Indignant and mentally sore, Jim and Edie protested with all the violence of youth, violence which proved as useless as it was ill-considered. Luke said nothing, for he foresaw that the end was inevitable. He set about making a home for his younger brothers and sister to be ready for them as soon as the cataclysm came, when Philip de Mountford, usurping every right, would turn his cousins out of the old home. Frank, absent at Santiago--a young attaché out at his first post--had been told very little as yet. Luke had tried to break the news to him in a guarded letter, which received but the following brief and optimistic answer: "Why, old man! what's the matter with you? worrying over such rubbish? Take my advice and go to Carlsbad. Your liver must be out of order." But the catastrophe came, nevertheless; sooner even than was expected. Edie's language grew very unguarded in Philip's presence, and Jim--"in the Blues"--did not watch over his own manners when the new cousin was in the house. One evening when Luke was absent--as was very often the case now--and the family gathering consisted of Lord Radclyffe--sullen and morose; Philip, pleasantly condescending; and Jim and Edie, snubbed and wrathful, a difference in political opinion between the young people set a spark to the smouldering ashes. Philip--still pleasantly condescending--did not say much that evening, though he had been called a cad and an upstart, and told to go back to his nigger relations; but the next morning Jim and Edie received a curt admonition from Lord Radclyffe, during which they were told that if such a disgraceful exhibition of impertinence occurred again, they would have to go and pitch their tent elsewhere. They brought their grievance to Luke; told him all that they had treasured up in their rebellious young hearts against the usurper, and much that they had hitherto kept from the elder brother, who already, God knows! had a sufficient load of disappointment to bear. What could Luke do but promise that Jim and Edie should in future have a house of their own, wherein neither usurper nor upstarts would have access, and where they could nurse their wrath in peace and unsnubbed. For the first time since many, many days Luke was alone with his uncle in the library. Philip was out, and Lord Radclyffe was taken unawares. What Luke would never have dreamed of doing for himself he did for his brothers and sister; he made appeal to his uncle's sense of right, of justice, and of mercy. "Uncle Rad," he said, "you have told us all so often that this should be a home for us all. It doesn't matter about me, but the others--Jim and Edie--they haven't offended you, have they?"