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Title: Tristram of Blent
       An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House

Author: Anthony Hope

Release Date: April 4, 2007 [EBook #20981]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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TRISTRAM of BLENT


_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

A MAN OF MARK
MR WITT'S WIDOW
FATHER STAFFORD
A CHANGE OF AIR
HALF A HERO
THE PRISONER OF ZENDA
THE GOD IN THE CAR
THE DOLLY DIALOGUES
COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP
THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO
THE HEART OF PRINCESS OSRA
PHROSO
SIMON DALE
RUPERT OF HENTZAU
THE KING'S MIRROR
QUISANTE




TRISTRAM of BLENT

_An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House_

_By_ ANTHONY HOPE

_New York_
MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMI

_Copyright, 1900 and 1901, by_ ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS

_THIRD EDITION_

Trow Directory
Printing & Bookbinding Company
New York




A TABLE _of the_ CONTENTS                              _Page_

I.        A SUPPRESSED PASSAGE                              1
II.       MR CHOLDERTON'S IMP                              10
III.      ON GUARD                                         22
IV.       SHE COULD AN' SHE WOULD                          34
V.        THE FIRST ROUND                                  48
VI.       THE ATTRACTION OF IT                             61
VII.      THE MOMENT DRAWS NEAR                            74
VIII.     DUTY AND MR NEELD                                88
IX.       THE MAN IN POSSESSION                           101
X.        BEHOLD THE HEIR!                                114
XI.       A PHANTOM BY THE POOL                           129
XII.      FIGHTERS AND DOUBTERS                           143
XIII.     IN THE LONG GALLERY                             158
XIV.      THE VERY SAME DAY                               173
XV.       AN INQUISITION INTERRUPTED                      190
XVI.      THE NEW LIFE                                    205
XVII.     RIVER SCENES AND BRIC-À-BRAC                    220
XVIII.    CONSPIRATORS AND A CRUX                         233
XIX.      IN THE MATTER OF BLINKHAMPTON                   248
XX.       THE TRISTRAM WAY--A SPECIMEN                    264
XXI.      THE PERSISTENCE OF BLENT                        279
XXII.     AN INSULT TO THE BLOOD                          296
XXIII.    A DECREE OF BANISHMENT                          312
XXIV.     AFTER THE END OF ALL                            328
XXV.      THERE'S THE LADY TOO!                           342
XXVI.     A BUSINESS CALL                                 358
XXVII.    BEFORE TRANSLATION                              375
XXVIII.   THE CAT AND THE BELL                            391
XXIX.     THE CURMUDGEON                                  407
XXX.      TILL THE NEXT GENERATION                        420




I

A SUPPRESSED PASSAGE


Mr Jenkinson Neeld was an elderly man of comfortable private means; he
had chambers in Pall Mall, close to the Imperium Club, and his short
stoutish figure, topped by a chubby spectacled face, might be seen
entering that dignified establishment every day at lunch time, and also
at the hour of dinner on the evenings when he had no invitation
elsewhere. He had once practised at the Bar, and liked to explain that
he had deserted his profession for the pursuit of literature. He did
not, however, write on his own account; he edited. He would edit
anything provided there was no great public demand for an edition of it.
Regardless of present favor, he appealed to posterity--as gentlemen with
private means are quite entitled to do. Perhaps he made rather high
demands on posterity; but that was his business--and its. At any rate
his taste was curious and his conscience acute. He was very minute and
very scrupulous, very painstaking and very discreet, in the exercise of
his duties. Posterity may perhaps like these qualities in an editor of
memoirs and diaries; for such were Mr Neeld's favorite subjects.
Sometimes he fell into a sore struggle between curiosity and discretion,
having impulses in himself which he forbore to attribute to posterity.

He was in just such a fix now--so he thought to himself--as he perused
the manuscript before him. It was the Journal of his deceased friend
Josiah Cholderton, sometime Member of Parliament (in the Liberal
interest) for the borough of Baxton in Yorkshire, Commercial Delegate to
the Congress of Munich in '64, and Inventor of the Hygroxeric Method of
Dressing Wool. No wonder posterity was to be interested in Cholderton!
Yet at times--and especially during his visits to the Continent--the
diarist indulged himself in digressions about people he encountered; and
these assumed now and then a character so personal, or divulged episodes
so private, that the editor had recourse to his blue pencil and drew it
with a sigh through pages which he had himself found no small relief
from the severer record of Cholderton's services to the commerce of his
country. Mr Neeld sat now with blue pencil judicially poised,
considering the following passage in his friend's recollections. The
entry bore date Heidelberg, 1875.

     "At the widow's" (Mr Cholderton is speaking of a certain Madame de
     Kries) "pleasant villa I became acquainted with a lady who made
     something of a sensation in her day, and whom I remember both for
     her own sake and because of a curious occurrence connected with
     her. A year and a half before (or thereabouts) society had been
     startled by the elopement of Miss T. with Sir R. E. They were
     married, went to France, and lived together a month or two.
     Suddenly Sir R. went off alone; whose the fault was nobody knew, or
     at least it never came to my ears. The lady was not long left in
     solitude, and, when I met her, she passed as Mrs F., wife of
     Captain F. The Captain seemed to me an ordinary good-looking
     reckless young fellow; but Mrs F. was a more striking person. She
     was tall, graceful, and very fair, a beautiful woman (I might
     rather say girl) beyond question. Talk revealed her as an absolute
     child in a moral sense, with a child's infinite candor, a child's
     infinite deceit, a child's love of praise, a child's defiance of
     censure where approval would be too dearly earned. She was hardly a
     reasonable being, as we men of the world understand the term; she
     was however an exceedingly attractive creature. The natural
     feelings of a woman, at least, were strong in her, and she was
     fretting over the prospects of the baby who was soon to be born to
     her. Captain F. shared her anxiety. I understood their feelings
     even more fully (in any case the situation was distressing) when I
     learnt from Madame de Kries that in certain events (which happened
     later) the lady and her child after her would become persons of
     rank and importance.

     Now comes the scene which has stamped itself on my memory. I was
     sitting in Madame de Kries' parlor with her and her daughter--an
     odd dark little thing, five or six years old. Suddenly Mrs F. came
     in. She was in a state of agitation and excitement by no means
     healthy (I should suppose) for one in her condition. She held a
     letter in her hand and waved it in the air, crying, 'Sir R.'s dead,
     Sir R.'s dead! We can be married! Oh, we're in time, in time, in
     time!' Extraordinary as such exclamations may appear when the
     circumstances and my own presence are considered, I have repeated
     them _verbatim_. Then she sank down on the sofa, Madame de Kries
     kneeling by her, while the Imp (as I called the child, whom I
     disliked) stared at her open-eyed, wondering no doubt what the fuss
     was about. Directly after F. came in, almost as upset as Mrs F.,
     and the pair between them managed to explain to us that she had
     received a letter from Sir R.'s servant (with whom she had
     apparently maintained some communication), announcing that his
     master had, after two days' illness, died of heart complaint on the
     6th June. 'Think of the difference it makes, the enormous
     difference!' she gasped, jumping up again and standing in the
     middle of the room. She was so full of this idea that she did not
     spare a thought to the dead man or to anything which might strike
     us as peculiar or distasteful in her own attitude and the way in
     which she received the news. 'We shall be married directly,' she
     continued with that strange absence of shame or pretence which
     always marked her, 'and then it'll be all right, and nobody'll be
     able to say a word in the future.' She went on in this strain for a
     long while, until Madame de Kries at last insisted on her calming
     herself, and proposed to accompany her to her own house. At this
     point I made my excuses and retired, the Imp following me to the
     door and asking me, as I went out, why people had to be married
     again when other people died; she was a child who needed wiser and
     firmer bringing-up than her mother gave her.

     I did not myself see Captain and Mrs F. again, as I left Heidelberg
     the next day, 22nd June. I learnt however from Madame de Kries that
     the wedding was hurried on and took place on the day following my
     departure; after this the pair went to Baden, and there, a
     fortnight later, the child--a boy--was born. I must confess that I
     was glad the young couple had avoided the calamity they were in
     dread of, although I am not sure that I had a right to wish that
     they should escape the full consequences of their fault.

     My feelings were abruptly changed when, on paying a flying visit to
     Madame de Kries a few months later, I heard the sequel of the
     story, told to me in the strictest confidence, and in violation, I
     fear, of the old lady's pledge of secrecy. (She was a sad gossip, a
     failing with which I have no sympathy.) Sir R. E. did not, in fact,
     die on the date reported. He fell into a collapse, mistaken for
     death by those about him, and even by his medical attendant; after
     lying in this state for twenty-four hours he revived and lived
     nearly a week longer. A second letter, apprising Mrs F. of this
     fact, and announcing the correct date of his death as June 12th,
     reached her at Baden on the 28th. By this time she was married, but
     the validity of her new union (solemnized on the 23rd) did not
     appear to be affected. Nothing more was done, and the boy was born,
     as I have stated, early in July. Only after this event, which
     naturally engrossed the parents' attention, did the mistake into
     which they had fallen come to be discovered. As a matter of form,
     and to avoid doubts in the future, Captain F. wrote for the
     official certificate of Sir R.'s death. When it came, it came as a
     thunderbolt. Sir R. had been residing in a small Russian town near
     the frontier; he was interested, I understood, in some business
     there. The servant to whom I have referred was an uneducated man
     and could not write; he had picked up a little French but spoke no
     Russian. Wishing to inform Mrs F. of what had occurred, he had
     recourse to a professional letter-writer, who perhaps knew as
     little French, or almost as little, as himself, and was entirely
     ignorant of English. The servant gave the dates I have set
     down--June 6th in the first letter, the 12th in the second. The
     letter-writer put them down; and Mrs F. read and immediately
     accepted them. It did not cross her mind or Captain F.'s that the
     dates used were the ordinary Russian dates--were in fact 'Old
     Style,' and consequently twelve days behind the reckoning of
     Germany or of England. They might have been put on inquiry by the
     long interval between the date of the death as it was given and the
     receipt of the news; in their excitement they paid no heed to it,
     and it did not occur either to Madame de Kries or to myself to
     raise the question. Indeed who thinks of the 'Old Style' at this
     period of the world's history? Besides, I did not know at that
     time, and I do not think that Madame de Kries did, where the first
     letter came from; Mrs F. said nothing about it. But when the
     certificate arrived--about the middle of July, as I understood--the
     mistake was clear; for a note in the official's hand translated the
     dates into New Style for the benefit of the foreigners to whom he
     was supplying the document. Sir R. E., first reported dead on June
     6th Old Style, otherwise June 18th New Style, had actually died on
     the 12th Old Style, or 24th New Style.

     I have always thought this one of the most perverse little
     incidents which I have met with in the course of my life, and I
     think it such still, when I consider how easily it might have done
     no harm, and how serious, and indeed irreparable, its actual
     consequences were. The mistake as to the date of death was the
     first source of confusion, since it caused Mrs F.'s wedding to take
     place while her husband, Sir R., had still a day to live. But this
     error would not in itself have proved fatal, since there would
     still have been time to repeat the ceremony and make a valid
     marriage of it before the birth of the child. Here the
     misapprehension about the Old Style came in. Led to believe that,
     although Sir R. lived six days longer than was originally reported,
     yet none the less he died on June 12th, the F.'s did not have the
     ceremony repeated. But he died, in fact, on the 24th as his wife
     reckoned time, and her wedding to Captain F. on the 23rd was an
     idle and useless form. When the discovery was made, the boy was
     born--and born out of lawful wedlock.

     What did they do then? I was pardonably interested in the matter,
     and inquired of Madame de Kries. She was reticent, but I extracted
     from her the information that they were hurriedly married again.
     One could laugh if the matter had not been so terribly serious to
     them and to their boy. For by now those events had actually
     happened, and Mrs F. was not indeed in possession of but next in
     succession to a considerable estate and an ancient title. Marrying
     again could not mend the matter. What else they did to mend or try
     to mend it, Madame de Kries professed not to know. I myself do not
     know either. There is only one thing to say. They could not alter
     the date of the death; they could not alter the date of the
     wedding; perhaps it would seem rather more possible to alter the
     date of the birth. At any rate, that is no business of mine. I have
     set the story down because it seemed a curious and interesting
     episode, but it is nothing to me who succeeds or ought to succeed
     to this or that title or estate. For my own part, I am inclined to
     hope that the baby's prospects in life will not be wrecked by the
     absurd Russian habit of using the Old Style.

     To return to serious questions, the customs-barrier between----"

Mr Jenkinson Neeld laid down his friend's Journal and leant back in his
chair.

"Really!" he murmured to himself. "Really, really!"

Frowning in a perplexed fashion, he pushed the manuscript aside and
twiddled the blue pencil between his fingers. The customs-barrier of
which Josiah Cholderton was about to speak had no power to interest him.
The story which he had read interested him a good deal; it was an odd
little bit of human history, a disastrous turn of human fortunes.
Besides, Mr Neeld knew his London. He shook his head at the Journal
reprovingly, rose from his chair, went to his book-case, and took down a
Peerage. A reminiscence was running in his head. He turned to the
letter T (Ah, those hollowly discreet, painfully indiscreet initials of
Josiah Cholderton's! Mysteries perhaps in Baxton, Yorks, but none in
Pall Mall!) and searched the pages. This was the entry at which his
finger stopped--or rather part of the entry, for the volume had more to
say on the family than it is needful either to believe or to repeat:--

     "Tristram of Blent--Adelaide Louisa Aimée, in her own right
     Baroness--23rd in descent, the barony descending to heirs general.
     Born 17th December 1853. Married first Sir Randolph Edge, Bart.--no
     issue. Secondly, Captain Henry Vincent Fitzhubert (late Scots
     Guards), died 1877. Issue--one son (and heir) Hon. Henry Austen
     Fitzhubert Tristram, born 20th July 1875. The name of Tristram was
     assumed in lieu of Fitzhubert by Royal Licence 1884. Seat--Blent
     Hall, Devon----"

Here Mr Neeld laid down the book. He had seen what he wanted, and had no
further concern with the ancestry, the ramifications, the abodes or
possessions of the Tristrams of Blent. To him who knew, the entry itself
was expressive in what it said and in what it omitted; read in
conjunction with Josiah Cholderton's Journal it was yet more eloquent.
By itself it hinted a scandal--else why no dates for the marriages? With
the Journal it said something more. For the 20th is not "early in July."
Yet Mr Neeld had never heard--! He shut the book hastily and put it back
on the shelf. Returning to his desk, he took up the blue pencil. But on
second thoughts this instrument did not content him. Scissors were to
his hand; with them he carefully cut out from the manuscript the whole
account of Mr Cholderton's visit to Heidelberg (he would run no risks,
and there was nothing important in it), dated it, marked it with the
page to which it belonged in the Journal, and locked it away in a
drawer.

He felt resentful toward his dead friend Josiah Cholderton. If there be
a safe pastime, one warranted to lead a man into no trouble and to
entangle him in no scandals, it would seem to lie in editing the Journal
of a Member of Parliament, a Commercial Delegate, an Inventor of the
Hygroxeric Method of Dressing Wool. Josiah Cholderton had--not quite for
the first time--played him false. But never so badly as this before!

"Good gracious me!" he muttered. "The thing is nothing more nor less
than an imputation on the legitimacy of the son and heir!"

That same afternoon he went over to the Imperium to vote at the election
of members. It struck him as one of the small coincidences of life that
among the candidates who faced the ballot was a Colonel Wilmot Edge,
R.E.

"Any relation, I wonder?" mused Mr Neeld as he dropped in an affirmative
ball. But it may be added, since not even the secrets of club ballots
are to be held sacred, that he bestowed one of a different sort on a
certain Mr William Iver, who was described as a "Contractor," and whose
name was familiar and conspicuous on the hoardings that screened new
buildings in London, and was consequently objectionable to Mr Neeld's
fastidious mind.

