She beat the carpet very feverishly with her foot.
“I keep the jewels, of course?”
“Your own, madam, of course.”
“I mean the Otterbourne jewels; the great Indian diamond?”
“No, madam. I fear they will be removed from your keeping. You have no right of user over them.”
Her eyes dilated with a strange expression.
“They are not mine? For my lifetime?”
Then, alarmed at the terror and fury he read in her countenance, he hastened to add:
“I speak as amicus curiæ; I have not read the will; if you wish me to confer with the late duke’s legal advisers I will do so, and inform you more exactly of your position.”
She assented and dismissed him with scant courtesy, being a prey to extreme anxiety. She had never entertained any doubt as to her jurisdiction over the children and the jewels, and she had never correctly comprehended the changed position in which the death of her husband places a woman of rank. She wrote to Beaumont a harsh and imperious letter in the third person, ordering him to come to her at once and bring her property with him. In her eyes, whatever he might be in his own, he was only a tradesman.