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Sir Probyn Pybus was writing a letter when he became aware of his brother standing at the open window.

“Hallo, Conrad.”

Probyn was red where his brother was sallow. Tall and ruddy and rather spare, he had a smooth geniality and very fine manners which, though put on like the shop-walker’s frock coat, fitted him with some naturalness. His right eye had a slight cast in it. His eyes were of that colour which is neither blue nor green nor grey, but a blending of all three. He smiled a great deal. He had what Ula Calmady called “the civic manner”; you might count upon seeing him in mayoral robes, and upon his having his portrait painted in those robes. As a matter of fact, his portrait had been painted by Wycherly, and had been hung in the Academy.

“Come in, my dear fellow.”

He had become a eupheuist. He had got into the way of speaking as though he was receiving endless deputations, or presenting prizes. When he shook hands he did it with a kind of genial éclat, bending slightly at the hips, but keeping the upper part of himself rigid.

“You are early.”

He smiled at his brother. His strabismic eye, and his grizzled clipped moustache, and his ruddiness, and his general air of condescending prosperity were very familiar to Conrad. He had been called “Collars and Cuffs Pybus” at school. But now he was very much the merchant prince and country gentleman, wearing his Harris tweeds and floppy hats, and boots with thick soles to them, and decorative waistcoats. On the estate he carried either a gun or a thick ash stick. He bred cattle and took prizes at agricultural shows. Every morning at eleven, accompanied by his agent, he went over the farm and the gardens. Yorkshire saw him less and less these days, for he had been lucky in his subordinates, and he liked to think of himself as the great man in the background.

Conrad looked out of temper. He threw his hat into a chair, and chose a cigarette from the silver box on his brother’s writing-desk. Probyn’s library was not so full of books as was the library at Chlois Court. Its atmosphere was different; it suggested, rather, the country gentleman, the squire, farmer, fisherman, sportsman, knight. It had a mellowness, the vague and genial shrewdness of its owners’ swivel eye.

“You do a devil of a lot of writing, Probyn.”

“Necessity, my dear chap. Responsibilities——”

Conrad sat down in a leather chair. When Probyn talked of his responsibilities—the younger brother was moved to exclaim “Bosh.” He was inclined to be abrupt with Probyn, perhaps because his brother’s civic manner irritated him. There was too much clanking of gold chains.

“I’ve seen the old man.”

Probyn put down his pen.

“Our father?”

“Our reverend parent—if you like. He cut me dead.”

Probyn looked shocked.

“You don’t say so. But where——?”

“Castle Craven. He’s ‘boots’ at a local pub. I’d turned in there for lunch with Ula Calmady. Beastly awkward.”

Probyn got out of his chair and went and stood with his back to the window. He had a liking for being on his feet when any alarm was sounded.

“By Jove,” he said. “By Jove. What a predicament! And he cut you?”

“Dead. That’s to say——”

“You spoke?”

“I wanted a word or two. He spat in my face like an old tom-cat.”

Probyn made a smooth, deprecating gesture with one hand. Conrad still retained so many of his crudities. He was apt to go off the deep end. He had not cultivated a nice, gentlemanly restraint.

“My dear fellow! Awkward—of course. But then—mark you, he is—our father.”

His brother’s eyes gave him a transient, scornful glance.

“Obviously. I thought you ought to know. I thought you might like to go over——”

“It’s conceivable——”

“You’d look a fool——”

“My dear fellow—that point is debatable.”

In moments of stress John Pybus’s two sons differed in their attitudes and gestures. Conrad sat heavily and aggressively in the club-chair, his big hands spread upon the padded arms like two bunches of bananas. Probyn, looking down and to one side, stroked with his fingers the left lapel of his brown tweed coat as though smoothing the fine nap of the cloth. He was for conciliation, smoothness. Conrad was both cautious and truculent.

“It made me look a fool—caught with a woman like Ula Calmady.”

Probyn raised his eyebrows.

“But—you didn’t——?”

“Is it likely? But how the devil——? Well, you see—when I drove up—the old chap came out and opened the car door. We just glared——”

“Very awkward. But—my dear fellow, it makes me feel conscious of a kind of humiliation. ‘Boots.’ He’s an old man.”

“He’s still a damned tough one.”

“My dear fellow, I think we ought to remember——”

Conrad gave his brother a stare, and became explanatory and aggrieved. Yes, it was a fact that he and Lady Ursula Calmady had been seeing a good deal of each other. He had been minded to bring the affair to a climax on that particular day, and the last thing that he had expected was an anti-climax such as the resurrection of old John. Because you couldn’t do anything with old John. He had no instinct for life’s business subtleties. You might have tipped another sort of man the wink, a man who was capable of seeing the humour of the thing. “Say, dad, I want to hook this fish. Mum’s the word. You take me?” Conrad did not put it quite so baldly, but he made Probyn look a little uncomfortable. After all, who was Ursula Calmady? A woman of good family and of the world. Might it not have been better if Conrad had been bold and frank? Taken the situation by the collar.

Conrad looked contemptuous.

“Well, would you have done it?”

He had Probyn straddling a fence.

“Very awkward. You remember, when I attempted a rapprochement? I sometimes think that he was a little bit touched in the head.”

Conrad threw the end of his cigarette into the grate, and reached for another.

“He began it. After all, a fellow needn’t lie down under his father’s curses. Besides—the whole business was absurd. But there it is. Of course he thought me a beastly snob. But why should I pick the old beggar off the pavement at such a damnable awkward moment—‘Say, Lady Ula, this is my old man. He’s a bit of an oddity, of course.’ No, damn it, let’s be honest. The old chap cut us adrift. Ridiculous rot, too. I believe he was a bit jealous of us. He was always a rotten bad business man. But the question is——”

“Exactly,” said Probyn, as though meeting a deputation, “the situation must be considered.”