"No one ever supposed you would!" cried Arthur.
"Here's your dilemma," pursued Coryston, good-humoredly. "If you engage yourself to her, mother will cut off the supplies. And if mother cuts off the supplies, Miss Glenwilliam won't have you."
"You think everybody but yourself, Corry, mercenary pigs!"
"What do you think? Do you see Miss Glenwilliam pursuing love in a garret—a genteel garret—on a thousand a year? For her father, perhaps!—but for nobody else! Her clothes alone would cost a third of it."
No reply, except a furious glance. Coryston began to look perturbed. He descended from his perch, and approaching the still pacing Arthur, he took his arm—an attention to which the younger brother barely submitted.
"Look here, old boy? Am I becoming a beast? Are you sure of her? Is it serious?"
"Sure of her? Good God—if I were!"
He walked to a window near, and stood looking out, so that his face could not be seen by his companions, his hands in his pockets.
Coryston's eyebrows went up; the eyes beneath them showed a genuine concern. Refusing a further pull at Lester's cigarettes, he took a pipe out of his pocket, lit it, and puffed away in a brown study. The figure at the window remained motionless. Lester felt the situation too delicate for an outsider's interference, and made a feint of returning to his work. Presently it seemed that Coryston made up his mind.
"Well," he said, slowly, "all right. I'll cut my meeting. I can get Atherstone to take the chair, and make some excuse. But I really don't know that it'll help you much. There's already an announcement of your meeting in the Martover paper yesterday—"