"I don't often blackball," he remarked to Lord Southend as they were
sitting down to whist, "but, really, don't you think the Imperium should
maintain--er--a certain level?"

"Iver's a devilish rich fellow and not a bad fellow either," grunted my
lord.




II

MR CHOLDERTON'S IMP


"Yes, madame, an elegant and spacious residence, Filton Park. The photo?
Here it is, madame. And Notts is a very eligible county--socially
speaking, remarkably eligible; I've sent several families to Notts. That
photo, madame? Hatchley Manor, in Sussex. Yes, good position--a trifle
low perhaps--I have heard complaints of--er--effluvium from the
river--I'm anxious to give you perfect satisfaction, madame. It wouldn't
pay me not to. I want you to come back, madame, another summer. I play
for the break, if I may so put it--I beg your pardon! Yes, Birdcup is
really a palatial residence--Hants, yes--a beautiful county. But between
ourselves, madame, his lordship is a little hard to deal with.
Dilapidations I refer to, yes--his lordship is exacting as to
dilapidations. On the whole, I should prefer to recommend
Winterhurst--near Maidstone--a pleasant town, Maidstone, and the clergy,
I'm informed, extremely active and sympathetic."

"It's a very ugly house," remarked Madame Zabriska, throwing away the
photograph of Winterhurst with a gesture of decided refusal.

Mr Sloyd stroked his sleek hair and smiled deprecatingly.

"With residences as with--er--ladies, beauty is only skin deep," said
he. "A thoroughly modern residence, madame--hot and cold--south aspect."
He stopped suddenly, perceiving that the queer dark little woman in the
big chair was laughing at him. "I don't intend to convey," he resumed
with dignity, "that the mansion is hot and cold, but the bath-rooms----"

"Oh, I know," she interrupted, her great black eyes still deriding him,
while her thin face was screwed up into seriousness, as she regarded Mr
Sloyd's blameless garments of springtime gray, his black-and-white tie,
his hair so very sleek, his drooping mustache, and his pink cheeks. She
had taken his measure as perfectly as the tailor himself, and was
enjoying the counterfeit presentment of a real London dandy who came to
her in the shape of a house-agent. "I don't want a big place," she
explained in English, with a foreign touch about it. "There's only
myself and my uncle, Major Duplay--he'll be in directly, I expect--and
we've no more money than we want, Mr Sloyd."

Sloyd's eyes wandered round the large and handsome sitting-room in
Berridge's Hotel, where he found his client established.

"Oh, it doesn't matter for a few days," she added, detecting his idea
and smiling again.

This explanation of her position had the effect of making Sloyd's manner
rather less florid and his language less flowery.

"Among second-class but eminently genteel residences," he began, "I
could confidently recommend----"

"Where's this?" she interrupted, picking up another photograph, and
regarding it with apparent liking. Looking at the foot, she read aloud,
"Merrion Lodge, property of the Right Honorable Baroness Tristram of
Blent." She looked up sharply at Sloyd.

"Ye-es, ye-es," said Sloyd, without much enthusiasm. "A very pretty
neighborhood--a few miles from Blentmouth--rising place, Blentmouth. And
it's a cheap house--small, you see, and old-fashioned."

"Not hot and cold?" she asked with apparent innocence.

Sloyd smiled uncomfortably. "I could ascertain all that for you,
madame."

He waited for her to speak again, but she had turned thoughtful as she
sat fingering the photograph. Presently she smiled again and said, "Yes,
find out about Merrion Lodge for me, Mr Sloyd."

He began to gather up his pictures and papers.

"Is Baron Tristram alive?" she asked suddenly.

Sloyd recovered his air of superiority.

"Her ladyship is a peeress in her own right," he explained.

"She's not married then?"

"A widow, madame."

"And wasn't her husband Baron Tristram?"

"Her husband would not have been Lord--excuse me, madame, we say
Lord--Tristram of Blent. Her son will succeed to the title, of course.
The family reside at Blent Hall, only a few hundred yards from Merrion
Lodge, a picturesque mansion in the valley. The Lodge, you perceive,
stands high."

"I don't understand the family arrangements," remarked Madame Zabriska,
"but I daresay I shall learn it all if I go."

"If you had a 'Peerage,' madame----" he suggested, being himself rather
vague about the mysteries of a barony by writ.

"I'll get one from the waiter presently. Good-morning, Mr Sloyd."

Sloyd was making his bow when the door opened and a man came in. He was
tall, erect, and good-looking. Both air and manner were youthful,
although perhaps with a trace of artifice; he would pass for thirty-five
on a casual glance, but not after a longer one.

"My uncle, Major Duplay," said the little woman. "This is Mr Sloyd,
who's come about the house, uncle."

Duplay greeted the house-agent with grave courtesy, and entered into
conversation with him, while Madame Zabriska, relapsed again into an
alert silence, watched the pair.

The last thing that Madame Zabriska--the style sat oddly on her
child-like face and figure, but Mina Zabriska at the age of twenty-eight
had been a widow three years--desired to do was harm; the thing she best
loved to make was mischief. The essence of mischief lay for her--perhaps
for everybody--in curiosity; it was to put people in the situations in
which they least expected to find themselves, and to observe how they
comported themselves therein. As for hurting their interests or even
their feelings--no; she was certain that she did not want that; was she
not always terribly sorry when that happened, as it sometimes, and quite
unaccountably, did? She would weep then--but for their misfortune, be it
understood, not for any fault of hers. People did not always understand
her; her mother had understood her perfectly, and consequently had never
interfered with her ways. Mina loved a mystification too, and especially
to mystify uncle Duplay, who thought himself so clever--was clever
indeed as men went, she acknowledged generously; but men did not go far.
It would be fun to choose Merrion Lodge for her summer home, first
because her uncle would wonder why in the world she took it, and
secondly because she had guessed that somebody might be surprised to see
her there. So she laid her plan, even as she had played her tricks in
the days when she was an odd little girl, and Mr Cholderton, not liking
her, had with some justice christened her the Imp.

Major Duplay bowed Mr Sloyd to the door with the understanding that full
details of Merrion Lodge were to be furnished in a day or two. Coming
back to the hearth-rug he spoke to his niece in French, as was the
custom with the pair when they were alone.

"And now, dear Mina," said he, "what has made you set your mind on what
seems distinctly the least desirable of these houses?"

"It's the cheapest, I expect, and I want to economize."

"People always do as soon as they've got any money," reflected Duplay in
a puzzled tone. "If you were on half-pay as I am, you'd never want to do
it."

"Well, I've another reason." This was already saying more than she had
meant to say.

"Which you don't mean to tell me?"

"Certainly not."

With a shrug he took out his cigarette-case and handed it to her.

"You and your secrets!" he exclaimed good-humoredly. "Really, Mina, I
more than earn my keep by the pleasure I give you in not telling me
things. And then you go and do it!"

"Shan't this time," said Mr Cholderton's Imp, seeming not a day more
than ten, in spite of her smoking cigarette and her smart costume.

"Luckily I'm not curious--and I can trust you to do nothing wrong."

"Well, I suppose so," she agreed with scornful composure. "Did you ever
hear mother speak of a Mrs Fitzhubert?"

The major smiled under his heavy mustache as he answered, "Never."

"Well, I have," said Mina with a world of significance. "I heard her
first through the door," she added with a candid smile. "I was
listening."

"You often were in those days."

"Oh, I am still--but on the inside of the door now. And she told me
about it afterward of her own accord. But it wouldn't interest you,
uncle."

"Not in its present stage of revelation," he agreed, with a little yawn.

"The funny old Englishman--you never saw him, did you?--Mr
Cholderton--he knew her. He rather admired her too. He was there when
she rushed in and---- Never mind! I was there too--such a guy! I had
corkscrew curls, you know, and a very short frock, and very long--other
things. Oh, those frills!--And I suppose I really was the ugliest child
ever born. Old Cholderton hated me--he'd have liked to box my ears, I
know. But I think he was a little in love with Mrs Fitzhubert. Oh, I've
never asked for that 'Peerage!'"

Major Duplay had resigned himself to a patient endurance of inadequate
hints. His wits were not equal to putting together the pieces or
conducting a sort of "missing word," or missing link, exercise to a
triumphant issue. In time he would know all--supposing, that is, that
there were really anything to know. Meanwhile he was not curious about
other people's affairs; he minded his own business. Keeping young
occupied much of his time; and then there was always the question of how
it might prove possible to supplement the half-pay to which his years of
service in the Swiss Army entitled him; it was scanty, and but for his
niece's hospitality really insufficient. He thought that he was a clever
man, he had remained an honest man, and he saw no reason why Fortune
should not some day make him a comfortable man; she had never done so
yet, having sent him into the world as the fifth child of a Protestant
pastor in a French-speaking canton, and never having given him so much
as a well-to-do relative (even Madame de Kries' villa was on a modest
scale) until Mina married Adolf Zabriska and kept that gentleman's money
although she had the misfortune to lose his company. His death seemed to
Duplay at least no great calamity; that he had died childless did not
appear to have disappointed Mina and was certainly no ground of
complaint on her uncle's part.

Presumably Mr Sloyd's inquiries elicited satisfactory information;
perhaps Mina was not hard to please. At all events, a week later she and
the Major got out at Blentmouth station and found Sloyd himself waiting
to drive with them to Merrion Lodge; he had insisted on seeing them
installed; doubtless he was, as he put it, playing for the break again.
He sat in the landau with his back to the horses and pointed out the
features of interest on the road; his couple of days' stay in the
neighborhood seemed to have made him an old inhabitant.

"Five hundred population five years ago," he observed, waving his hand
over Blentmouth in patronizing encouragement. "Two thousand winter,
three five summer months now--largely due to William Iver, Esquire, of
Fairholme--we shall pass Fairholme directly--a wealthy gentleman who
takes great interest in the development of the town."

It was all Greek to the Major, but he nodded politely. Mina was looking
about her with keen eyes.

"That's Fairholme," Sloyd went on, as they came to a large and rather
new house situated on the skirts of Blentmouth. "Observe the
glass--those houses cost thousands of pounds--grows peaches all the
year, they tell me. At this point, Madame Zabriska, we turn and pursue
the road by the river." And so he ceased not to play guide-book till he
landed them at the door of Merrion Lodge itself, after a slow crawl of
a quarter of a mile uphill. Below them in the valley lay the little
Blent, sparkling in the sunshine of a summer afternoon, and beyond the
river, facing them on the opposite bank, no more perhaps than five
hundred yards away, was Blent Hall. Mina ran to the parapet of the
levelled terrace on which the Lodge stood, and looked down. Blent Hall
made three sides of a square of old red-brick masonry, with a tower in
the centre; it faced the river, and broad gravel-walks and broader lawns
of level close-shaven turf ran down to the water's edge.

"Among the minor seats of the nobility Blent is considered a very
perfect example," she heard Sloyd say to the Major, who was
unobtrusively but steadily urging him in the direction of the landau.
She turned to bid him good-by, and he came up to her, hat in hand.

"Thank you. I like the place," she said. "Do you--do you think we shall
make acquaintance with the people at Blent Hall?"

"Her ladyship's in poor health, I hear, but I should imagine she would
make an effort to call or at least send cards. Good-by, madame."

Duplay succeeded in starting the zealous man on his homeward journey and
then went into the house, Mina remaining still outside, engaged in the
contemplation of her new surroundings, above all of Blent Hall, which
was invested with a special interest for her eyes. It was the abode of
Mrs Fitzhubert.

With a little start she turned to find a young man standing just on the
other side of the parapet; she had not noticed his approach till he had
given a low cough to attract her attention. As he raised his hat her
quick vision took him in as it were in a complete picture--the thin yet
well-made body, the slight stoop in the shoulders, the high forehead
bordered with thick dark hair growing in such a shape that the brow
seemed to rise almost to a peak, a long nose, a sensitive mouth, a
pointed chin, dark eyes with downward lids. The young man--she would
have guessed him at twenty-two or three--had a complete composure of
manner; somehow she felt herself in the presence of the lord of the
soil--an absurd thing to feel, she told herself.

"Madame Zabriska? My mother, Lady Tristram, has sent me to bid you
welcome in her name, but not to disturb you by coming in so soon after
your journey. It is our tradition to welcome guests at the moment of
their arrival."

He spoke rather slowly, in a pleasant voice, but with something in his
air that puzzled Mina. It seemed like a sort of watchfulness--not a
slyness (that would have fitted so badly with the rest of him), but
perhaps one might say a wariness--whether directed against her or
himself it was too soon for her even to conjecture.

Still rather startled, she forgot to express her thanks, and said
simply:

"You're Mr Fitzhubert Tristram?"

"Mr Tristram," he corrected her; and she noticed now for the first time
the slow-moving smile which soon became his leading characteristic in
her thoughts. It took such a time to spread, it seemed to feel its way;
but it was a success when it came. "I use my father's name only as a
Christian name now. Tristram is my surname; that also, if I may repeat
myself, is one of our traditions."

"What, to change your names? The men, I mean?" she asked, laughing a
little.

"For anybody in the direct line to take the name of Tristram--so that,
in spite of the failure of male heirs from time to time, the Tristrams
of Blent should always be Tristrams, you know, and not Fitzhuberts, or
Leighs, or Merrions----"

"Merrion?"

"My great-great--I forget how many greats--grandfather was a Merrion
and----"

"Built this house?"

"Oh, no--a house where this stands. The old house was burnt down in
'95."

"As recently as that?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"1795," he explained, "and this house was run up then."

Mina felt that there was here a touch of pride; with a more complete
mastery of idiomatic English she might have called it "swagger." Nothing
counted that was less than a century old, it seemed, and he spoke of a
house of a hundred years' standing as she might of a wooden shanty.
Decidedly he was conscious of his position--over-conscious.

"I'm glad it was run up in time for us to take it," she said, thinking
she would try the effect of a little chaff.

The effect was nothing; Harry Tristram took no notice of the remark.

"I see," he observed, "from your calling me Fitzhubert that you've been
looking up our recent history."

"Oh, just what there is in the 'Peerage.'" Her look was mischievous now,
but she restrained herself from any hint of special knowledge. "I'll
tell you as much of ours some day."

She broke into a laugh, and then, carried away by the beauty of the
scene, the river and the stately peaceful old house by it, she stretched
out her hands toward Blent Hall, exclaiming:

"But we haven't anything like that in our history!"

He turned to look with her, and stood in silence for a minute or two.
Then he spoke softly.

"Yes, I love it," he said.

She glanced at him; his eyes were tender. Turning, he saw her glance. In
a moment he seemed to veil his eyes and to try to excuse the sentimental
tone of his remark by a matter-of-fact comment:

"But of course a man comes to like a place when he's been accustomed to
think of it as his home for all his life past and to come."

"What would you do if you lost it?" she asked.

"I've no intention of losing it," he answered, laughing, but looking
again from her and toward his home. "We've had it six hundred years; we
shan't lose it now, I think."

"No, I suppose not." He was holding out his hand. "Good-by, Mr Tristram.
May I come and thank your mother?"

"Oh, but she'll come here, if she's well enough."

"I'll save her the journey up the hill."

He bowed in courteous acceptance of her offer as he shook hands.

"You see the foot-bridge over the river there? There's a gate at each
end, but the gates are never locked, so you can reach us from the road
that way if you're walking. If you want to drive, you must go a quarter
of a mile higher up, just below the Pool. Good-by, Madame Zabriska."

Mina watched him all the way down the hill. He had made an impression on
her--an intellectual impression, not a sentimental one. There was
nothing of the boy about him, unless it were in that little flourish
over the antiquity of his house and its surroundings; even that might be
the usual thing--she had not seen enough of his class to judge. There
was too that love of the place which he had shown. Lastly, there was
the odd air of wariness and watching; such it seemed to her, and it
consented to seem nothing else.

