When she had ended her repast with two hothouse nectarines, her brother was announced, to her great vexation. She never saw Ronnie very willingly and now less willing than ever, for his position with regard to her and her children was one which could not have made him a _persona gratâ_ even had he been less outspoken and uncompromising than he was. At the present moment he was especially unwelcome to her; but as he had come upstairs disregarding the servants’ endeavors to induce him to wait while they inquired their mistress’s pleasure, he had entered the room before she had quite finished her second nectarine, and it was impossible to order him to go away as he came. He had come on business. There was a great deal of business concerning little Jack’s succession, the many burdens already laid thereon, and the various projects which were in consideration for turning to the best account the long minority. Then there were her own jointure, her own rights and claims, her own debts. The views which he had been afforded from time to time of hers and Cocky’s affairs had been but partial; nothing had ever been completely divulged to him, neither Cocky or she could ever tell the exact truth--it was not in them. Therefore, although Hurstmanceaux had known a good deal of their embarrassments he had not known many matters which now appalled him when they came before him in the dry, cold prose of legal fact, and he had not spared his sister the complete expression of his supreme amazement and supreme disgust. Their interviews were therefore neither gay nor cordial, and she did not assume a contentment which she was so far from feeling, as his entrance made the claret seem corked and the nectarine seem sour. After the statement of the especial piece of legal business which had brought him there that morning, the letting on a long lease of the dower-house at Staghurst, for which her signature was necessary, Hurstmanceaux, standing on the hearth in the same attitude he had assumed when he had recommended Black Hazel, said very simply and very curtly to her: “You let the dower-house instead of living in it. Will you tell me where you do mean to live?” She frowned; she hated direct questions, they were so ill-bred. “Live?” she repeated. “Oh, I don’t know at all. Of course I shall be a good deal here----” “By here do you mean in this house?” “I dare say--I don’t know; I have not thought about it.” “You had better think. The rent of this house is fifteen hundred a year. Happily it was only taken by the year. I have told them it will not be required next year.” “Very officious of you!” she said with a chilly smile. “I have a right to Otterbourne House.” “Not the smallest right.” “That is absurd.” “It is law.” “Is it true you have let it to Mannheim?” “Quite true.” Mannheim was the ambassador of the Russian Emperor.