"I haven't the slightest idea." "Because there'll be the deuce to pay if she does," said Coryston, nursing his knees, and bubbling with amusement. "My unfortunate mother will have to make another will. What the lawyers have made out of her already!" "There would be no reconciling her to the notion of such a marriage?" asked Atherstone, after a moment. "'If my son takes to him a wife of the daughters of Heth, what good shall my life be unto me?'" quoted Coryston, laughing. "Good gracious, how handy the Bible comes in--for most things! I expect you're an infidel, and don't know." He looked up curiously at Atherstone. A shade of annoyance crossed Atherstone's finely marked face. "I was the son of a Presbyterian minister," he said, shortly. "But to return. After all, you know, Radicals and Tories do still intermarry! It hasn't quite come to that!" "No, but it's coming to that!" cried Coryston, bringing his hand down in a slap on the tea-table. "And women like my mother are determined it shall come to it. They want to see this country divided up into two hostile camps--fighting it out--blood and thunder, and devilries galore. Ay, and"--he brought his face eagerly, triumphantly, close to Atherstone's--"so do you, too--at bottom." The doctor drew back. "I want politics to be realities, if that's what you mean," he said, coldly. "But the peaceful methods of democracy are enough for me. Well, Lord Coryston, you say you've been finding out a lot of things in these few weeks you've been settled here. What sort?" Coryston turned an odd, deliberate look at his questioner.