and not get cockeyed fighting over it. Imagine the newspaper articles! 'Descendants of Centenarian at War over Will'! How should we like that?"
"Horrible!" said Ernest.
"No, no, no. It would never do," muttered Nicholas, indistinctly.
"Newspapers—outsiders gossiping!" Augusta gasped. "I never could bear that!"
"But still" wavered Meg.
Piers said: "You are the one most concerned, Renny. If you're willing to take it lying down"
Nicholas heaved himself about in his chair and looked sombrely at Piers. "I can't see why you persist in regarding Renny as the one chiefly concerned. It's very irritating. It's impertinent."
Renny broke in: "That's beside the point, Uncle Nick! The point is that we can't go to law over Gran's will, isn't it?"
Nicholas gave a proud and melancholy assent. No, they could not go to law. The wall about them must be kept intact. Their isolation must not be thrown down like a glove, to challenge notoriety. Bitter as the disappointment was, it must be borne. The Whiteoaks would not supply a heading for a column in any of the tawdry newspapers of the day. Gossip for the neighbourhood! Their affairs settled by a court! They were a law unto themselves.
The temporary breach in their protective wall closed up, knitting them together, uniting them against interference. Renny had spoken, and a sigh of acquiescence, even of relief, rose from the tribe. Not one of them—not, in his heart of hearts, even Piers—wanted to go to law over the will. That would have been to acknowledge weakness, to have offered submission to a decree from outside Jalna.
Even Maurice Vaughan felt the hypnotic spell of the family. Impossible to fight against it. Knuckle under and bear with them, that was all one could do. They raised Cain, and then they took hands and danced in a circle around the Cain they had raised. They sowed the