"I wonder," she thought, "if he knows anything about Mrs Fitzhubert--and
I wonder if it would make any difference to him!" Memory carried her
back in an instant to the moment when she, Mr Cholderton's Imp, heard
that beautiful woman cry, "Think of the difference it makes, the
enormous difference!" She drew in her breath in a sudden gasp. An idea
had flashed into her mind, showing her for the first time the chance of
a situation which had never yet crossed her thoughts.

"Good gracious, is it possible that he couldn't keep it, or that his
mother couldn't give it to him, all the same?"




III

ON GUARD


Harry Tristram was just on twenty-three; to others, and to himself too
perhaps (if a man himself can attain any clear view), he seemed older.
Even the externals of his youth had differed from the common run. Sent
to school like other boys, he had come home from Harrow one Easter for
the usual short holiday. He had never returned; he had not gone to the
University; he had been abroad a good deal, travelling and studying, but
always in his mother's company. It was known that she was in bad health;
it was assumed that either she was very exacting or he very devoted,
since to separate him from her appeared impossible. Yet those who
observed them together saw no imperiousness on her part and no excess of
sentiment on his. Friendliness based on a thorough sympathy of mind was
his attitude if his demeanor revealed it truly; while Lady Tristram was
to her son as she was to all the world at this time, a creature of
feelings now half cold and of moods that reflected palely the intense
impulses of her youth. But a few years over forty, she grew faded and
faint in mind, it seemed, as well as in body, and was no longer a merry
comrade to the boy who never left her. Yet he did not wish to leave her.
To her, indeed, he was not a boy, and nobody about the place regarded
him as other than a man. He had been actually and effectively master of
the house for years, just as he was master of his own doings, of his
friendships, recreations, and pursuits. And he had managed all well,
except that he was not thought to be very happy or to get much enjoyment
from his life. That was just an idea he gave of himself, and gave
involuntarily--in spite of taking his fair share in the amusements of
the neighborhood, and holding his own well in its sports and athletics.
But he was considered cold and very reserved. Had Mina Zabriska
remembered this use of "reserve," perhaps she would have employed the
word instead of "wariness." Or perhaps, if his acquaintances had looked
more keenly, they would have come over to Mina's side and found her term
the more accurate. She spoke from a fresher and sharper impression of
him.

His childhood at least had been happy, while Lady Tristram was still the
bewilderingly delightful companion who had got into so much hot water
and made so many people eager to get in after her. Joy lasted with her
as long as health did, and her health began to fail only when her son
approached fifteen. Another thing happened about then, which formed the
prelude to the most vivid scene in the boy's life. Lady Tristram was not
habitually a religious woman; that temper of mind was too abstract for
her; she moved among emotions and images, and had small dealings with
meditation or spiritual conceptions. But happening to be in a mood that
laid her open to the influence, she heard in London one day a sermon
preached by a young man famous at the time, a great searcher of
fashionable hearts. She drove straight from the church (it was a Friday
morning) to Paddington and took the first train home. Harry was
there--back from school for his holiday--and she found him in the
smoking-room, weighing a fish which he had caught in the pool that the
Blent forms above the weir. There and then she fell on her knees on the
floor and poured forth to him the story of that Odyssey of hers which
had shocked London society and is touched upon in Mr Cholderton's
Journal. He listened amazed, embarrassed, puzzled up to a point; a boy's
normal awkwardness was raised to its highest pitch; he did not want to
hear his mother call herself a wicked woman; and anyhow it was a long
while ago, and he did not understand it all very well. The woman lifted
her eyes and looked at him; she was caught by the luxury of confession,
of humiliation, of offering her back to the whip. She told him he was
not her heir--that he would not be Tristram of Blent. For a moment she
laid her head on the floor at his feet. She heard no sound from him, and
presently looked up at him again. His embarrassment had gone; he was
standing rigidly still, his eyes gazing out toward the river, his
forehead wrinkled in a frown. He was thinking. She went on kneeling
there, saying no more, staring at her son. It was characteristic of her
that she did not risk diminishing the effectiveness of the scene, or the
tragedy of her avowal, by explaining the perverse accident owing to
which her fault had entailed such an aggravation of evil. Harry learnt
that later.

Later--and in a most different sort of interview. From the first Harry
had no thought of surrender; his mother had none either as soon as she
had forgotten her preacher. The discussion was resumed after a week
(Lady Tristram had spent the interval in bed) on a business footing. She
found in him the same carelessness of the world and its obligations that
there was in herself, but found it carried to the point of scorn and
allied to a tenacity of purpose and a keenness of vision which she had
never owned. Not a reproach escaped him--less, she thought, from
generosity than because he chose to concentrate his mind on something
useful. It was no use lamenting the past; it might be possible to undo
it for all practical purposes. The affair was never again referred to
between them except as a factor recommending or dictating some course of
action; its private side--its revelation of her and its effect (or what
might have been its effect) on his feelings toward her--was never spoken
of. Lady Tristram thought that the effect was nothing, and the
revelation not very surprising to her son. He accepted without argument
her own view--that she had done nothing very strange but had fallen on
very bad luck. But he told her at once that he was not going back to
Harrow. She understood; she agreed to be watched, she abdicated her
rule, she put everything in his hands and obeyed him.

Thus, at fifteen, Harry Tristram took up his burden and seemed to take
up his manhood too. He never wavered; he always assumed that right and
justice were on his side, that he was not merely justified in holding
his place but bound in duty to keep it. Such practical steps as could be
taken were taken. The confederates set no limit to their preparations
against danger and their devices to avoid detection. If lies were
necessary, they would lie; where falsification was wanted, they
falsified. There was no suspicion; not a hint of it had reached their
ears. Things were so quiet that Lady Tristram often forgot the whole
affair; her son watched always, his eyes keen for a sight, his ear down
to the earth for a sound, of danger. No security relaxed his vigilance,
but his vigilance became so habitual, so entered into him, that his
mother ceased to notice it and it became a second nature to himself.
That it might miss nothing, it was universal; the merest stranger came
within its ken. He watched all mankind lest some one among men should be
seeking to take his treasure from him. Mr Cholderton's Imp had not used
her eyes in vain; but Harry's neighbors, content to call him reserved,
had no idea that there was anything in particular that he had to hide.

There was one little point which, except for his persuasion of his own
rectitude, might have seemed to indicate an uneasy conscience, but was
in fact only evidence of a natural dislike to having an unwelcome
subject thrust under his notice. About a year after the disclosure Lady
Tristram had a letter from Mr Gainsborough. This gentleman had married
her cousin, and the cousin, a woman of severe principles, had put an end
to all acquaintance in consequence of the "Odyssey." She was dead, and
her husband proposed to renew friendly relations, saying that his
daughter knew nothing of past differences and was anxious to see her
kinsfolk. The letter was almost gushing, and Lady Tristram, left to
herself, would have answered it in the same kind; for while she had
pleased herself she bore no resentment against folk who had blamed her.
Moreover Gainsborough was poor, and somebody had told her that the girl
was pleasant; she pitied poverty and liked being kind to pleasant
people.

"Shall we invite them to stay for a week or two?" she had asked.

"Never," he said. "They shall never come here. I don't want to know
them, I won't see them." His face was hard, angry, and even outraged at
the notion.

His mother said no more. If the barony and Blent departed from Harry, on
Lady Tristram's death they would go to Cecily Gainsborough. If Harry had
his way, that girl should not even see his darling Blent. If distrust of
his mother entered at all into his decision, if he feared any indiscreet
talk from her, he gave no hint of it. It was enough that the girl had
some odious pretensions which he could and would defeat but could not
ignore--pretensions for his mind, in her own she had none.

The sun had sunk behind the tower, and Lady Tristram sat in a low chair
by the river, enjoying the cool of the evening. The Blent murmured as it
ran; the fishes were feeding; the midges were out to feed, but they did
not bite Lady Tristram; they never did; the fact had always been a
comfort to her, and may perhaps be allowed here to assume a mildly
allegorical meaning. If the cool of the evening may do the same, it will
serve very well to express the stage of life and of feeling to which no
more than the beginning of middle age had brought her. It was rather
absurd, but she did not want to do or feel very much more; and it seemed
as though her wishes were to be respected. A certain distance from
things marked her now; only Harry was near to her, only Harry's triumph
was very important. She had outrun her vital income and mortgaged future
years; if foreclosure threatened, she maintained her old power of taking
no heed of disagreeable things, however imminent. She was still very
handsome and wished to go on being that to the end; fortunately
fragility had always been her style and always suited her.

Harry leant his elbow on a great stone vase which stood on a pedestal
and held a miniature wilderness of flowers.

"I lunched at Fairholme," he was saying. "The paint's all wet still, of
course, and the doors stick a bit, but I liked the family. He's genuine,
she's homely, and Janie's a good girl. They were very civil."

"I suppose so."

"Not overwhelmed," he added, as though wishing to correct a wrong
impression which yet might reasonably have arisen.

"I didn't mean that. I've met Mr Iver, and he wasn't at all
overwhelmed. Mrs Iver was--out--when I called, and I was--out--when she
called." Lady Tristram was visibly, although not ostentatiously,
allowing for the prejudices of a moral middle-class.

"Young Bob Broadley was there--you know who I mean? At Mingham Farm, up
above the Pool."

"I know--a handsome young man."

"I forgot he was handsome. Of course you know him then! What a pity I'm
not handsome, mother!"

"Oh, you've the air, though," she observed contentedly. "Is he after
Janie Iver?"

"So I imagine. I'm not sure that I'm not too. Have I any chance against
Bob Broadley?"

She did not seem to take him seriously.

"They wouldn't look at Mr Broadley." (She was pleasantly punctilious
about all titles and courteous methods of reference or address.) "Janie
Iver's a great heiress."

"And what about me?" he insisted, as he lit his pipe and sat down
opposite her.

"You mean it, Harry?"

"There's no reason why I shouldn't marry, is there?"

"Why, you must marry, of course. But----"

"We can do the blue blood business enough for both."

"Yes, I didn't mean that."

"You mean--am I at all in love with her?"

"No, not quite. Oh, my dear Harry, I mean wouldn't you like to be in
love a little with somebody? You could do it after you marry, of course,
and you certainly will if you marry now, but it's not so--so
comfortable." She looked at him with a sort of pity: her feeling was
that he gave himself no holidays.

He sat silent a moment seeming to consider some picture which her
suggestion conjured up.

"No good waiting for that," was his conclusion. "Somehow if I married
and had children, it would seem to make everything more settled." His
great pre-occupation was on him again. "We could do with some more money
too," he added, "and, as I say, I'm inclined to like the girl."

"What's she like?"

"What you call a fine girl--tall--well made----"

"She'll be fat some day, I expect."

"Straight features, broadish face, dark, rather heavy brows--you know
the sort of thing."

"Oh, Harry, I hate all that!"

"I don't; I rather like it." He was smoking meditatively, and jerked out
what he had to say between the puffs. "I shouldn't like to mortgage
Blent," he went on a moment later.

"Mortgage Blent? What for?"

He raised a hand to ask to be heard out. "But I should like to feel that
I could at any moment lay my hand on a big lump of ready money--say
fifty, or even a hundred, thousand pounds. I should like to be able to
pull it out of my breeches' pocket and say, 'Take that and hold your
tongue!'" He looked at her to see if she followed what was in his mind.
"I think they'd take it," he ended. "I mean if things got as far as
that, you know."

"You mean the Gainsboroughs?"

"Yes. Oh, anybody else would be cheaper than that. Fifty thousand would
be better than a very doubtful case. But it would have to be done
directly--before a word was heard about it. I should like to live with
the check by me."

He spoke very simply, as another man might speak of being ready to meet
an improvement-rate or an application from an impecunious brother.

"Don't you think it would be a good precaution?" he asked. Whether he
meant the marriage, the check, or the lady, was immaterial; it came to
the same thing.

"It's all very troublesome," Lady Tristram complained. "It really half
spoils our lives, doesn't it, Harry? One always has to be worrying."

The smile whose movements had excited Mina Zabriska's interest made its
appearance on Harry's face. He had never been annoyed by his mother's
external attitude toward the result of her own doings, but he was often
amused at it.

"Why do you smile?" she asked innocently.

"Well, worrying's a mild term," he explained evasively. "It's my work in
the world, you know--or it seems as if it was going to be."

"You'd better think about it," Lady Tristram concluded, not wishing to
think about it any more herself. "You wouldn't tell Mr Iver anything
about the difficulty, would you?" "The difficulty" had become her usual
way of referring to their secret.

"Not a word. I'm not called upon to justify my position to Iver." No
shadow of doubt softened the clearness of Harry's conviction on this
point.

He rose, filled his pipe again, and began to walk up and down. He was at
his old game, counting chances, one by one, every chance, trying to
eliminate risks, one by one, every risk, so that at last he might take
his ease and say without fear of contradiction, "Here sits Tristram of
Blent." To be thus was--something; but to be safely thus was so much
more that it did not seem to him a great thing to carry out the plan
which he had suggested to Lady Tristram. To be sure, he was not in love
with anybody else, which makes a difference, though it is doubtful
whether it would have made any to him. Had the question arisen at that
moment he would have said that nothing could make any difference.

"Did you go up to the Lodge, Harry?" his mother called to him as one of
his turns brought him near her.

"Oh, yes; I forgot to tell you. I did, and I found Madame Zabriska
having a look at us from the terrace, so I had a little talk with her. I
didn't see the uncle."

"What's she like?" This was a favorite question of Lady Tristram's.

Harry paused a moment, looking for a description.

"Well, if you can imagine one needle with two very large eyes, you'd get
some idea of her. She's sharp, mother--mind and body. Pleasant enough
though. She's coming to see you, so you needn't bother to go up." He
added with an air of impatience, "She's been hunting in the Peerage."

"Of course she would; there's nothing in that."

"No, I suppose not," he admitted almost reluctantly.

"I can't help thinking I've heard the name before--not Zabriska, but the
uncle's."

"Duplay, isn't it? I never heard it."

"Well, I can't remember anything about it, but it sounds familiar. I'm
confusing it with something else, I suppose. They look like being
endurable, do they?"

"Oh, yes, as people go," he answered, resuming his walk.

If a determination to keep for yourself what according to your own
conviction belongs by law to another makes a criminal intent--and that
irrespective of the merits of the law--it would be hard to avoid
classing Lady Tristram and her son as criminals in contemplation, if not
yet in action. And so considered they afforded excellent specimens of
two kinds of criminals which a study of assize courts reveals--the
criminal who drifts and the criminal who plans; the former usually
termed by counsel and judge "unhappy," the latter more sternly dubbed
"dangerous." Lady Tristram had always drifted and was drifting still;
Harry had begun to plan at fifteen and still was busy planning. One
result of this difference was that whereas she was hardly touched or
affected in character he had been immensely influenced. In her and to
her the whole thing seemed almost accidental, a worry, as she put it,
and not much more; with him it was the governing fact in life, and had
been the force most potent in moulding him. The trouble came into her
head when something from outside put it there; it never left his brain.
And she had no adequate conception of what it was to him. Even his
scheme of marrying Janie Iver and his vivid little phrase about living
with the check by him failed to bring it home to her. This very evening,
as soon as he was out of sight, both he and his great question were out
of the mind of the woman who had brought both him and it into existence.
There are people who carry the doctrine of free-will so far in their own
persons as to take the liberty of declining to allow causes to work on
and in them, what are logically, morally, and on every other ground
conceivable, their necessary effects; reasoning from what they have done
to what they must be, from what they have been responsible for to what
they must feel, breaks down; they are arbitrary, unconditioned,
themselves as it were accidental. With this comes a sort of innocence,
sometimes attractive, sometimes uncommonly exasperating to the normal
man.

