His tone, his manner pierced Lady Lucy’s pride.  She threw back her head nervously, but her tone was calm: 

“A woman to whom property has been intrusted must do her best to see that the will and desires of those who placed it in her hands are carried out!”

“Well, well!”—­Sir James looked for his stick—­“I am sorry for Oliver—­but”—­he straightened himself—­“it will make a bigger man of him.”

Lady Lucy made no reply, but her expression was eloquent of a patience which her old friend might abuse if he would.

“Does Ferrier know?  Have you consulted him?” asked Sir James, turning abruptly.

“He will be here, I think, this afternoon—­as usual,” said Lady Lucy, evasively.  “And, of course, he must know what concerns us so deeply.”

As she spoke the hall-door bell was heard.

“That is probably he.”  She looked at her companion uncertainly.  “Don’t go, Sir James—­unless you are really in a hurry.”

The invitation was not urgent; but Sir James stayed, all the same.  Ferrier was a man so interesting to his friends that no judgment of his could be indifferent to them.  Moreover, there was a certain angry curiosity as to how far Lady Lucy’s influence would affect him.  Chide took inward note of the fact that his speculation took this form, and not another.  Oh! the hypocritical obstinacy of decent women!—­the lack in them of heart, of generosity, of imagination!

The door opened, and Ferrier entered, with Marsham and the butler behind him.  Mr. Ferrier, in his London frock-coat, appeared rounder and heavier than ever but for the contradictory vigor and lightness of his step, the shrewd cheerfulness of the eyes.  It had been a hard week in Parliament, however, and his features and complexion showed signs of overwork and short sleep.

For a few minutes, while tea was renewed, and the curtains closed, he maintained a pleasant chat with Lady Lucy, while the other two looked at each other in silence.

But when the servant had gone, Ferrier put down his cup unfinished.  “I am very sorry for you both,” he said, gravely, looking from Lady Lucy to her son.  “I need not say your letter this morning took me wholly by surprise.  I have since been doing my best to think of a way out.”

There was a short pause—­broken by Marsham, who was sitting a little apart from the others, restlessly fingering a paper-knife.

“If you could persuade my mother to take a kind and reasonable view,” he said, abruptly; “that is really the only way out.”

Lady Lucy stiffened under the attack.  Drawn on by Ferrier’s interrogative glance, she quietly repeated, with more detail, and even greater austerity, the arguments and considerations she had made use of in her wrestle with Sir James.  Chide clearly perceived that her opposition was hardening with every successive explanation of it.  What had been at first, no doubt, an instinctive recoil was now being converted into a plausible and reasoned case, and the oftener she repeated it the stronger would she become on her own side and the more in love with her own contentions.