"Trusts! Profits! What difference do they make as long as you have a steady income of your own?"
Constance was debating with herself whether she ought to speak plainly and have it out with the Parker pride then and there, or wait until she were not quite so tired and unstrung, when she was happily spared a decision by her aunt's switching off to another track.
"Talking of money reminds me that I heard a piece of news to-day," she said, lowering her voice in deference to Diana's presence behind thin walls. "I heard that Horace Vendire made a will shortly after his engagement to —— and has left her millions."
"Oh, aunt! I wonder if it is true! How dreadful it would be!"
Aunt Sarah put up her jeweled lorgnette. "Constance Parker, what on earth is the matter with you to-day? You seem to be getting everything distorted, looking at the world upside down. It's that country business—" she continued emphatically; "the very moment you developed a fondness for that sort of life, I knew you were bound to grow careless and indifferent in thoughts, ways, and opinions. People who love the country always seem to think they have to sneer at civilization."
Constance was too tired to argue, and too disturbed over the last piece of gossip to explain; so she said weakly that she supposed she had changed, and let the rest of the visit pass in banalities.
The next day a little lawyer sprang a sensation by notifying those whom it concerned that he held the last Will and Testament of Horace Vendire, duly signed, attested, and sealed in his presence, a month before the disappearance.
Charles came to tell the two women.
"No, no!" cried Diana: "It's a mistake! He did not intend it to stand!"
"You surmise the contents of the will?"