So Lady Tristram went back to her novel, and Harry walked by the river,
moodily meditating and busily scheming. Meanwhile Mina Zabriska had
flown to the library at Merrion Lodge, and, finding books that had
belonged to a legal member of the family in days gone by, was engaged
in studying the law relating to the succession to lands and titles in
England. She did not make quick progress. Nevertheless in a day or two
she had reached a point when she was bubbling over with curiosity and
excitement; she felt that she could not go on sitting opposite Major
Duplay at meals without giving him at least a hint or two of the
wonderful state of things on which she had hit, and without asking him
to consider the facts and to have a look at the books which were so
puzzling and exercising her brain. Yet Harry Tristram, wary sentinel as
he was, did not dream of any attack or scent any danger from the needle
with two very large eyes, as he had called the lady at Merrion Lodge.




IV

SHE COULD AN' SHE WOULD


In spite of Mrs Iver's secret opinion that people with strange names
were likely to be strange themselves, and that, for all she saw,
foreigners were--not fools, as Dr Johnson's friend thought--but
generally knaves, an acquaintance was soon made between Fairholme and
Merrion Lodge. Her family was against Mrs Iver; her husband was
boundlessly hospitable, Janie was very sociable. The friendship grew and
prospered. Mr Iver began to teach the Major to play golf. Janie took
Mina Zabriska out driving in the highest dog-cart on the countryside:
they would go along the road by the river, and get out perhaps for a
wander by the Pool, or even drive higher up the valley and demand tea
from Bob Broadley at his pleasant little place--half farm, half
manor-house--at Mingham, three miles above the Pool. Matters moved so
quick that Mina understood in a week why Janie found it pleasant to have
a companion under whose ægis she could drop in at Mingham; in little
more than a fortnight she began to understand why her youthful uncle
(the Major was very young now) grunted unsympathetically when she
observed that the road to Mingham was the prettiest in the neighborhood.
The Imp was accumulating other people's secrets, and was accordingly in
a state of high satisfaction.

The situation developed fast, and for the time at least Janie Iver was
heroine and held the centre of the stage. A chance of that state of
comfort which was his remaining and modest ambition had opened before
the Major--and the possibility of sharing it with a congenial partner:
the Major wasted no time in starting his campaign. Overtures from Blent,
more stately but none the less prompt, showed that Harry Tristram had
not spoken idly to his mother. And what about Bob Broadley? He seemed to
be out of the running, and indeed to have little inclination, or not
enough courage, to press forward. Yet the drives to Mingham went on.
Mina was puzzled. She began to observe the currents in the Fairholme
household. Iver was for Harry, she thought, though he maintained a
dignified show of indifference; Mrs Iver--the miraculous occurring in a
fortnight, as it often does--was at least very much taken with the
Major. Bob Broadley had no friend, unless in Janie herself. And Janie
was inscrutable by virtue of an open pleasure in the attention of all
three gentlemen and an obvious disinclination to devote herself
exclusively to any one of them. She could not flirt with Harry Tristram,
because he had no knowledge of the art, but she accepted his significant
civilities. She did flirt with the Major, who had many years' experience
of the pastime. And she was kind to Bob Broadley, going to see him, as
has been said, sending him invitations, and seeming in some way to be
fighting against his own readiness to give up the battle before it was
well begun. But it is hard to help a man who will not help himself; on
the other hand, it is said to be amusing sometimes.

They all met at Fairholme one afternoon, Harry appearing unexpectedly as
the rest were at tea on the lawn. This was his first meeting with the
Major. As he greeted that gentleman, even more when he shook hands with
Bob, there was a touch of regality in his manner; the reserve was
prominent, and his prerogative was claimed. Very soon he carried Janie
off for a solitary walk in the shrubberies. Mina enjoyed her uncle's
frown and chafed at Bob's self-effacement; he had been talking to Janie
when Harry calmly took her away. The pair were gone half an hour, and
conversation flagged. They reappeared, Janie looking rather excited,
Harry almost insolently calm, and sat down side by side. The Major
walked across and took a vacant seat on the other side of Janie. The
slightest look of surprise showed on Harry Tristram's face. A duel
began. Duplay had readiness, suavity, volubility, a trick of flattering
deference; on Harry's side were a stronger suggestion of power and an
assumption, rather attractive, that he must be listened to. Janie liked
this air of his, even while she resented it; here, in his own county at
least, a Tristram of Blent was somebody. Bob Broadley was listening to
Iver's views on local affairs; he was not in the fight at all, but he
was covertly watching it. Perhaps Iver watched too, but it was not easy
to penetrate the thoughts of that astute man of business. The fortune of
battle seemed to incline to Harry's side; the Major was left out of the
talk for minutes together. More for fun than from any loyalty to her
kinsman, Mina rose and walked over to Harry.

"Do take me to see the greenhouses, Mr Tristram," she begged. "You're
all right with uncle, aren't you, Janie?"

Janie nodded rather nervously. After a pause of a full half-minute,
Harry Tristram rose without a word and began to walk off; it was left
for Mina to join him in a hurried little run.

"Oh, wait for me, anyhow," she cried, with a laugh.

They walked on some way in silence.

"You're not very conversational, Mr Tristram, I suppose you're angry
with me?"

He turned and looked at her. Presently he began to smile, even more
slowly, it seemed, than usual.

"I must see that my poor uncle has fair play--what do you call it?--a
fair show--mustn't I?"

"Oh, that's what you meant, Madame Zabriska? It wasn't the pleasure of
my company?"

"Do you know, I think you rather exaggerate the pleasure--no, not the
pleasure, I mean the honor--of your company? You were looking as if you
couldn't understand how anybody could want to talk to uncle when you
were there. But he's better-looking than you are, and much more
amusing."

"I don't set up for a beauty or a wit either," Harry observed, not at
all put out by the Imp's premeditated candor.

"No--and still she ought to want to talk to you! Why? Because you're Mr
Tristram, I suppose?" Mina indulged in a very scornful demeanor.

"It's very friendly of you to resent my behavior on Miss Iver's behalf."

"There you are again! That means she doesn't resent it! I think you give
yourself airs, Mr Tristram, and I should like----"

"To take me down a peg?" he asked, in a tone of rather contemptuous
amusement.

She paused a minute, and then nodded significantly.

"Exactly; and to make you feel a little uncomfortable--not quite so sure
of yourself and everything about you." Again she waited a minute, her
eyes set on his face and watching it keenly. "I wonder if I could," she
ended slowly.

"Upon my word, I don't see how it's to be done." He was openly chaffing
her now.

"Oh, I don't know that you're invulnerable," she said, with a toss of
her head. "Don't defy me, Mr Tristram. I don't mind telling you that it
would be very good for you if you weren't----"

"Appreciated?" he suggested ironically.

"No; I was going to say if you weren't Mr Tristram, or the future Lord
Tristram of Blent."

If she had hoped to catch him off his guard, she was mistaken. Not a
quiver passed over his face as he remarked:

"I'm afraid Providence can hardly manage that now, either for my good or
for your amusement, Madame Zabriska, much as it might conduce to both."

The Imp loved fighting, and her blood was getting up. He was a good foe,
but he did not know her power. He must not either--not yet, anyhow. If
he patronized her much more, she began to feel that he would have to
know it some day--not to his hurt, of course; merely for the reformation
of his manners.

"Meanwhile," he continued, as he lit a cigarette, "I'm not seriously
disappointed that attentions paid to one lady fail to please another.
That's not uncommon, you know. By the way, we're not on the path to the
greenhouses; but you don't mind that? They were a pretext, no doubt? Oh,
I don't want to hurry back. Your uncle shall have his fair show. How
well you're mastering English!"

At this moment Mina hated him heartily; she swore to humble him--before
herself, not before the world, of course; she would give him a fright
anyhow--not now, but some day; if her temper could not stand the strain
better, it would be some day soon, though.

"You see," Harry's calm exasperating voice went on, "it's just possible
that you're better placed at present as an observer of our manners than
as a critic of them. I hope I don't exceed the limits of candor which
you yourself indicated as allowable in this pleasant conversation of
ours?"

"Oh well, we shall see," she declared, with another nod. The vague
threat (for it seemed that or nothing) elicited a low laugh from Harry
Tristram.

"We shall," he said. "And in the meantime a little sparring is amusing
enough. I don't confess to a hit at present; do you, Madame Zabriska?"

Mina did not confess, but she felt the hit all the same; if she were to
fight him, she must bring her reserves into action.

"By the way, I'm so sorry you couldn't see my mother when you called the
other day. She's not at all well, unhappily. She really wants to see
you."

"How very kind of Lady Tristram!" There was kept for the mother a little
of the sarcastic humility which was more appropriate when directed
against the son. Harry smiled still as he turned round and began to
escort her back to the lawn. The smile annoyed Mina; it was a smile of
victory. Well, the victory should not be altogether his.

"I want to see Lady Tristram very much," she went on, in innocent tones
and with a face devoid of malice, "because I can't help thinking I must
have seen her before--when I was quite a little girl."

"You've seen my mother before? When and where?"

"She was Mrs Fitzhubert, wasn't she?"

"Yes, of course she was--before she came into the title."

"Well, a Mrs Fitzhubert used to come and see my mother long ago at
Heidelberg. Do you know if your mother was ever at Heidelberg?"

"I fancy she was--I'm not sure."

Still the Imp was very innocent, although the form of Harry's reply
caused her inward amusement and triumph.

"My mother was Madame de Kries. Ask Lady Tristram if she remembers the
name."

It was a hit for her at last, though Harry took it well. He turned
quickly toward her, opened his lips to speak, repented, and did no more
than give her a rather long and rather intense look. Then he nodded
carelessly. "All right, I'll ask her," said he. The next moment he put a
question. "Did you know about having met her before you came to
Merrion?"

"Oh well, I looked in the 'Peerage,' but it really didn't strike me till
a day or two ago that it might be the same Mrs Fitzhubert. The name's
pretty common, isn't it?"

"No, it's very uncommon."

"Oh, I didn't know," murmured Mina apologetically; but the glance which
followed him as he turned away was not apologetic; it was triumphant.

She got back in time to witness--to her regret (let it be confessed) she
could not overhear--Janie's farewell to Bob Broadley. They had been
friends from youth; he was "Bob" to her, she was now to him "Miss
Janie."

"You haven't said a word to me, Bob."

"I haven't had a chance; you're always with the swells now."

"How can I help it, if--if nobody else comes?"

"I really shouldn't have the cheek. Harry Tristram was savage enough
with the Major--what would he have been with me?"

"Why should it matter what he was?"

"Do you really think that, Miss Janie?" Bob was almost at the point of
an advance.

"I mean--why should it matter to you?"

The explanation checked the advance.

"Oh, I--I see. I don't know, I'm sure. Well then, I don't know how to
deal with him."

"Well, good-by."

"Good-by, Miss Janie."

"Are you coming to see us again, ever?"

"If you ask me, I----"

"And am I coming again to Mingham? Although you don't ask me."

"Will you really?"

"Oh, you do ask me? When I ask you to ask me!"

"Any day you'll----"

"No, I'll surprise you. Good-by. Good-by really."

The conversation, it must be admitted, sounds commonplace when verbally
recorded. Yet he would be a despondent man who considered it altogether
discouraging; Mina did not think Janie's glances discouraging either.
But Bob Broadley, a literal man, found no warrant for fresh hope in any
of the not very significant words which he repeated to himself as he
rode home up the valley of the Blent. He suffered under modesty; it
needed more than coquetry to convince him that he exercised any
attraction over the rich and brilliant (brilliance also is a matter of
comparison) Miss Iver, on whose favor Mr Tristram waited and at whose
side Major Duplay danced attendance.

"You're a dreadful flirt, Janie," said Mina, as she kissed her friend.

Janie was not a raw girl; she was a capable young woman of
two-and-twenty.

"Nonsense," she said rather crossly. "It's not flirting to take time to
make up your mind."

"It looks like it, though."

"And I've no reason to suppose they've any one of them made up their
minds."

"I should think you could do that for them pretty soon. Besides, uncle
has, anyhow."

"I'm to be your aunt, am I?"

"Oh, he's only an uncle by accident."

"Yes, I think that's true. Shall we have a drive soon?"

"To Mingham? Or to Blent Hall?"

"Not Blent. I wait my lord's pleasure to see me."

"Yes, that's just how I feel about him," cried Mina eagerly.

"But all the same----"

"No, I won't hear a word of good about him. I hate him!"

Janie smiled in an indulgent but rather troubled way. Her problem was
serious; she could not afford the Imp's pettish treatment of the world
and the people in it. Janie had responsibilities--banks and buildings
full of them--and a heart to please into the bargain. Singularly
complicated questions are rather cruelly put before young women, who
must solve them on peril of---- It would sound like exaggeration to say
what.

There was Mrs Iver to be said good-by to--plump, peaceful, proper Mrs
Iver, whom nothing had great power to stir save an unkindness and an
unconventionality; before either of these she bristled surprisingly.

"I hope you've all enjoyed this lovely afternoon," she said to Mina.

"Oh, yes, we have, Mrs Iver--not quite equally perhaps, but still----"

Mrs Iver sighed and kissed her.

"Men are always the difficulty, aren't they?" said the Imp.

"Poor child, and you've lost yours!"

"Yes, poor Adolf!" There was a touch of duty in Mina's sigh. She had
been fond of Adolf, but his memory was not a constant presence. The
world for the living was Madame Zabriska's view.

"I'm so glad Janie's found a friend in you--and a wise one, I'm sure."

Mina did her best to look the part thus charitably assigned to her; her
glance at Janie was matronly, almost maternal.

"Not that I know anything about it," Mrs Iver pursued, following a train
of thought obvious enough. "I hope she'll act for her happiness, that's
all. There's the dear Major looking for you--don't keep him waiting,
dear. How lucky he's your uncle--he can always be with you."

"Until he settles and makes a home for himself," smiled Mina
irrepressibly; the rejuvenescence--nay, the unbroken youth--of her
relative appeared to her quaintly humorous, and it was her fancy to
refer to him as she might to a younger brother.

There was Mr Iver to be said good-by to.

"Come again soon--you're always welcome; you wake us up, Madame
Zabriska."

"You promised to say Mina!"

"So I did, but my tongue's out of practice with young ladies' Christian
names. Why, I call my wife 'Mother'--only Janie says I mustn't. Yes,
come and cheer us up. I shall make the uncle a crack player before long.
Mustn't let him get lazy and spend half the day over five o'clock tea,
though."

This was hardly a hint, but it was an indication of the trend of Mr
Iver's thoughts. So it was a dangerous ball, and that clever little
cricketer, the Imp, kept her bat away from it. She laughed; that
committed her to nothing--and left Iver to bowl again.

"It's quite a change to find Harry Tristram at a tea-party, though!
Making himself pleasant too!"

"Not to me," observed Mina decisively.

"You chaffed him, I expect. He stands a bit on his dignity. Ah well,
he's young, you see."

"No, he chaffed me. Oh, I think I--I left off even, you know."

"They get a bit spoilt." He seemed to be referring to the aristocracy.
"But there's plenty of stuff in him, or I'm much mistaken. He's a born
fighter, I think."

"I wonder!" said Mina, her eyes twinkling again.

Finally there was the Major to be walked home with--not a youthful
triumphant Major, but a rather careworn, undisguisedly irritated one. If
Mina wanted somebody to agree with her present mood about Harry
Tristram, her longing was abundantly gratified. The Major roundly termed
him an overbearing young cub, and professed a desire--almost an
intention--to teach him better manners. This coincidence of views was a
sore temptation to the Imp; to resist it altogether would seem
superhuman.

"I should like to cut his comb for him," growled Duplay.

Whatever the metaphor adopted, Mina was in essential agreement. She
launched on an account of how Harry had treated her: they fanned one
another's fires, and the flames burnt merrily.

Mina's stock of discretion was threatened with complete consumption.
From open denunciations she turned to mysterious hintings.

"I could bring him to reason if I liked," she said.

"What, make him fall in love with you?" cried Duplay, with a surprise
not very complimentary.

"Oh no," she laughed; "better than that--by a great deal."

