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to say that I don’t get anything?”
    “You are not legally entitled to anything.”
    “How absolutely disgraceful! Do you mean to say that Papa had millions and millions, and I don’t get any of it at all? Who gets it if I don’t? I suppose somebody does get it. Or does Government just steal it all?”
    “Your cousin, Mr. Egbert Standing, is the heir-at-law. He will—er—doubtless consider the propriety of making you an allowance.”
    Miss Standing sprang to her feet.
    “Egbert! You’re joking—you must be joking!”
    Mr. Hale looked the offence which he felt.
    “Really, Miss Standing!”
    Margot stamped her foot.
    “I don’t believe a single word of it. Papa didn’t even like Egbert. He said he was a parasite. I remember quite well, because I didn’t know what the word meant, and I asked him, and he made me look it up in the dictionary. And he said he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve having Egbert for a nephew. He said it was a great pity someone hadn’t drowned his brother Robert when he was a baby, because then he couldn’t have had Egbert. That’s what Papa said, and do you suppose he’d want his money, and all his things, and his pictures to go to someone he felt like that about? Papa simply adored those horrible gloomy pictures, and he’d hate Egbert to have them. Egbert adores them too—I can’t think why—and that used to make Pap angrier than anything else. Aren’t people funny?”
    When Mr. Hale had taken his leave, Margot continued her letter to Stephanie.
    Oh, Stephanie, he’s been! Mr. Hale, the lawyer, I mean. He’s the most frightful old stiff, with the sort of boring voice that makes you go to sleep in church when a parson has it. Only I didn’t go to sleep, because he was saying the most frightfully devastating sort of things. There are a whole heap of the most frightful family secrets, and he says he thinks I’m illegitimate like the people in history. And I didn’t know anyone ever was except in history books. But he says he thinks I am, because he doesn’t think my father was ever married to my mother. And I don’t understand about it, but he says there isn’t any certificate of their being married, and there isn’t any certificate of my being born. And doesn’t that just show how stupid the whole thing is? Because if I hadn’t been born, I shouldn’t be here. So I can’t see what on earth anyone wants a certificate for. And he says I shan’t have any money…
    Mr. Hale returned to his office, where he presently interviewed Mr. Egbert Standing. He had not met him before, and he looked at him now with some disfavour. Mr. Hale did not like fat young men; he did not like young men who lolled; he disapproved of bow ties with loose ends, and of scented cigarettes. He regarded the curl in Egbert’s hair with well-founded suspicion. For a short moment he shared a sentiment with Miss Margot Standing—he did not like Egbert. The young clerk who took notes in the corner did not like him either.
    Everything else apart, Mr. Egbert Standing was a most difficult person to do business with. He lolled, and yawned, and ran his fingers through the artificial waves of his mouse-colored hair. He had a round featureless face with light eyes, light lashes, and no eyebrows. Mr. Hale disliked him very much indeed. It seemed impossible to get him to take any interest either in Miss Standing’s predicament or his own position as heir-at-law.
    Mr. Hale repeated Mr. Hales senior’s remarks very much as he had repeated them to Margot.
    “My father left me in no doubt that there was some irregularity in Miss Standing’s position. He pressed Mr. Standing to make a will, but Mr. Standing put the matter aside. I am quite sure that my father knew more than he told me. I believe that he was in Mr. Standing’s confidence. May I ask whether your uncle ever spoke to you on the matter?”
    Egbert lolled and yawned.
    “I believe he did.”
    “You believe he did!”
    “I have some slight