“There are rights, and rights! There are demands, too, that it is often better to conciliate than to defy—even though defiance would be successful.”
“And how is it that I never heard of this before?” burst he out, indignantly. “Has a man the right to treat his son in this fashion? to bring him up in the unbroken security of succeeding to an inheritance that the law may decide he has no title to?”
“I think that is natural enough. Your father evidently did not recognize this man's right, and felt there was no need to impart the matter to his family.”
“But why should my father be the judge in his own cause?”
L'Estrange smiled faintly: the line in the Colonel's letter, in which he spoke of his son's sensitiveness, occurred to him at once.
“I see how you treat my question,” said Augustus. “It reminds you of the character my father gave me. What do you say then to that passage about the registry? Why, if we be clean-handed in this business, do we want to make short work of all records?”
“I simply say I can make nothing of it.”
“Is it possible, think you, that Marion knows this story?”
“I think it by no means unlikely.”
“It would account for much that has often puzzled me,” said Augustus, musing as he spoke. “A certain self-assertion that she has, and a habit, too, of separating her own interests from those of the rest of us, as though speculating on a time when she should walk alone. Have you remarked that?”