new conditions, as all landowners must nowadays, spending my life there, and doing more work than I've ever had to do for myself; and there's William just coming down now and then, and complicating everything with his money, throwing labour out of gear, not even consulting me in matters where I ought to be consulted, doing just what he pleases. He gets a peerage, and you tell me that the general idea is that that's owing to his money. He's quarrelled with me, so Hayslope isn't agreeable to him any longer, I suppose, and he's got enough money to go and buy another big place, just to get away from it, though it will all be his some day. His money has altered William entirely. Now he's Lord Eldridge, and I'm just a nobody of a poor country gentleman, hard hit by the war. I don't mind that—not for myself, though I do for my wife and children; but you'd think he wouldn't want to be always ramming it down my throat—his elder brother, and the head of his family, in spite of his new peerage. If I were content to sit down and take his charity, I dare say we should get on very well together. I don't know how much money he has, but I dare say he could make me perfectly comfortable at Hayslope without feeling it. But I'm not taking his charity, or his patronage either. It isn't in me to do it, not even for the sake of my family, and I'd swallow a good deal for them to have what they ought to have."
Lord Crowborough's face had become serious during this speech. "Well, I see how it is, Edmund," he said. "I see very plainly how it is; because I've always felt about William—though I've never said so—that with all his generosity—and I think there's no doubt he's a generous man; in fact I know he is—he's not quite—how shall I put it?—one of our sort. I don't know why, I'm sure, because he is by birth, and upbringing too. I suppose he's what they call a throwback. The fact is I don't think he could have made all that money, and still be making it, I suppose, if he weren't different—different altogether. The money-makers are a type apart, and they may make him a peer, and he may be a big landowner—anything you please—but the more he gets with that swim the more he resembles their type. That's what you're up against, at the bottom of it all, quarrel or no quarrel; and of course you're not at home with that type. But now, when you've said that, can't you make allowances? After all, he's your brother, and you've been good friends all your lives. Let me have a talk to William. Let me tell him that you don't want to quarrel, and—"
"Oh, you can do that if you like. I've no objection. But you've put it very plainly. He's approximating more and more to type. There's not much chance, I think, of our hitting it off again, as we used to. I stand where I did, and he's altered. Still, I agree that there's no need to quarrel with a man just because he isn't one's own sort. If you can get it on to those lines there may be a way out. I did stipulate that he should do something that I think he ought to have done of his own accord. He would have done it without question a year or two ago. But I don't care whether he does it or not now. It's gone beyond that. I shall never think of him again as I used to because he's not the same man. But there's no reason why we should live at daggers drawn—especially if he's going to withdraw from Hayslope. That's about the last straw. But I'm not going to make a fuss about it, or about anything else that he does. He can go his way, and I'll go mine. We're better apart now."
"If you feel like that about him—! Well, I'll see him and talk to him. I don't think it's quite as bad as you think, Edmund. The fact is he's made a big position for himself in the world, and—"
"Oh, yes, I know all that. So does he. That's the root of the trouble."