Capper gave her a single straight look. "You wouldn't think, would you," said he, "that that woman carries a broken heart about with her? But I assure you that's so. Nap Errol was the tragedy of her life."
That quickened her to interest. She was conscious of a gradual sinking downwards of her dismay till it came to rest somewhere deep in her inmost soul, leaving the surface free for other impressions.
"He came out of nowhere," Capper went on. "She never tried to account for him. He was her husband's son. She made him hers. But he's been a tiger's cub all his life, a hurricane, a firebrand. He and Bertie are usually at daggers drawn and Lucas spends his time keeping the peace; which is about as wearing an occupation for a sick man as I can imagine. I want to put a stop to it, Lady Carfax. I speak as one family friend to another. Lucas seems to like you. I believe you could make him see reason if you took the trouble. Women are proverbially ingenious."
Anne's faint smile showed for a moment. They had entered the herb garden and were passing slowly down the central path. It was a small enclosure surrounded by clipped yew hedges and intersected by green walks. The evening sunlight slanting down upon her, had turned her brown hair to ruddiest gold. There was no agitation about her now. The grey eyes were gravely thoughtful.
She bent presently to pluck a sprig of rosemary. "Will you tell me," she said, "what it is that you want to do?"
Capper shot her a keen side-glance. "I want to cure him," he said. "I want to make a whole man of him."
"Could you?" she asked.
"I could." Abruptly Capper stopped. His yellow face was curiously aglow. "I say I could," he asserted almost fiercely, "if I could choose my conditions. If I could banish that pestilent brother of his, if I could rouse him to something like energy, if I could turn his will in one direction only, I could do it. Given his whole-hearted co-operation, I could do it. Without it, I am powerless. He would simply die of inanition."
"It would mean an operation then? A very serious one?" Anne had paused upon the green path. Her eyes sought Capper's.
He answered her with curt directness. "My dear lady, it would mean not one, but two. I won't trouble you with technical details which you wouldn't understand. Put briefly, it would mean in the first place a pulling down and in the second a building up. Both operations would be a serious tax upon his strength, but I am satisfied that he has the strength for both. Six months would elapse between the two, and during that time he would be flat on his back. If he could hold on for those six months he would come through all right. Of that I am convinced. But those six months are my stumbling-block. Freedom from all anxiety is essential. He wants a stanch friend continually beside him to keep him cheery and at peace. That fellow Nap is the principle obstacle. He stirs up hell and tommy wherever he goes, and he's never absent for long. Lucas himself admits that his brothers are a care to him. Oh, it's all an infernal tangle. I sometimes think family ties are the very deuce."