He eyed her closely: probably this was only another of her whimsical
tricks, with which he was very familiar; if he showed too much interest
she would laugh at him for being taken in. But she had hinted before
to-day's annoyances; she was hinting again. He had yawned at her hints
till he became Harry Tristram's rival; he was ready to be eager now, if
only he could be sure that they pointed to anything more than folly or
delusion.

"Oh, my dear child," he exclaimed, "you mustn't talk nonsense. We mayn't
like him, but what in the world could you do to him?"

"I don't want to hurt him, but I should like to make him sing small."

They had just reached the foot of the hill. Duplay waved his arm across
the river toward the hall. Blent looked strong and stately.

"That's a big task, my dear," he said, recovering some of his good-humor
at the sight of Mina's waspish little face. "I fancy it'll need a bigger
man than you to make Tristram of Blent sing small." He laughed at her
indulgently. "Or than me either, I'm afraid," he added, with a
ruefulness that was not ill-tempered. "We must fight him in fair fight,
that's all."

"He doesn't fight fair," she cried angrily. The next instant she broke
into her most malicious smile. "Tristram of Blent!" she repeated. "Oh
well----"

"Mina, dear, do you know you rather bore me? If you mean anything at
all----"

"I may mean what I like without telling you, I suppose?"

"Certainly--but don't ask me to listen."

"You think it's all nonsense?"

"I do, my dear," confessed the Major.

How far he spoke sincerely he himself could hardly tell. Perhaps he had
an alternative in his mind: if she meant nothing, she would hold her
peace and cease to weary him; if she meant anything real, his challenge
would bring it out. But for the moment she had fallen into thought.

"No, he doesn't fight fair," she repeated, as though to herself. She
glanced at her uncle in a hesitating, undecided way. "And he's
abominably rude," she went on, with a sudden return of pettishness.

The Major's shrug expressed an utter exhaustion of patience, a scornful
irritation, almost a contempt for her. She could not endure it; she must
justify herself, revenge herself at a blow on Harry for his rudeness and
on her uncle for his scepticism. The triumph would be sweet; she could
not for the moment think of any seriousness in what she did. She could
not keep her victory to herself; somebody else now must look on at
Harry's humiliation, at least must see that she had power to bring it
about. With the height of malicious exultation she looked up at Duplay
and said:

"Suppose he wasn't Tristram of Blent at all?"

Duplay stopped short where he stood--on the slope of the hill above
Blent itself.

"What? Is this more nonsense?"

"No, it isn't nonsense."

He looked at her steadily, almost severely. Under his regard her smile
disappeared; she grew uncomfortable.

"Then I must know more about it. Come, Mina, this is no trifle, you
know."

"I shan't tell you any more," she flashed out, in a last effort of
petulance.

"You must," he said calmly. "All you know, all you think. Come, we'll
have it out now at once."

She followed like a naughty child. She could have bitten her tongue out,
as the old phrase goes. Her feelings went round like a weather-cock; she
was ashamed of herself, sorry for Harry--yes, and afraid of Harry. And
she was afraid of Duplay too. She had run herself into something
serious--that she saw; something serious in which two resolute men were
involved. She did not know where it would end. But now she could not
resist. The youthful uncle seemed youthful no more; he was old, strong,
authoritative. He made her follow him, and he bade her speak.

She followed, like the naughty child she now seemed even to herself; and
presently, in the library, beside those wretched books of hers, her old
law-books and her Peerages, reluctantly, stumblingly, sullenly, still
like the naughty child who would revolt but dare not, she spoke. And
when at last he let her go with her secret told, she ran up to her own
room and threw herself on the bed, sobbing. She had let herself in for
something dreadful. It was all her own fault--and she was very sorry.

Those were her two main conclusions.

Her whole behavior was probably just what the gentleman to whom she owed
her nickname would have expected and prophesied.




V

THE FIRST ROUND


Within the last few days there were ominous rumors afloat as to Lady
Tristram's health. It was known that she could see nobody and kept her
room; it was reported that the doctors (a specialist had been down from
town) were looking very grave; it was agreed that her constitution had
not the strength to support a prolonged strain. There was sympathy--the
neighborhood was proud in its way of Lady Tristram--and there was the
usual interest to which the prospect of a death and a succession gives
rise. They canvassed Harry's probable merits and demerits, asking how he
would fill the vacant throne, and, more particularly, whether he would
be likely to entertain freely. Lavish hospitality at Blent would mean
much to their neighborhood, and if it were indeed the case (as was now
prophesied in whispers) that Miss Iver of Fairholme was to be mistress
at the Hall, there would be nothing to prevent the hospitalities from
being as splendid as the mind of woman could conceive. There were
spinster ladies in small villas at Blentmouth who watched the illness
and the courtship as keenly as though they were to succeed the sick Lady
Tristram and to marry the new Lord. Yet a single garden-party in the
year would represent pretty accurately their personal stake in the
matter. If you live on crumbs, a good big crumb is not to be despised.

Harry Tristram was sorry that his mother must die and that he must lose
her; the confederates had become close friends, and nobody who knew her
intimately could help feeling that his life and even the world would be
poorer by the loss of a real, if not striking, individuality. But
neither he nor she thought of her death as the main thing; it no more
than ushered in the great event for which they had spent years
preparing. And he was downright glad that she could see no visitors;
that fact saved him added anxieties, and spared her the need of being
told about Mina Zabriska and warned to bear herself warily toward the
daughter of Madame de Kries. Harry did not ask his mother whether she
remembered the name--the question was unnecessary; nor did he tell his
mother that one who had borne the name was at Merrion Lodge. He waited,
vaguely expecting that trouble would come from Merrion, but entirely
confident in his ability to fight, and worst, the tricky little woman
whom he had not feared to snub; and in his heart he thought well of her,
and believed she had as little inclination to hurt him as she seemed to
have power. His only active step was to pursue his attentions to Janie
Iver.

Yet he was not happy about his attentions. He meant to marry the girl,
and thought she would marry him. He did not believe that she was
inclined to fall in love with him. He had no right to expect it, since
he was not falling in love with her. But it hurt that terrible pride of
his; he was in a way disgusted with the part he had chosen, and
humiliated to think that he might not be accepted for himself. A refusal
would have hurt him incalculably; such an assent as he counted upon
would wound him somewhat too. He had keen eyes, and he had formed his
own opinion about Bob Broadley. None the less, he held straight on his
course; and the spinster ladies were a little shocked to observe that
Lady Tristram's illness did not interfere at all with her son's
courtship; people in that position of life were certainly curious.

A new vexation had come upon him, the work of his pet aversions, the
Gainsboroughs. He had seen Mr Gainsborough once, and retained a picture
of a small ineffectual man with a ragged tawny-brown beard and a big
soft felt hat, who had an air of being very timid, rather pressed for
money, and endowed with a kind heart. Now, it seemed, Mr Gainsborough
was again overflowing with family affection (a disposition not always
welcomed by its objects), and wanted to shake poor Lady Tristram's hand,
and wanted poor Lady Tristram to kiss his daughter--wanted, in fact, a
thorough-going burying of hatchets and a touching reconciliation. With
that justice of judgment of which neither youth nor prejudice quite
deprived him, Harry liked the letter; but he was certain that the writer
would be immensely tiresome. And again--in the end as in the
beginning--he did not want the Gainsboroughs at Blent; above all not
just at the time when Blent was about to pass into his hands. It looked,
however, as though it would be extremely difficult to keep them away. Mr
Gainsborough was obviously a man who would not waste his chance of a
funeral; he might be fenced with till then, but it would need startling
measures to keep him from a funeral.

"I hate hearsey people," grumbled Harry, as he threw the letter down.
But the Gainsboroughs were soon to be driven out of his head by
something more immediate and threatening.

Blent Pool is a round basin, some fifty or sixty feet in diameter; the
banks are steep and the depth great: on the Blent Hall side there is no
approach to it, except through a thick wood overhanging the water; on
the other side the road up the valley runs close by, leaving a few yards
of turf between itself and the brink. The scene is gloomy except in
sunshine, and the place little frequented. It was a favorite haunt of
Harry Tristram's, and he lay on the grass one evening, smoking and
looking down on the black water; for the clouds were heavy above and
rain threatened. His own mood was in harmony, gloomy and dark, in
rebellion against the burden he carried, yet with no thought of laying
it down. He did not notice a man who came up the road and took his stand
just behind him, waiting there for a moment in silence and apparent
irresolution.

"Mr Tristram."

Harry turned his head and saw Major Duplay; the Major was grave, almost
solemn, as he raised his hat a trifle in formal salute.

"Do I interrupt you?"

"You couldn't have found a man more at leisure." Harry did not rise, but
gathered his knees up, clasping his hands round them and looking up in
Duplay's face. "You want to speak to me?"

"Yes, on a difficult matter." A visible embarrassment hung about the
Major; he seemed to have little liking for his task. "I'm aware," he
went on, "that I may lay myself open to some misunderstanding in what
I'm about to say. I shall beg you to remember that I am in a difficult
position, and that I am a gentleman and a soldier."

Harry said nothing; he waited with unmoved face and no sign of
perturbation.

"It's best to be plain," Duplay proceeded. "It's best to be open with
you. I have taken the liberty of following you here for that purpose."
He came a step nearer, and stood over Harry. "Certain facts have come to
my knowledge which concern you very intimately."

A polite curiosity and a slight scepticism were expressed in Harry's
"Indeed!"

"And not only you, or--I need hardly say--I shouldn't feel it necessary
to occupy myself with the matter. A word about my own position you will
perhaps forgive."

Harry frowned a little; certainly Duplay was inclined to prolixity; he
seemed to be rolling the situation round his tongue and making the most
of its flavor.

"Since we came here we have made many acquaintances, your own among the
number; we are in a sense your guests."

"Not in a sense that puts you under any obligation," observed Harry.

"I'm sincerely glad to hear you say that; it relieves my position to
some extent. But we have made friends too. In one house I myself (I may
leave my niece out of the question) have been received with a hearty,
cordial, warm friendship that seems already an old friendship. Now that
does put me under an obligation, Mr Tristram."

"You refer to our friends the Ivers? Yes?"

"In my view, under a heavy obligation. I am, I say, in my judgment bound
to serve them in all ways in my power, and to deal with them as I should
wish and expect them to deal with me in a similar case."

Harry nodded a careless assent, and turned his eyes away toward the
Pool; even already he seemed to know what was coming, or something of
it.

"Facts have come to my knowledge of which it might be--indeed I must say
of which it is--of vital importance that Mr Iver should be informed."

"I thought the facts concerned me?" asked Harry, with brows a little
raised.

"Yes, and as matters now stand they concern him too for that very
reason." Duplay had gathered confidence; his tone was calm and assured
as he came step by step near his mark, as he established position after
position in his attack.

"You are paying attentions to Miss Iver--with a view to marriage, I
presume?"

Harry made no sign. Duplay proceeded, slowly and with careful
deliberation.

"Those attentions are offered and received as from Mr Tristram--as from
the future Lord Tristram of Blent. I can't believe that you're ignorant
of what I'm about to say. If you are, I must beg forgiveness for the
pain I shall inflict on you. You, sir, are not the future Lord Tristram
of Blent."

A silence followed: a slight drizzle had begun to fall, speckling the
waters of the Pool; neither man heeded it.

"It would be impertinent in me," the Major resumed, "to offer you any
sympathy on the score of that misfortune; believe me, however, that my
knowledge--my full knowledge--of the circumstances can incline me to
nothing but a deep regret. But facts are facts, however hardly they may
bear on individuals." He paused. "I have asserted what I know. You are
entitled to ask me for proofs, Mr Tristram."

Harry was silent a moment, thinking very hard. Many modes of defence
came into his busy brain and were rejected. Should he be tempestuous?
No. Should he be amazed? Again no. Even on his own theory of the story,
Duplay's assertion hardly entitled him to be amazed.

"As regards my part in this matter," he said at last, "I have only this
to say. The circumstances of my birth--with which I am, as you rightly
suppose, quite familiar--were such as to render the sort of notion you
have got hold of plausible enough. I don't want what you call
proofs--though you'll want them badly if you mean to pursue your present
line. I have my own proofs--perfectly in order, perfectly satisfactory.
That's all I have to say about my part of the matter. About your part in
it I can, I think, be almost equally brief. Are you merely Mr Iver's
friend, or are you also, as you put it, paying attentions to Miss Iver?"

"That, sir, has nothing to do with it."

Harry Tristram looked up at him. For the first time he broke into a
smile as he studied Duplay's face. "I shouldn't in the least wonder," he
said almost chaffingly, "if you believed that to be true. You get hold
of a cock-and-bull story about my being illegitimate (Oh, I've no
objection to plainness either in its proper place!), you come to me and
tell me almost in so many words that if I don't give up the lady you'll
go to her father and show him your precious proofs. Everybody knows that
you're after Miss Iver yourself, and yet you say that it has nothing to
do with it! That's the sort of thing a man may manage to believe about
himself; it's not the sort of thing that other people believe about him,
Major Duplay." He rose slowly to his feet and the men stood face to face
on the edge of the Pool. The rain fell more heavily: Duplay turned up
his collar, Harry took no notice of the downpour.

"I'm perfectly satisfied as to the honesty of my own motives," said
Duplay.

"That's not true, and you know it. You may try to shut your eyes, but
you can't succeed."

Duplay was shaken. His enemy put into words what his own conscience had
said to him. His position was hard: he was doing what honestly seemed to
him the right thing to do: he could not seem to do it because it was
right. He would be wronging the Ivers if he did not do it, yet how ugly
it could be made to look! He was not above suspicion even to himself,
though he clung eagerly to his plea of honesty.

"You fail to put yourself in my place----" he began.

"Absolutely, I assure you," Harry interrupted, with quiet insolence.

"And I can't put myself in yours, sir. But I can tell you what I mean to
do. It is my most earnest wish to take no steps in this matter at all;
but that rests with you, not with me. At least I desire to take none
during Lady Tristram's illness, or during her life should she unhappily
not recover."

"My mother will not recover," said Harry. "It's a matter of a few weeks
at most."

Duplay nodded. "At least wait till then," he urged. "Do nothing more in
regard to the matter we have spoken of while your mother lives." He
spoke with genuine feeling. Harry Tristram marked it and took account of
it. It was a point in the game to him.

"In turn I'll tell you what I mean to do," he said. "I mean to proceed
exactly as if you had never come to Merrion Lodge, had never got your
proofs from God knows where, and had never given me the pleasure of this
very peculiar interview. My mother would ask no consideration from you,
and I ask none for her any more than for myself. To be plain for the
last time, sir, you're making a fool of yourself at the best, and at the
worst a blackguard into the bargain." He paused and broke into a laugh.
"Well, then, where are the proofs? Show them me. Or send them down to
Blent. Or I'll come up to Merrion. We'll have a look at them--for your
sake, not for mine."

"I may have spoken inexactly, Mr Tristram. I know the facts; I could
get, but have not yet got, the proof of them."

"Then don't waste your money, Major Duplay." He waited an instant before
he gave a deeper thrust. "Or Iver's--because I don't think your purse is
long enough to furnish the resources of war. You'd get the money from
him? I'm beginning to wonder more and more at the views people contrive
to take of their own actions."

Harry had fought his fight well, but now perhaps he went wrong, even as
he had gone wrong with Mina Zabriska at Fairholme. He was not content to
defeat or repel; he must triumph, he must taunt. The insolence of his
speech and air drove Duplay to fury. If it told him he was beaten now,
it made him determined not to give up the contest; it made him wish too
that he was in a country where duelling was not considered absurd. At
any rate he was minded to rebuke Harry.

"You're a young man----" he began.

"Tell me that when I'm beaten. It may console me," interrupted Harry.

"You'll be beaten, sir, sooner than you think," said Duplay gravely.
"But though you refuse my offer, I shall consider Lady Tristram. I will
not move while she lives, unless you force me to it."

