support him, though to get money from her was to draw blood from a stone.
When Eden had gone, Ernest remained motionless in his chair by the window, looking out over the green meadows, and thinking also of his mother's fortune. It was the cause of much disturbing thought to him. Not that it was what one could call a great fortune, but a comfortable sum it certainly was. And there it was lying, accumulating for no one knew whom. In moments of the closest intimacy and affection with her, she never could be ever so gently led to disclose in whose favor her will was made. She knew that much of her power lay in keeping that tantalizing secret. He felt sure, by the mirthful gleam he had discovered in her eyes when the subject of money or wills was approached, that in secret she hugged the joy of baffling them all.
Ernest loved his family. He would feel no deep bitterness should any one of them inherit the money. He greatly longed, nevertheless, to be the next heir himself, to be in his turn the holder of power at Jalna, to experience the thrill of independence. And if he had it, he would do such nice things for them all, from brother Nicholas down to little Wake! By means of that power he would guide their lives into the channels that would be best for them. Whereas, if Nicholas inherited it—it had been divulged by Mrs. Whiteoak that the money was to be left solidly to one person—well, Ernest could not quite think dispassionately of Nicholas as his mother's heir. He might do something reckless. Nicholas frequently made very reckless jokes about what he would do when he got it—he seemed to take it for granted that, as the eldest, he would get it—jokes which Ernest was far too generous to repeat to his mother, but it made him positively tremble to think where the family might end if Nicholas had a fling with it. In himself he was aware
