"Is it very important, Edmund? There's plenty of pasture about there, isn't there?"
"I don't know that there's more than can be made use of. But that wasn't the chief point. It's the enlarging and enlarging at the Grange that has become objectionable. It has gone beyond all reasonable grounds already. All very well, as long as William is there, and treats it as a toy on which to spend his money. But if anything happens, it will be a white elephant—a big house with no land to it, which nobody else is likely to want, and no longer any good as a second house on the place, which it has always been before. You and the girls couldn't live there if anything happened to me."
"I never thought of that," she said slowly. "I don't want to think of it either. Of course William has become very lavish; but he is so rich now that I suppose it doesn't matter. And it is different, isn't it, dear, now that poor Hugo is dead?"
"Oh, that's what he kept driving in on me. He'll come after me here. I'm not likely to forget it. Still, the place is mine, as long as I'm alive, and I'm not going to hand over the reins to William. He's no right to act in that way, as if I counted for nothing."
"No," she said; "it's unfortunate. What are you going to do? I suppose you didn't tell Coombe to stop the work?"
"No; I shouldn't put an affront upon William before his servants. Seems to me he's no objection to putting an affront upon me. Coombe knew well enough that I hadn't been consulted, and that I ought to have been. I don't like that fellow Coombe. He may be a very good head-gardener, but he doesn't come from these parts, and he doesn't seem to realize how things are. He's respectful enough in manner, but he was giving me to understand all the time that his master was a much bigger man than I was, and he wished I'd clear out and leave him to go on with his work. At one point I really did think of ordering him to knock it off. I could have done it, and I think he'd have been rather surprised if I had."
"I'm glad you didn't. It's tiresome, of course; but we don't want to quarrel with the Williams, do we? You're not going to tell him to stop it, are you?"
"Oh, I suppose I shall have to swallow it. William is such a much bigger man than I am now. He's made a lot of money, and they've knighted him. I dare say they'll give him a peerage, if he makes much more. I can't stand out against him. I'm only an old dug-out of a soldier, and don't matter."
"Well, dear, you're Squire of Hayslope, which counts for something. As for me, I'd rather be Mrs. Eldridge of Hayslope Hall than Lady Eldridge of Hayslope Grange. I don't mean I'd rather be me than Eleanor, though of course I would. But she isn't spoilt by all their money, and I certainly don't want to quarrel with her."
"Oh, quarrel! I don't want to quarrel with William, either. We've been good friends all our lives, and nobody's more pleased with his success than I am. Still, what I feel, and feel strongly, is that he ought not to make his success an excuse for changing his attitude towards me. I'm his elder brother, and he has always treated me so until lately. He'd never have thought of doing a thing like this a few years ago, and he wants telling so. Then I dare say we shall get on as we ought to. This has got to be the last of it. Anything further I shall veto. The Grange is mine as well as the Hall. When I'm dead he can do what he likes with both of them. Until then he must be content with what he has."