'Yes, I see, she must be roused to do things herself. Don't be vexed about it, Richard, it will all come right, and you cannot expect her to see things as we do. I will have a little talk with her myself; if it comes to the worst I must constitute myself her man of business for the present,' and Richard withdrew more satisfied.
Things were at a low ebb just now with Richard. Ethel's heiress-ship lay on him like a positive burden. The riches he despised rose up like a golden wall between him and his love. Oh, that she had been some poor orphaned girl, that in her loneliness he might have taken her to his heart and his father's home! What did either he or she want with these riches? He knew her well enough to be sure how she would dread the added responsibility they would bring. How often she had said to him during the last few weeks, 'Oh, Richard, it is too much! it oppresses me terribly. What am I to do with it all, and with myself!' and he had not answered her a word.
Dr. Heriot found his task easier than he had expected. Ethel was unhappy enough to be slightly unreasonable. She felt herself aggrieved with Richard, and had misunderstood him.
'I suppose he has sent you to tell me that I must rouse myself,' she said, with languid displeasure, when he had unfolded his errand. 'He need not have troubled either himself or you. I have seen Mr. Grantham; he went away by the 2.50 train.'
'I must say that I think you have done wisely,' returned Dr. Heriot, much pleased. 'No one, not even Richard, has a right to interfere in these matters. The will is left so that your trustees will expect you to exert yourself. It seems a pity that you cannot refer to them!'
'You know Mr. Molloy is dead.'
'Yes, and Sir William still in Canada. Yet, with an honest, straightforward man like Grantham, I think you might settle things without reference to any one. Richard is only sorry his father is so ailing.'
'No, I could not trouble Mr. Lambert.'
'Richard has been so much about the house during your father's illness, that it seems natural to refer to him. Well, he has an older head than many of us; but all the same you must understand his scruples.'
'They have seemed to me far-fetched.'