"By marrying the heiress you want?" sneered Harry.

"By carrying out your swindling plans." Duplay's temper began to fail
him. "Listen. As soon as your engagement is announced--if it ever is--I
go to Mr Iver with what I know. If you abandon the idea of that
marriage, you're safe from me. I have no other friends here; the rest
must look after themselves. But you shall not delude my friends with
false pretences."

"And I shall not spoil your game with Miss Iver?"

Duplay's temper quite failed him. He had not meant this to happen; he
had pictured himself calm, Harry wild and unrestrained--either in fury
or in supplication. The young man had himself in hand, firmly in hand;
the elder lost self-control.

"If you insult me again, sir, I'll throw you in the river!"

Harry's slow smile broke across his face. With all his wariness and
calculation he measured the Major's figure. The attitude of mind was not
heroic; it was Harry's. Who, having ten thousand men, will go against
him that has twenty thousand? A fool or a hero, Harry would have said,
and he claimed neither name. But in the end he reckoned that he was a
match for the Major. He smiled more broadly and raised his brows, asking
of sky and earth as he glanced round:

"Since when have blackmailers grown so sensitive?"

In an instant Duplay closed with him in a struggle on which hung not
death indeed, but an unpleasant and humiliating ducking. The rain fell
on both; the water waited for one. The Major was taller and heavier;
Harry was younger and in better trim. Harry was cooler too. It was rude
hugging, nothing more; neither of them had skill or knew more tricks
than the common dimly remembered devices of urchinhood. The fight was
most unpicturesque, most unheroic; but it was tolerably grim for all
that. The grass grew slippery under the rain and the slithering feet;
luck had its share. And just behind them ran the Queen's highway. They
did not think of the Queen's highway. To this pass a determination to be
calm, whatever else they were, had brought them.

The varying wriggles (no more dignified word is appropriate) of the
encounter ended in a stern stiff grip which locked the men one to the
other, Duplay facing down the valley, Harry looking up the river. Harry
could not see over the Major's shoulder, but he saw past it, and sighted
a tall dog-cart driven quickly and rather rashly down the hill. It was
raining hard now, and had not looked like rain when the dog-cart
started. Hats were being ruined--there was some excuse for risking
broken knees to the horse and broken necks to the riders. In the middle
of his struggle Harry smiled: he put out his strength too; and he did
not warn his enemy of what he saw; yet he knew very well who was in the
dog-cart. Duplay's anger had stirred him to seek a primitive though
effective revenge. Harry was hoping to inflict a more subtle punishment.
He needed only a bit of luck to help him to it; he knew how to use the
chance when it came--just as well as he knew who was in the dog-cart, as
well as he guessed whence the dog-cart came.

The luck did not fail. Duplay's right foot slipped. In the effort to
recover himself he darted out his left over the edge of the bank. Harry
impelled him; the Major loosed his hold and set to work to save
himself--none too soon: both his legs were over, his feet touched water,
he lay spread-eagled on the bank, half on, half off, in a ludicrous
attitude; still he slipped and could not get a hold on the short slimy
grass. At that moment the dog-cart was pulled up just behind them.

"What are you doing?" cried Janie Iver, leaning forward in amazement;
Mina Zabriska sat beside her with wide-open eyes. Harry stooped, caught
the Major under the shoulders, and with a great effort hauled him up on
the bank, a sad sight, draggled and dirty. Then, as Duplay slowly rose,
he turned with a start, as though he noticed the new-comers for the
first time. He laughed as he raised his cap.

"We didn't know we were to have spectators," said he. "And you nearly
came in for a tragedy! He was all but gone. Weren't you, Major?"

"What were you doing?" cried Janie again. Mina was silent and still,
scrutinizing both men keenly.

"Why, we had been talking about wrestling, and the Major offered to show
me a trick which he bet a shilling would floor me. Only the ground was
too slippery; wasn't it, Major? And the trick didn't exactly come off. I
wasn't floored, so I must trouble you for a shilling, Major."

Major Duplay did not look at Janie, still less did he meet his niece's
eye. He spent a few seconds in a futile effort to rub the mud off his
coat with muddy hands; he glanced a moment at Harry.

"I must have another try some day," he said, but with no great
readiness.

"Meanwhile--the shilling!" demanded Harry good-humoredly, a subtle
mockery in his eyes alone showing the imaginary character of the bet
which he claimed to have won.

In the presence of those two inquisitive young women Major Duplay did
not deny the debt. He felt in his pocket, found a shilling, and gave it
to Harry Tristram. That young man looked at it, spun it in the air, and
pocketed it.

"Yes, a revenge whenever you like," said he. "And now we'd better get
home, because it's begun to rain."

"Begun to! It's rained for half-an-hour," said Janie crossly.

"Has it? I didn't notice. I was too busy with the Major's trick."

As he spoke he looked full in Mina Zabriska's face. She bore his glance
for a moment, then cried to Janie, "Oh, please drive on!" The dog-cart
started; the Major, with a stiff touch of his hat, strode along the
road. Harry was left alone by the Pool. His gayety and defiance
vanished; he stood there scowling at the Pool. On the surface the honors
of the encounter were indeed his; the real peril remained, the real
battle had still to be fought. It was with heart-felt sincerity that he
muttered, as he sought for pipe and tobacco:

"I wish I'd drowned the beggar in the Pool!"




VI

THE ATTRACTION OF IT


Mr Jenkinson Neeld sat at lunch at the Imperium Club, quite happy with a
neck chop, last week's _Athenæum_, and a pint of Apollinaris. To him
enter disturbers of peace.

"How are you, Neeld?" said Lord Southend, taking the chair next him.
"Sit down here, Iver. Let me introduce you--Mr Iver--Mr Neeld. Bill of
fare, waiter." His lordship smiled rather maliciously at Mr Neeld as he
made the introduction, which Iver acknowledged with bluff courtesy,
Neeld with a timid little bow. "How are things down your way?" pursued
Southend, addressing Iver. "Lady Tristram's very ill, I hear?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Wonderful woman that, you know. You ought to have seen her in the
seventies--when she ran away with Randolph Edge."

A gentleman, two tables off, looked round.

"Hush, Southend! That's his brother," whispered Mr Neeld.

"Whose brother?" demanded Southend.

"That's Wilmot Edge--Sir Randolph's brother."

"Oh, the deuce it is. I thought he'd been pilled."

Blackballs also were an embarrassing subject; Neeld sipped his
Apollinaris nervously.

"Well, as I was saying" (Lord Southend spoke a little lower), "she went
straight from the Duchess of Slough's ball to the station, as she was,
in a low gown and a scarlet opera cloak--met Edge, whose wife had only
been dead three months--and went off with him. You know the rest of the
story. It was a near run for young Harry Tristram! How is the boy,
Iver?"

"The boy's very much of a man indeed; we don't talk about the near run
before him."

Southend laughed. "A miss is as good as a mile," he said, "eh, Neeld?
I'd like to see Addie Tristram again--though I suppose she's a wreck,
poor thing!"

"Why couldn't she marry the man properly, instead of bolting?" asked
Iver. He did not approve of such escapades.

"Oh, he had to bolt anyhow--a thorough bad lot--debts, you know--her
people wouldn't hear of it; besides she was engaged to Fred Nares--you
don't remember Fred? A devilish passionate fellow, with a wart on his
nose. So altogether it was easier to cut and run. Besides she liked the
sort of thing, don't you know. Romantic and all that. Then Edge
vanished, and the other man appeared. That turned out all right, but she
ran it fine. Eh, Neeld?"

Mr Neeld was sadly flustered by these recurring references to him. He
had no desire to pose as an authority on the subject. Josiah
Cholderton's diary put him in a difficulty. He wished to goodness he had
been left to the peaceful delights of literary journalism.

"Well, if you'll come down to my place, I can promise to show you Harry
Tristram; and you can go over and see his mother if she's better."

"By Jove, I've half a mind to! Very kind of you, Iver. You've got a fine
place, I hear."

"I've built so many houses for other people that I may be allowed one
for myself, mayn't I? We're proud of our neighborhood," he pursued,
politely addressing himself to Mr Neeld. "If you're ever that way, I
hope you'll look me up. I shall be delighted to welcome a fellow-member
of the Imperium."

A short chuckle escaped from Lord Southend's lips; he covered it by an
exaggerated devotion to his broiled kidneys. Mr Neeld turned pink and
murmured incoherent thanks; he felt like a traitor.

"Yes, we see a good deal of young Harry," said Iver, with a smile--"and
of other young fellows about the place too. They don't come to see me,
though. I expect Janie's the attraction. You remember my girl,
Southend?"

"Well, I suppose Blent's worth nine or ten thousand a year still?" The
progress of Lord Southend's thoughts was obvious.

"H'm. Seven or eight, I should think, as it's managed now. It's a nice
place, though, and would go a good bit better in proper hands."

"Paterfamilias considering?"

"I don't quite make the young fellow out. He's got a good opinion of
himself, I fancy." Iver laughed a little. "Well, we shall see," he
ended.

"Not a bad thing to be Lady Tristram of Blent, you know, Iver. That's
none of your pinchbeck. The real thing--though, as I say, young Harry's
only got it by the skin of his teeth. Eh, Neeld?"

Mr Neeld laid down his napkin and pushed back his chair.

"Sit still, man. We've nearly finished, and we'll all have a cup of
coffee together and a cigar."

Misfortunes accumulated, for Neeld hated tobacco. But he was anxious to
be scrupulously polite to Iver, and thus to deaden the pangs of
conscience. Resigned though miserable, he went with them to the
smoking-room. Colonel Wilmot Edge looked up from the _Army and Navy
Gazette_, and glanced curiously at the party as they passed his table.
Why were these old fellows reviving old stories? They were better left
at rest. The Colonel groaned as he went back to his newspaper.

Happily, in the smoking-room the talk shifted to less embarrassing
subjects. Iver told of his life and doings, and Neeld found himself
drawn to the man: he listened with interest and appreciation; he seemed
brought into touch with life; he caught himself sighing over the retired
inactive nature of his own occupations. He forgave Iver the hoardings
about the streets; he could not forgive himself the revenge he had taken
for them. Iver and Southend spoke of big schemes in which they had been
or were engaged together--legitimate enterprises, good for the nation as
well as for themselves. How had he, a useless old fogy, dared to
blackball a man like Iver? An occasional droll glance from Southend
emphasized his compunction.

"I see you've got a new thing coming out, Neeld," said Southend, after a
pause in the talk. "I remember old Cholderton very well. He was a
starchy old chap, but he knew his subjects. Makes rather heavy reading,
I should think, eh?"

"Not all of it, not by any means all of it," Neeld assured him. "He
doesn't confine himself to business matters."

"Still, even old Joe Cholderton's recreations----"

"He was certainly mainly an observer, but he saw some interesting things
and people." There was a renewed touch of nervousness in Mr Neeld's
manner.

"Interesting people? H'm. Then I hope he's discreet?"

"Or that Mr Neeld will be discreet for him," Iver put in. "Though I
don't know why interesting people are supposed to create a need for
discretion."

"Oh yes, you do, Iver. You know the world. Don't you be too discreet,
Neeld. Give us a taste of Joe's lighter style."

Neeld did not quite approve of his deceased and respected friend being
referred to as "Joe," nor did he desire to discuss in that company what
he had and what he had not suppressed in the Journal.

"I have used the best of my judgment," he said primly, and was surprised
to find Iver smiling at him with an amused approval.

"The least likely men break out," Lord Southend continued hopefully.
"The Baptist minister down at my place once waylaid the wife of the
Chairman of Quarter Sessions and asked her to run away with him."

"That's one of your Nonconformist stories, Southend. I never believe
them," said Iver.

"Oh, I'm not saying anything. She was a pretty woman. I just gave it as
an illustration. I happen to know it's true, because she told me
herself."

"Ah, I'd begin to listen if he'd told you," was Iver's cautious comment.

"You give us the whole of old Joe Cholderton!" was Lord Southend's final
injunction.

"Imagine if I did!" thought Neeld, beginning to feel some of the joy of
holding a secret.

Presently Southend took his leave, saying he had an engagement. To his
own surprise Neeld did not feel this to be an unwarrantable proceeding;
he sat on with Iver, and found himself cunningly encouraging his
companion to talk again about the Tristrams. The story in the Journal
had not lost its interest for him; he had read it over more than once
again; it was strange to be brought into contact, even at second-hand,
with the people whose lives and fortunes it concerned. It was evident
that Iver, on his side, had for some reason been thinking of the
Tristrams too, and he responded readily to Neeld's veiled invitation.
He described Blent for him; he told him how Lady Tristram had looked,
and that her illness was supposed to be fatal; he talked again of Harry
Tristram, her destined successor. But he said no more of his daughter.
Neeld was left without any clear idea that his companion's concern with
the Tristrams was more than that of a neighbor or beyond what an ancient
family with odd episodes in its history might naturally inspire.

"Oh, you must come to Blentmouth, Mr Neeld, you must indeed. For a few
days, now? Choose your time, only let it be soon. Why, if you made your
way into the library at Blent, you might happen on a find there! A lot
of interesting stuff there, I'm told. And we shall be very grateful for
a visit."

Neeld was conscious of a strong desire to go to Blentmouth. But it would
be a wrong thing to do; he felt that he could not fairly accept Iver's
hospitality. And he felt, moreover, that he had much better not get
himself mixed up with the Tristrams of Blent. No man is bound to act on
hearsay evidence, especially when that evidence has been acquired
through a confidential channel. But if he came to know the Tristrams, to
know Harry Tristram, his position would certainly be peculiar. Well,
that was in the end why he wanted to do it.

Iver rose and held out his hand. "I must go," he said. "Fairholme,
Blentmouth! I hope I shall have a letter from you soon, to tell us to
look out for you."

One of the unexpected likings that occur between people had happened.
Each man felt it and recognized it in the other. They were alone in the
room for the moment.

"Mr Iver," said Neeld, in his precise prim tones, "I must make a
confession to you. When you were up for this club I--my vote was not in
your favor."

During a minute's silence Iver looked at him with amusement and almost
with affection.

"I'm glad you've told me that."

"Well, I'm glad I have too." Neeld's laugh was nervous.

"Because it shows that you're thinking of coming to Blentmouth."

"Well--yes, I am," answered Neeld, smiling. And they shook hands. Here
was the beginning of a friendship; here, also, Neeld's entry on the
scene where Harry Tristram's fortunes formed the subject of the play.

It was now a foregone conclusion that Mr Neeld would fall before
temptation and come to Blentmouth. There had been little doubt about it
all along; his confession to Iver removed the last real obstacle. The
story in Josiah Cholderton's Journal had him in its grip; on the first
occasion of trial his resolution not to be mixed up with the Tristrams
melted away. Perhaps he consoled himself by saying that he would be,
like his deceased and respected friend, mainly an observer. The Imp, it
may be remembered, had gone to Merrion Lodge with exactly the same idea;
it has been seen how it fared with her.

By the Blent the drama seemed very considerately to be waiting for him.
It says much for Major Duplay that his utter and humiliating defeat by
the Pool had not driven him into any hasty action or shaken him in his
original purpose. He was abiding by the offer which he had made,
although the offer had been scornfully rejected. If he could by any
means avoid it, he was determined not to move while Lady Tristram lived.
Harry might force him to act sooner; that rested with Harry, not with
him. Meanwhile he declined to explain even to Mina what had occurred by
the Pool, and treated her open incredulity as to Harry's explanation
with silence or a snub. The Major was not happy at this time; yet his
unhappiness was nothing to the deep woe, and indeed terror, which had
settled on Mina Zabriska. She had guessed enough to see that, for the
moment at least, Harry had succeeded in handling Duplay so roughly as to
delay, if not to thwart, his operations; what would he not do to her,
whom he must know to be the original cause of the trouble? She used to
stand on the terrace at Merrion and wonder about this; and she dared not
go to Fairholme lest she should encounter Harry. She made many good
resolutions for the future, but there was no comfort in the present
days.

