"He gave me absolute discretion," said Lady Coryston, firmly.
"At least you have taken it!" said Coryston, with emphasis. "Now let's see how things stand."
He paused, a thin, wiry figure, under the electric light, checking off the items on his fingers. "On the ground of my political opinion—you cut me out of the succession. Arthur is to have the estates. And you propose to buy me off by an immediate gift of seven thousand a year in addition to my present fortune—the whole income from the land and the tin-mines being, I understand, about ten times that; and you intend to sell certain outlying properties in order to do this. That's your proposal. Well, now, here's mine. I won't take your seven thousand a year! I will have all—all, that is, which would have normally come to me—or nothing!"
He stood gazing intently at his mother's face, his small features sparkling.
"I will have all—or nothing!" he repeated. "Of course I don't deny it for a moment, if the property had come to me I should have made all sorts of risky experiments with it. I should have cut it up into small holdings. I should have pulled down the house or made it into a county hospital."
"You make it your business to wound, Coryston."
"No, I simply tell you what I should have done. And I should have been absolutely in my right!" He brought his hand down with passion on the chair beside him. "My father had his way. In justice I—the next generation—ought to have mine. These lands were not yours. You have no moral rights over them whatever. They come from my father, and his father. There is always something to be said for property, so long as each generation is free to make its own experiments upon it. But if property is to be locked in the dead hand, so that the living can't get at it, then it is what the Frenchman called it, theft!—or worse.... Well, I'm not going to take this quietly, I warn you. I refuse the seven thousand a year! and if I can't possess the property—well!—I'm going to a large extent to manage it!"
Lady Coryston started.
"Cony!" cried Marcia, passionately.
"I have a responsibility toward my father's property," said Coryston, calmly. "And I intend to settle down upon it, and try and drum a few sound ideas into the minds of our farmers and laborers. Owing to my absurd title I can't stand for our parliamentary division—but I shall look out for somebody who suits me, and run him. You'll find me a nuisance, mother, I'm afraid. But you've done your best for your principles. Don't quarrel with me if I do the best for mine. Of course I know it's hard for you. You would always have liked to manage me. But I never could be managed—least of all by a woman."