Suddenly Melrose flung his cigarette vehemently away.

“Faversham!  Don’t be a fool!  I have something to say to you a deal more important than this damned nonsense!” He struck his hand on the open memorandum.

Faversham turned in astonishment.

“Sit down again!” said Melrose peremptorily, “and listen to me.  I desire to put things as plainly and simply as possible.  But I must have all your attention.”

Faversham sat down.  Melrose was now standing, his hands on the back of the chair from which he had risen.

“I have just made my will,” he said abruptly.  “Tomorrow I hope to sign it.  It depends on you whether I sign it or not.”

As the speaker paused, Faversham, leaning back and fronting him, grew visibly rigid.  An intense and startled expectancy dawned in his face; his lips parted.

“My will,” Melrose continued, in a deliberately even voice, “concerns a fortune of rather more—­than a million sterling—­allowing little or nothing for the contents of this house.  I inherited a great deal, and by the methods I have adopted—­not the methods, my dear Faversham, I may say, that you have been recommending to me to-night.  I have more than doubled it.  I have given nothing away to worthless people, and no sloppy philanthropies have stood between me and the advantages to which my knowledge and my brains entitled me.  Hence these accumulations.  Now, the question is, what is to be done with them?  I am alone in the world.  I have no interest whatever in building universities, or providing free libraries, or subsidizing hospitals.  I didn’t make the world, and I have never seen why I should spend my energies in trying to mend what the Demiurge has made a mess of.  In my view the object of everybody should be to live, as acutely as possible—­to get as many sensations, as many pleasant reactions as possible—­out of the day.  Some people get their sensations—­or say they do—­out of fussing about the poor.  Forty years ago I got them out of politics—­or racing—­or high play.  For years past, as you know, I have got them out of collecting works of art—­and fighting the other people in the world who want the same things that I do.  Perfectly legitimate in my belief!  I make no apology whatever for my existence.  Well, now then, I begin to be old—­don’t interrupt me—­I don’t like it, but I recognize the fact.  I have various ailments.  Doctors are mostly fools; but I admit that in my case they may be right; though I intend to live a good while yet in spite of them.  Still—­there it is—­who is to have this money—­and these collections?  Sooner than let any rascally Chancellor of the Exchequer get at them, I would leave them to Dixon.  But I confess I think Dixon would be embarrassed to know what to do with them.  I don’t think I possess a single relation that I don’t dislike.  So now we come to the point.  With your leave—­and by your leave—­I propose to leave the money and the collections—­to you!” The young man—­flushed and staring—­half rose in his chair.