That was perfectly true, but quite beside the point, as she crossly told her son. She was, in fact, much attached to Waldo, but neither her fondness for him nor her gratitude for his unfailing kindness to Julian prevented her from feeling positively unwell whenever she thought of his enormous wealth. To learn that Cousin Joseph’s estate was to be added to an already indecently large fortune did make her feel for a few minutes that so far from liking him she detested him.
She said now, in a peevish tone: “I can’t conceive what should have induced that disagreeable old man to choose you for his heir!”
“There is no understanding it at all,” Sir Waldo replied sympathetically.
“I don’t believe you ever so much as saw him, either!”
“No, I never did.”
“Well, I must own,” said George, “that it was an odd sort of a thing to do. One would have thought—However, none of us had the least claim on the old fellow, and I’m sure he had a perfect right to leave his money where he chose!”
At this, Laurence Calver, who had been lounging on the sofa, and moodily playing with an ornate quizzing-glass, let the glass fall on the end of its ribbon, and jerked himself up, saying angrily: “You had no claim to it—or Waldo—or Lindeth! But I’m a Calver! I—I think it damnable!”
“Very possibly!” snapped his aunt. “But you will be good enough not to use such language in my presence, if you please!”