The resolutions went for nothing, even in the moment in which they were
made. She had suffered for meddling; that was bad: it was worse to the
Imp not to meddle; inactivity was the one thing unendurable.

She too, like old Mr Neeld in London town, was drawn by the interest of
the position, by the need of seeing how Harry Tristram fought his fight.
For four days she resisted; on the evening of the fifth, after dinner,
while the Major dozed, she came out on the terrace in a cloak and looked
down the hill. It was rather dark, and Blent Hall loomed dimly in the
valley below. She pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, and began
to descend the hill: she had no special purpose; she wanted a nearer
look at Blent, and it was a fine night for a stroll. She came to the
road, crossed it after a momentary hesitation, and stood by the gate of
the little foot-bridge, which, in the days before enmity arose, Harry
Tristram had told her was never locked. It was not now. Mina advanced to
the middle of the bridge and leant on the parapet, her eyes set on
Blent Hall. There were lights in the lower windows; one window on the
upper floor was lighted too. There, doubtless, Lady Tristram lay slowly
dying; somewhere else in the house Harry was keeping his guard and
perfecting his defences. The absolute peace and rest of the outward
view, the sleepless vigilance and unceasing battle within, a battle that
death made keener and could not lull to rest--this contrast came upon
Mina with a strange painfulness; her eyes filled with tears as she stood
looking.

A man came out into the garden and lit a cigar; she knew it was Harry;
she did not move. He sauntered toward the bridge; she held her ground;
though he should strike her, she would have speech with him to-night. He
was by the bridge and had his hand on the gate at the Blent end of it
before he saw her. He stood still a moment, then came to her side, and
leant as she was leaning over the parapet. He was bare-headed--she saw
his thick hair and his peaked forehead; he smoked steadily; he showed no
surprise at seeing her, and he did not speak to her for a long time. At
last, still without looking at her, he began. She could just make out
his smile, or thought she could; at any rate she was sure it was there.

"Well, Mina de Kries?" said he. She started a little. "Oh, I don't
believe in the late Zabriska; I don't believe you're grown up; I think
you're about fifteen--a beastly age." He put his cigar back in his
mouth.

"You see that window?" he resumed in a moment. "And you know what's
happening behind it? My mother's dying there. Well, how's the Major? Has
he got that trick in better order yet?"

She found her tongue with difficulty.

"Does Lady Tristram know about--about me?" she stammered.

"I sometimes lie to my mother," said Harry, flicking his ash into the
river. "Why do you lie to your uncle, though?"

"I didn't lie. You know I didn't lie."

He shrugged his shoulders wearily and relapsed into silence. Silence
there was till, a minute or two later, it was broken by a little sob
from Mina Zabriska. He turned his head toward her; then he took hold of
her arm and twisted her face round to him. The tears were running down
her cheeks.

"I'm so, so sorry," she murmured. "I didn't mean to; and I did it! And
now--now I can't stop it. You needn't believe me if you don't like, but
I'm--I'm miserable and--and frightened."

He flung his cigar into the water and put his hands in his pockets. So
he stood watching her, his body swaying a little to and fro; his eyes
were suspicious of her, yet they seemed amused also, and they were not
cruel; it was not such a look as he had given her when they parted by
the Pool.

"If it were true?" she asked. "I mean, couldn't Lady Tristram
somehow----?"

"If what was true? Oh, the nonsense you told Duplay?" He laughed. "If it
was true, I should be a nobody and nobody's son. I suppose that would
amuse you very much, wouldn't it? You wouldn't have come to Merrion for
nothing then! But as it isn't true, what's the use of talking?"

He won no belief from her when he said that it was not true; to her
quick mind the concentrated bitterness with which he described what it
would mean to him showed that he believed it and that the thought was no
new one; in imagination he had heard the world calling him many times
what he now called himself--if the thing were true. She drew her cloak
round her and shivered.

"Cold?" he asked.

"No. Wretched, wretched."

"Would you like to see my mother?"

"You wouldn't let her see me?"

"She's asleep, and the nurse is at supper--not that she'd matter. Come
along."

He turned and began to walk quickly toward the house; Mina followed him
as though in a dream. They entered a large hall. It was dark, save for
one candle, and she could see nothing of its furniture. He led her
straight up a broad oak staircase that rose from the middle of it, and
then along a corridor. The polished oak gleamed here and there as they
passed candles in brackets on the wall, and was slippery under her
unaccustomed feet. The whole house was very still--still, cool, and very
peaceful.

Cautiously he opened a door and beckoned her to follow him. Lights were
burning in the room. Lady Tristram lay sleeping; her hair, still fair
and golden, spread over the pillow; her face was calm and unlined. She
seemed a young and beautiful girl wasted by a fever; but the fever was
the fever of life as well as of disease. Thus Mina saw again the lady
she had seen at Heidelberg.

"She won't wake--she's had her sleeping draught," he said; and Mina took
him to mean that she might linger a moment more. She cast her eyes round
the room. Over the fireplace, facing the bed, was a full-length portrait
of a girl. She was dressed all in red; the glory of her white neck, her
brilliant hair, and her blue eyes rose out of the scarlet setting. This
was Addie Tristram in her prime; as she was when she fled with Randolph
Edge, as she was when she cried in the little room at Heidelberg,
"Think of the difference it makes, the enormous difference!"

"My mother likes to have that picture there," Harry explained.

The sleeping woman stirred faintly. In obedience to a look from Harry,
Mina followed him from the room, and they passed downstairs and through
the hall together in silence. He came with her as far as the bridge.
There he paused. The scene they had left had apparently stirred no new
emotion in him; but Mina Zabriska was trembling and moved to the heart.

"Now you've seen her--and before that you'd seen me. And perhaps now
you'll understand that we're the Tristrams of Blent, and that we live
and die that." His voice grew a little louder. "And your nonsense!" he
exclaimed; "it's all a lie. But if it was true? It's the blood, isn't
it, not the law, that matters? It's her blood and my blood. That's my
real title to Blent!"

In the midst of his lying he spoke truth there, and Mina knew it. It
seemed as though there, to her, in the privacy of that night, he lied as
but a matter of form; his true heart, his true purpose, and his true
creed he showed her in his last words. By right of blood he claimed to
stand master of Blent, and so he meant to stand.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, yes. God help you to it." She turned and left
him, and ran up the hill, catching her breath in sobs again.

Harry Tristram stood and watched her as long as he could see her
retreating figure. There were no signs of excitement about him; even his
confession of faith he had spoken calmly, although with strong emphasis.
He smiled now as he turned on his heel and took his way back to the
house.

"The Major must play his hand alone now," he said; "he'll get no more
help from her." He paused a moment. "It's a funny thing, though. That's
not really why I took her up."

He shook his head in puzzle; perhaps he could hardly be expected to
recognize that it was that pride of his--pride in his mother, his race,
himself--which had made him bid Mina Zabriska look upon Lady Tristram as
she slept.




VII

THE MOMENT DRAWS NEAR


Not knowing your own mind, though generally referred to as an
intellectual weakness and sometimes as a moral fault, is none the less
now and then a pleasant state to live in for a while. There is a
richness of possibility about it, a variety of prospects open, a choice
of roads each in its own fashion attractive. Besides, you can always
tell yourself that it is prudent to look all round the question and
consider all alternatives. The pleasure, like most pleasures, is greater
when it comes once in a way to a person unaccustomed to it. Janie Iver
had been brought up to know her own mind; it was the eleventh
commandment in the Iver household. Iver entertained the intellectual,
his wife the moral objection to shilly-shallying; their daughter's
training, while conducted with all kindness, had been eminently
sensible, and early days had offered few temptations to stray from the
path of the obviously desirable. The case was different now; riches
brought a change, the world revealed its resources, life was spreading
out its diverse wares. Janie was much puzzled as to what she ought to
do, more as to what she wanted to do, most of all as to what she would
in the end do--unless indeed the fact that she was puzzled continued to
rank as the greatest puzzle of all.

Naturally the puzzles were personified--or the persons made into
puzzles. Men became lives to her, as well as individuals--the Tristram,
the Duplay, the Broadley life; her opinion of the life complicated her
feeling toward the person. The Tristram life attracted her strongly, the
life of the great lady; Harry had his fascination too; but she did not
think that she and Harry would be very happy together, woman and man.
She was loth to let him go, with all that he meant; perhaps she would
have been secretly relieved if fate had taken him away from her. The
Duplay life promised another sort of joy: the Major's experience was
world-wide, his knowledge various, his conversation full of hints of the
unexplored; she would be broadening her life if she identified it with
his. Yet the Major was an approximate forty (on one side or the other),
in a few years would seem rather old, and was not even now capable of
raising a very strong sentiment; there too she would be taking rather
the life than the man. Lastly there was that quiet Broadley life, to be
transformed in some degree, doubtless, by her wealth, but likely to
remain in essentials the peaceful homely existence which she knew very
well. It had little to set against the rival prospects; yet there was a
feeling that in either of the other two existences she would miss
something; and that something seemed to be Bob Broadley himself.

She found herself thinking, in terms superficially repugnant to
convention, that she would like to pay long visits to the other men, but
have Bob to come home to when she was inclined for rest and
tranquillity. Her perplexity was not strange in itself, but it was
strange and new to her; imbued with the parental views about
shilly-shallying, she was angry with herself and inclined to be ashamed.
The excuse she had made to Mina Zabriska did not acquit her in her own
eyes. Yet she was also interested, excited, and pleasantly awake to the
importance which her indecision gave her.

Judged from the outside, she was not open to blame in her attitude
toward Harry; he was not in love with her, and hardly pretended to be.
She met him fairly on a friendly footing of business; he was the sinner
in that, while what she offered was undoubtedly hers, what he proposed
to give in return was only precariously his.

Nor had Duplay any cause of complaint in being kept waiting; he would be
held exceedingly lucky not to be sent to the right-about instantly. But
with Bob Broadley the matter was different. On the subtle question of
what exactly constitutes "encouragement" (it is the technical term) in
these cases it is not perhaps necessary to enter; but false hopes might,
no doubt, arise from her visits to Mingham, from her habit of riding up
the road by the river about the time when Bob would be likely to be
riding down it, or of sauntering by the Pool on the days when he drove
his gig into Blentmouth on business--all this being beyond and outside
legitimate meetings at Fairholme itself. Unless she meant to marry him
she might indeed raise hopes that were false.

Yes, but it did not seem as though she did. Bob was humble. She had
tyrannized over him even before the Ivers grew so very rich. (They had
begun in a small villa at Blentmouth--Miss Swinkerton lived there now.)
It was natural that she should tyrannize still. He saw that she liked to
meet him; grateful for friendship, he was incredulous of more. His
disposition may plead in excuse for her; whatever she did, she would not
disappoint a confident hope.

But she was always so glad to see him, and when she was with him, he was
no perplexity, he was only her dear old friend. Well, and one thing
besides--a man whom it was rather amusing to try to get a compliment out
of, to try to torment into a manifestation of devotion; it was all
there; Janie liked to lure it to the surface sometimes. But Bob was not
even visibly miserable; he was always equable, even jolly, with so much
to say about his horses and his farm that sentiment did not always
secure its fair share of the interview. Janie, not being sentimental
either, liked all this even while it affronted her vanity.

"Send the gig home and stay and talk," she commanded, as he stopped by
her on the road; he was returning from Blentmouth to Mingham and found
her strolling by the Pool. "I want to speak to you."

He had his bailiff with him--they had been selling a cow--and left him
to take the gig home. He shook hands with frank cordiality.

"That's awfully nice of you," he said. "What about?"

"Nothing in particular," said she. "Mayn't I want it just generally?"

"Oh, well, I thought you meant there was something special. I've sold
the cow well, Miss Janie."

"Bother the cow! Why haven't you been to Fairholme?"

"Well, in fact, I'm not sure that Mr Iver is death on seeing me there
too often. But I shall turn up all right soon."

"Have you been going about anywhere?"

"No. Been up at Mingham most of the time."

"Isn't that rather lonely?"

"Lonely? Good Heavens, no! I've got too much to do."

Janie glanced at him; what was to be done with a man who treated
provocative suggestions as though they were sincere questions? If he had
not cared for her now! But she knew he did.

"Well, I've been very dull, anyhow. One never sees anybody fresh at
Fairholme now. It's always either Mr. Tristram or Major Duplay."

"Well, I shouldn't be very fresh either, should I?" The names she
mentioned drew no sign from him.

"I don't count you as a visitor at all--and they are visitors, I
suppose." She seemed a little in doubt; yet both the gentlemen, at any
rate, were not presumably received as members of the family.

"I'll tell you what I've been thinking about," said Bob, speaking
slowly, and apparently approaching a momentous announcement.

"Yes," she said, turning to him with interest, and watching his handsome
open face; it was not a very clever face, but it was a very pleasant
one; she enjoyed looking at it.

"I've been thinking that I'll sell the black horse, but I can't make up
my mind whether to do it now or keep him through the summer and sell him
when hunting begins. I don't know which would pay me best."

"That certainly is a very important question," remarked Janie, with a
wealth of sarcasm.

"Well, it gives me a lot of trouble, Miss Janie."

"Does it? And it doesn't interest me in the very--Yes, it does, Bob,
very much. I'm sorry. Of course it does. Only----"

"Anything the matter with you?" Bob inquired with friendly solicitude.

"No--not just now. There never is, somehow, when I'm with you. And let's
talk about the black horse--it'll be soothing. Is the price of oats a
factor?"

Bob laughed a little, but did not proceed with the discussion. They
sauntered on in silence for a few minutes, Bob taking out his tobacco.

"Worried, aren't you?" he asked, lighting his pipe.

"Yes," she answered shortly.

"Was that what you wanted to say to me?"

"No, of course not; as if I should talk to you about it!"

"Don't suppose you would, no. Still, we're friends, aren't we?"

"Do you feel friendly to me?"

"Friendly! Well----!" He laughed. "What do you think about it yourself?"
he asked. "Look here, I don't bother you, but I'm here when you want
me."

"When I want you?"

"I mean, if I can do anything for you, or--or advise you. I don't think
I'm a fool, you know."

"I'm really glad to hear you've got as far as that," she remarked rather
tartly. "Your fault, Bob, is not thinking nearly enough of yourself."

"You'll soon change that, if you say much more." His pleasure in her
implied praise was obvious, but he did not read a single word more into
her speech than the words she uttered.

"And you are friendly to me--still?"

"It doesn't make any difference to me whether I see you or not----"

"What?" she cried. The next moment she was laughing. "Thanks, Bob,
but--but you've a funny way of putting things sometimes." She laid her
hand on his arm for a moment, sighing, "Dear old Bob!"

"Oh, you know what I mean," he said, puffing away. His healthy skin had
flushed a trifle, but that was his only reply to her little caress.

"If--if I came to you some day and said I'd been a fool, or been made a
fool of, and was very unhappy, and--and wanted comforting, would you
still be nice to me?"

His answer came after a puff and a pause.

"Well, if you ever get like that, I should recommend you just to try me
for what I'm worth," he said. Her eyes were fixed on his face, but he
did not look at her. Some men would have seen in her appeal an
opportunity of trying to win from her more than she was giving. The case
did not present itself in that light to Bob Broadley. He did not press
his own advantage, he hardly believed in it; and he had, besides, a
vague idea that he would spoil for her the feeling she had if he greeted
it with too much enthusiasm. What she wanted was a friend--a solid,
possibly rather stolid, friend; with that commodity he was prepared to
provide her. Any sign of agitation in her he answered and hoped to quiet
by an increased calm in his own manner. The humblest of men have moments
of pride; it must be confessed that Bob thought he was behaving not only
with proper feeling but also with considerable tact--a tact that was
based on knowledge of women.

