She looked so imperial, so beautiful, that I wondered involuntarily what would content her, she who might have anything.
"Whatever you yourself think right, Coralie, you shall have."
I saw a strong disapproval in Lady Thesiger's face, and Coralie's quick eyes, following mine, read the same.
"Ah!" she said, hastily, "Lady Thesiger does not approve of carte blanche to ambitious cousins."
Lady Thesiger really restrained herself; she was tempted to speak—I saw that—but refrained.
"The best plan," said Sir John, calmly, "would be for Mademoiselle d'Aubergne to say what she herself wishes."
"I will tell you," she replied, "what I claim."
Then, as we looked up at her in wonder, she continued, with bland calmness:
"I claim as my own and right, on the part of my infant son, the whole of the estate and revenues of Crown Anstey. I claim, as widow of the late Miles Trevelyan, Esq., my share of all due to me at his death."
A thunder-bolt falling in our midst would not have alarmed us as those words did. Sir John looked sternly at her.