Meanwhile Lady Coryston was walking slowly up and down, her hands behind her. She looked very thin and abnormally tall; and Marcia saw her profile, sharply white, against the darkness of the wall. A vague alarm struck through the daughter's mind. What was her mother about to say or do? Till now Marcia had rather lazily assumed that the meeting would concern some matter of family property--some selling or buying transaction--which a mother, even in the abnormally independent position Lady Coryston, might well desire to communicate to her children. There had been a family meeting in the preceding year when the Dorsetshire property had been sold under a recent Act of Parliament. Coryston wouldn't come. "I take no interest in the estates "--he had written to his mother. "They're your responsibility, not mine." And yet of course Coryston would inherit some day. That was taken for granted among them. What were Tory principles worth if they did not some time, at some stage, secure an eldest son, and an orthodox succession? Corry was still in the position of heir, when he should normally have become owner. It was very trying for him, no doubt. But exceptional women make exceptional circumstances. And they were all agreed that their mother was an exceptional woman. But whatever the business, they would hardly get through without a scene, and during the past week there had been a number of mysterious interviews with lawyers going on.... What was it all about? To distract her thoughts she struck up conversation. "Did you see Enid Glenwilliam, mother, in Palace Yard?" "I just noticed her," said Lady Coryston, indifferently. "One can't help it, she dresses so outrageously." "Oh, mother, she dresses very well! Of course nobody else could wear that kind of thing." Lady Coryston lifted her eyebrows. "That's where the ill-breeding comes in--that a young girl should make herself so conspicuous." "Well, it seems to pay," laughed Marcia. "She has tremendous success. People on our side--people you'd never think--will do anything to get her for their parties. They say she makes things go. She doesn't care what she says." "That I can quite believe! Yes--I saw she was at Shrewsbury House the other day--dining--when the Royalties were there. The daughter of that _man_!" Lady Coryston's left foot gave a sharp push to a footstool lying in her path, as though it were Glenwilliam himself. Marcia laughed. "And she's very devoted to him, too. She told some one who told me, that he was so much more interesting than any other man she knew, that she hadn't the least wish to marry! I suppose you wouldn't like it if I were to make a friend of her?" The girl's tone had a certain slight defiance in it. "Do what you like when I'm gone, my dear," said Lady Coryston, quietly.