"Your brothers and sister, Coryston, will not allow you, I think, to insult your father's memory!" The voice audibly shook.
Coryston sprang up impetuously and came to stand over his mother, his hands on his sides.
"Now look here, mother. Let's come to business. You've been plotting something more against me, and I want to know what it is. Have you been dishing me altogether?—cutting me finally out of the estates? Is that what you mean? Let's have it!"
Lady Coryston's face stiffened anew into a gray obstinacy.
"I prefer, Coryston, to tell my story in my own words and in my own way—"
"Yes—but please tell it!" said Coryston, sharply. "Is it fair to keep us on tenter-hooks? What is that paper, for instance? Extracts, I guess, from your will—which concern me—and the rest of them"—he waved his hand toward the other three. "For God's sake let's have them, and get done with it."
"I will read them, if you will sit down, Coryston."
With a whimsical shake of the head Coryston returned to his chair. Lady Coryston took up the folded paper.
"Coryston guessed rightly. These are the passages from my will which concern the estates. I should like to have explained before reading them, in a way as considerate to my eldest son as possible" she looked steadily at Coryston—"the reasons which have led me to take this course. But—"
"No, no! Business first and pleasure afterward!" interrupted the eldest son. "Disinherit me and then pitch into me. You get at me unfairly while I'm speculating as to what's coming."