“Well, of course, I could do better with it than anybody else of the family.”

“If you have your father’s love of fair play, Cornelius, you will. What you can do to prepare yourself is to make yourself thoroughly acquainted with business.”

“A bank is hardly the place to get the business knowledge necessary for that sort of thing!”

“Your father has his reasons. How well prepared you are will depend on you. And when you marry, your responsibility will cease.”

“What if I should marry before my father’s death?”

“Indeed, I hope you will, Cornelius. The arrangement your father has made is merely a provision against the unlikely. When you are married, I don’t doubt he will make an entirely new will to meet the new circumstances.”

“I believe,” Cornelius thought to himself, “that if I were to marry for money—and why shouldn’t I—my father would divide my share among the rest and not leave me a farthing!”

Full of the injury of the idea, he rose and left the room. His mother wept as he vanished. She dared not allow herself to ask why she wept, dared not admit to herself that her firstborn was not lovely in her eyes, dared not ask where he could have gotten such a selfish nature, so selfish that he did not know he was selfish.

Although since coming to Burcliff, Cornelius attributed his sour spirits to the weather, and had expended them on the cooking, the couches, the beds, and twenty different things that displeased him, he had nevertheless brought his disposition with him. And his mother had sad doubts that the cause of it might lie in his own conduct—for the consciousness may be rendered uneasy without much rousing of the conscience proper.

He had always been fitful and wayward, but had only recently begun to behave so unpleasantly. Yet among his companions, he bore the character of the best-natured fellow in the world. To them he never showed any of the peevishness of his mental discomfort. He kept that for home, for those who loved him a thousand times better and would have cheerfully parted with their own happiness for his. Cornelius was but one of a large herd of youths who possessed no will of their own yet enjoyed the reputation of a strong one. He would become obstinate over any liking or foolish notion his pettiness decided to latch on to. And the common mind always takes obstinacy for strength of will, even when it springs from an utter inability to exercise the will as it was meant to be used, especially against liking.

Mr. Raymount knew little of the real nature of his son. The youth was afraid of his father—none the less that he spoke of him with so little respect. To his face he dared not show his true nature. He knew that his mother would not betray him—at least he would have considered it betrayal—to his father. And to be sure, no one who had ever heard Mr. Raymount give vent to his judgments would have wondered why either of them hesitated to mention the thing to him.