all that.
There was no hint of threats or demand for money or anything like
that."

"Of course not," she said. "Whilst Lord Radclyffe is alive, the young
man has no claim."

"Only," he rejoined, "that of kinship."

"Lord Radclyffe need not do anything for him."

Already there was a note of hostility in Louisa's even voice. The
commonplace woman was donning armour against the man who talked of
usurping the loved one's privileges.

"I wish," he insisted, "that I could have got the letter from Uncle
Rad to show you. It was so simple and so sensible. All he asks is just
to see Uncle Rad personally, to feel that he has kindred in the world.
He knows, he says, that, beyond good-will, he has no claim now. As a
matter of fact, he has something more substantial than that, for Uncle
Arthur had a little personal property, about fifteen thousand pounds,
which he left to us four children--Jim and Frank and Edie and me, and
which I for one wouldn't touch if I knew for certain that this Philip
was his son."

"But," she argued, "you say that the man does not speak of money."

She hated the talk about money: for she had all that contempt for it
which women have who have never felt the want of it. It would have
been so simple if the intruder had only wanted money. She would not
have cared a little bit if Luke had none, or was not going to have
any. It was his right which she would not hear of being questioned;
his right in Lord Radclyffe's affections, in his household, and also
his rights in the future when Lord Radclyffe would be gone.

"You are sure," she insisted, "that he does not want money?"

"I don't think," he replied, "that he does, just now. He seems to have
a little; he must have had a little, since he came over from St.
Vincent and is staying at a moderately good hotel in London. No. He
wants to see Uncle Rad, because he thinks that, if Uncle Rad saw him,
blood would cry out in response. It appears that now he has lodged all
his papers of identification with a London lawyer--a very good firm,
mind you--and he wants Uncle Rad's solicitor to see all the papers and
to examine them. That seems fair to me, doesn't it to you?"

"Very fair indeed," she mused.

"What I mean," he added with great conviction, "is that if those
papers weren't all right, he wouldn't be so anxious for Uncle Rad's
solicitors to have a look at them, would he?"

"No."

And after awhile she reiterated more emphatically.

"Certainly not."