Arthur thought that he could realise the old situation fairly accurately. His uncle's original weakness showed so clearly through his narration. He had, no doubt, procrastinated, and bargained with himself, continually shirking the immediate necessity to take definite action. All that side of the affair was comprehensible enough, but what of that other point from which the narrative had so casually rambled away?
"Yes, I see," Arthur agreed sympathetically; "but what was it you were going to say about your having some agreement among yourselves, uncle? It was apropos of my being an outsider, you know."
"We got to understand it wouldn't do, that's all," Joe Kenyon said, "not to quarrel among ourselves, that is. Esther was inclined to make mischief in the old days. I don't know whether I ought to be telling you all this. Anyhow, we soon saw that it would never do for us to be jealous of one another. We had to find a modus vivendi and—and take our chance. That was after Catherine married Charles and they had come to live with us. The idea at that time was that Charles was going into the Diplomatic later on."
Kenyon paused, but made no movement to rise and go up to the house in obedience to his sister's summons. His next sentence, however, apparently referred to that issue.
"Seems to me," he said, "that there can't be any harm, now, in telling you these things. I don't mind admitting that we've discussed it among ourselves—Esther, Catherine, Charles, and myself, that is. Of course what Esther says is that you might go behind us, as it were, but I know there's no sort of fear of that."
Arthur had never liked Miss Kenyon; but now he began quite actively to hate her.
"She must have a disgustingly low opinion of me if she could think a thing like that," he said bitterly.
"Oh, well," his uncle replied calmly, "you get like that when you've lived here long enough. Can't trust any one from outside. Never know, that after all these years, we mayn't be left in the lurch. But, as I've pointed out to 'em, you're different."