Interviews such as these--and they were not infrequent--formed a rather
incongruous background, but also an undeniable relief, to the life Janie
was leading at Fairholme. That seemed to have little concern with Bob
Broadley and to be engrossed in the struggle between Harry and Duplay.
Both men pressed on. Harry had not been scared away. Duplay would win
without using his secret weapon, if he could. Each had his manner;
Harry's constrained yet direct; the Major's more florid, more expressed
in glances, compliments, and attentions. Neither had yet risked the
decisive word. Janie was playing for delay. The Major seemed inclined to
grant it her; he would make every step firm under him before he took
another forward. But Harry grew impatient, was imperious in his calls on
her time, and might face her with the demand for an answer any day. She
could not explain how it was, but somehow his conduct seemed to be
influenced by the progress of Lady Tristram's illness. She gathered this
idea from words he let fall; perhaps his mother wanted to see the affair
settled before she died. Duplay often spoke of the illness too; it
could have no importance for him at least, she thought.

About Harry Tristram anyhow she was right. He was using to its full
value his rival's chivalrous desire to make no movement during Lady
Tristram's lifetime; he reckoned on it and meant to profit by it. The
Major had indeed conveyed to him that the chivalry had its limits; even
if that were so, Harry would be no worse off; and there was the chance
that Duplay would not speak. A look of brutality would be given to any
action of his while Lady Tristram lay dying; Harry hoped this aspect of
his conduct would frighten him. At least it was worth risking. The
doctors talked of two months more; Harry Tristram meant to be engaged
before one of them was out. Could he be married before the second ran
its course? Mrs Iver would have scoffed at the idea, and Janie shrunk
from it. But a dying mother's appeal would count with almost
irresistible strength in such a case; and Harry was sure of being
furnished with this aid.

He came to Fairholme a day or two after Janie had talked with Bob
Broadley. She was on the lawn; with her Mina Zabriska and a small, neat,
elderly man, who was introduced to him as Mr Jenkinson Neeld. Harry paid
little attention to this insignificant person, and gave Mina no more
than a careless shake of the hand and a good-humored amused nod; he was
not afraid of her any longer. She had done what harm she could. If she
did anything more now it would be on his side. Else why had he shown her
Lady Tristram? He claimed Janie and contrived to lead her to some chairs
on the other side of the lawn.

"And that's Mr Harry Tristram?" said Neeld, looking at him intently
through his spectacles.

"Yes," said the Imp briefly--she was at the moment rather bored by Mr.
Neeld.

"An interesting-looking young man."

"Yes, he's interesting." And she added a moment later, "You're having a
good look at him, Mr Neeld."

"Dear me, was I staring? I hope not. But--well, we've all heard of his
mother, you know."

"I'm afraid the next thing we hear about her will be the last." What she
had seen at Blent Hall was in her mind and she spoke sadly. "Mr Tristram
will succeed to his throne soon now."

Neeld looked at her as if he were about to speak, but he said nothing,
and his eyes wandered back to Harry again.

"They're friends--Miss Iver and he?" he asked at last.

"Oh, it's no secret that he wants to marry her."

"And does she----?"

Mina laughed, not very naturally. "It's something to be Lady Tristram of
Blent." She smiled to think how much more her words meant to herself
than they could mean to her companion. She would have been amazed to
find that Neeld was thinking that she would not speak so lightly if she
knew what he did.

Harry wanted to marry Janie Iver! With a sudden revulsion of feeling
Neeld wished himself far from Blentmouth. However it was his duty to
talk to this sharp little foreign woman, and he meant to try. A few
polite questions brought him to the point of inquiring her nationality.

"Oh, we're Swiss, French Swiss. But I was born at Heidelberg. My mother
lived there after my father died. My uncle--who lives with me--Major
Duplay, is her brother; he was in the Swiss Service."

"A pleasant society at Heidelberg, I dare say?"

"Rather dull," said Mina. It seemed much the same at Blentmouth at the
moment.

Iver strolled out from his study on to the lawn. He cast a glance toward
his daughter and Harry, frowned slightly, and sat down on Mina's other
side. He had a newspaper in his hand, and he held it up as he spoke to
Neeld across Mina.

"Your book's promised for the 15th, I see, Neeld."

"Yes, it's to be out then."

Mina was delighted at being presented with a topic. Sometimes it is the
most precious of gifts.

"Oh, Mr Neeld, have you written a book? How interesting! What is it? A
novel?"

"My dear Madame Zabriska!" murmured Neeld, feeling as if he were being
made fun of. "And it's not really my book. I've only edited it."

"But that's just as good," Mina insisted amiably. "Do tell me what it
is."

"Here you are, Mina. There's the full title and description for you.
There's nothing else in the paper." Iver handed it to her with a stifled
yawn. She read and turned to Neeld with a quick jerk of her head.

"Journal and Correspondence of Josiah Cholderton!" she repeated. "Oh,
but--oh, but--well, that is curious! Why, we used to know Mr
Cholderton!"

"You knew Mr Cholderton?" said Mr Neeld in mild surprise. Then, with a
recollection, he added, "Oh, at Heidelberg, I dare say? But you must
have been a child?"

"Yes, I was. Does he talk about Heidelberg?"

"He mentions it once or twice." In spite of himself Neeld began to feel
that he was within measurable distance of getting on to difficult
ground.

"What fun if he mentioned me! Oh, but of course he wouldn't say anything
about a child of five!"

The slightest start ran through Neeld's figure; it passed unnoticed. He
looked sharply at Mina Zabriska. She went on, in all innocence this
time; she had no reason to think that Cholderton had been in possession
of any secrets, and if he had, it would not have occurred to her that he
would record them.

"He knew my mother quite well; he used to come and see us. Does he
mention her--Madame de Kries?"

There was a perceptible pause; then Neeld answered primly:

"I'm afraid you won't find your mother's name mentioned in Mr.
Cholderton's Journal, Madame Zabriska."

"How horrid!" remarked Mina, greatly disappointed; she regarded Mr Neeld
with a new interest all the same.

They were both struck with this strange coincidence--as it seemed to
them; though in fact that they should meet at Blentmouth was not
properly a coincidence at all. There was nothing surprising about it;
the same cause and similar impulses had brought them both there. The
woman who lay dying at Blent and the young man who sat making love under
the tree yonder--these and no more far-fetched causes--had brought them
both where they were. Mina knew the truth about herself, Neeld about
himself; neither knew or guessed it about the other. Hence their wonder
and their unreasonable feeling that there was something of a fate
bringing them together in that place.

"You're sure he says nothing about us?" she urged.

"You'll not find a word," he replied, sticking to the form of assertion
that salved his conscience. He looked across the lawn again, but Janie
and Harry had disappeared amongst the bushes.

"You're sort of old acquaintances at second-hand, then," said Iver,
smiling. "Cholderton's the connecting link."

"He didn't like me," remarked Mina. "He used to call me the Imp."

"Yes, yes," said Neeld in absent-minded acquiescence. "Yes, the Imp."

"You don't seem much surprised!" cried Mina in mock indignation.

"Surprised?" He started more violently. "Oh, yes--I--I-- Of course!
I'm----" A laugh from his host spared him the effort of further
apologies. But he was a good deal shaken; he had nearly betrayed his
knowledge of the Imp. Indeed he could not rid himself of the idea that
there was a very inquisitive look in Madame Zabriska's large eyes.

Mina risked one more question, put very carelessly.

"I think he must have met Lady Tristram there once or twice. Does he say
anything about her?"

"Not a word," said Neeld, grasping the nettle firmly this time.

Mina took another look at him, but he blinked resolutely behind his
glasses.

"Well, it's just like Mr Cholderton to leave out all the interesting
things," she observed resignedly. "Only I wonder why you edit his book
if it's like that, you know."

"Hello, what's that?" exclaimed Iver, suddenly sitting up in his chair.

They heard the sound of a horse's galloping on the road outside. The
noise of the hoofs stopped suddenly. They sat listening. In a minute or
two the butler led a groom in the Tristram livery on to the lawn. He
came quickly across to Iver, touching his hat.

"Beg pardon, sir, but could I see Mr Tristram? I've an important message
for him."

At the same moment Janie and Harry Tristram came out on to the grass.
Harry saw the groom and was with them in a moment, Janie following.

"Well, Sam, what is it? You were riding hard."

"Her ladyship has had a relapse, sir, and Dr Fryer ordered me to ride
over and tell you at once. No time to lose, he said, sir."

"Did you bring a horse for me?"

"No, sir. But I'm riding Quilldriver."

"I'll go back on him. You can walk." He turned to the rest. "I must go
at once," he said. "I don't know what this may mean."

"Not so bad as it sounds, I hope," said Iver. "But you'd best be off at
once."

Harry included Mina and Mr Neeld in one light nod, and walked briskly
toward the gate, Iver and Janie accompanying him. Mina and Neeld were
left together, and sat in silence some moments.

"It sounds as if she was dying," said Mina at last in a low voice.

"Yes, poor woman!"

"I saw her once lately. She was very beautiful, Mr Neeld."

"Yes, yes, to her own great trouble, poor thing!"

"You knew about----?"

"Oh, everybody knew, Madame Zabriska."

"Yes, and now she's dying!" She turned to him, looking him fairly in the
face. "And Harry'll be Tristram of Blent," she said.

"Yes," said Neeld. "He'll be Tristram of Blent."

Both fell into silence again, looking absently at the sunshine playing
among the trees. They were not to share their secret just yet. A link
was missing between them still.

Harry came to where the horse was, and stood there for a moment, while
the groom altered the stirrups to suit him.

"It's the beginning of the end, if not the end itself," he said.

"Our earnest good wishes to her."

"My love," said Janie. Her father glanced quickly at her.

Harry jumped into the saddle, waved his hand to them, and started at a
gallop for Blent. The groom, with another touch of his hat, trudged off
in his master's track. Janie Iver stood looking as long as Harry was in
sight.

"He won't spare the horse," said Iver.

"Well, he can't this time; and anyhow he wouldn't, if he wanted to get
there." She took her father's arm and pressed it. "Father, Harry
Tristram has just asked me to marry him. He said Lady Tristram wanted it
settled before--before she died, or he wouldn't have spoken so soon."

"Well, Janie dear?"

"When the groom came, I had just told him that I would give him an
answer in a week. But now!" She made a gesture with her free hand; it
seemed to mean bewilderment. She could not tell what would happen now.




VIII

DUTY AND MR. NEELD


When Mina Zabriska brought back the news from Fairholme, and announced
it with an intensity of significance which the sudden aggravation of an
illness long known to be mortal hardly accounted for, Major Duplay grew
very solemn. The moment for action approached, and the nearer it came,
the less was the Major satisfied with his position and resources. The
scene by the Pool had taught him that he would have a stiff fight. He
had been hard hit by Harry's shrewd suggestion that he must ask Iver
himself for the means of proving what he meant to tell Iver. The only
alternative, however, was to procure money for the necessary
investigations from his niece; and his niece, though comfortably off,
was not rich. Nor was she any longer zealous in the cause. The Imp was
sulky and sullen with him, sorry she had ever touched the affair at all,
ready, he suspected, to grasp at any excuse for letting it drop. This
temper of hers foreboded a refusal to open her purse. It was serious in
another way. Of himself Duplay knew nothing; Mina was his only witness;
her evidence, though really second-hand, was undoubtedly weighty; it
would at least make inquiries necessary. But would she give it? Duplay
was conscious that she was capable of turning round on him and declaring
that she had made a blunder. If she did that, what would happen? Duplay
was sure that Harry had formal proofs, good and valid _prima facie_; he
would need Mina, money, and time to upset them. There were moments when
the Major himself wished that he had relied on his own attractions, and
not challenged Harry to battle on any issue save their respective power
to win Janie Iver's affections. But it seemed too late to go back.
Besides, he was in a rage with Harry; his defeat by the Pool rankled.
Harry, as usual, had spared his enemy none of the bitterness of defeat;
Duplay would now take pleasure in humbling him for the sake of the
triumph itself, apart from its effect on the Ivers, father and daughter.
But could he do it? He abode by the conclusion that he was bound to try,
but he was not happy in it.

Harry's attitude would be simple. He would at the proper time produce
his certificates, testifying to the death of Sir Randolph, the marriage
of his parents, his own birth. The copies were in perfect order and duly
authenticated; they were evidence in themselves; the originals could be
had and would bear out the copies. All this had been well looked after,
and Duplay did not doubt it. What had he to set against it? Only that
the third certificate was false, and that somewhere--neither he nor even
Mina knew where--bearing some dates--neither he nor Mina knew
what--there must be two other certificates--one fatal to Harry's case as
fixing his birth at an earlier date, the other throwing at least grave
suspicion on it by recording a second ceremony of marriage. But where
were these certificates? Conceivably they had been destroyed; that was
not likely, but it was possible. At any rate, to find them would need
much time and some money. On reflection, the Major could not blame Harry
for defying him by the Pool.

It will be seen that the information which Mina had gleaned from her
mother, and filled in from her own childish recollection, was not so
minute in the matter of dates as that which Madame de Kries had given at
the time of the events to Mr Cholderton, and which was now locked away
in the drawer at Mr Jenkinson Neeld's chambers. The Major would have
been materially assisted by a sight of that document; it would have
narrowed the necessary area of inquiry and given a definiteness to his
assertions which must have carried added weight with Mr Iver. As it was,
he began to be convinced that Mina would decline to remember any dates
even approximately, and this was all she had professed to do in her
first disclosure. Duplay acknowledged that, as matters stood, the
betting was in favor of his adversary.

Mina, being sulky, would not talk to her uncle; she could not talk to
Janie Iver; she did not see Harry, and would not have dared to talk to
him if she had. But it need hardly be said that she was dying to talk to
somebody. With such matters on hand, she struggled against silence like
soda-water against the cork. Merely to stare down at Blent and wonder
what was happening there whetted a curiosity it could not satisfy. She
felt out of the game, and the feeling was intolerable. As a last resort,
in a last effort to keep in touch with it, although she had been warned
that she would find nothing of interest to her in the volume, she
telegraphed to a bookseller in London to send her Mr. Cholderton's
Journal. It came the day after it was published, four days after she had
made Mr Neeld's acquaintance, and while Lady Tristram, contrary to
expectation, still held death at arm's length and lay looking at her own
picture. The next morning Neeld received a pressing invitation to go to
tea at Merrion Lodge. Without a moment's hesitation he went; with him
too all resolutions to know and to care nothing further about the matter
vanished before the first chance of seeing more of it. And Mina had
been Mina de Kries.

She received him in the library; the Journal lay on the table. Something
had restored animation to her manner and malice to her eyes; those who
knew her well would have conjectured that she saw her way to making
somebody uncomfortable. But there was also an underlying nervousness
which seemed to hint at something beyond. She began by flattering her
visitor outrageously and indulging in a number of false statements
regarding her delight with the Journal and the amusement and instruction
she had gained from it; she even professed to have mastered the
Hygroxeric Method, observing that a note by the Editor put the whole
thing in a nutshell. Much pleased, yet vaguely disappointed, Mr Neeld
concluded that she had no more to say about the visit to Heidelberg.

The Imp turned over the pages leisurely while Neeld sipped his tea.

"I see you put little asterisk things where you leave out anything," she
observed. "That's convenient, isn't it?"

"I think it's usual," said he.

"And another thing you do--Oh, you really are a splendid editor!--you
put the date at the top of every page--even where Mr Cholderton's entry
runs over ever so many pages. He is rather long sometimes, isn't he?"

"I've always found the date at the top of the page a convenience in
reading myself," said Mr Neeld.

"Yes, it tells you just where you are--and where Mr Cholderton was." She
laughed a little. "Yes, look here, page 365, May 1875, he's at Berlin!
Then there are some asterisks"--Mr Neeld looked up from his tea--"and
you turn over the page" (the Imp turned over with the air of a
discoverer), "and you find him at Interlaken in--why, in August, Mr
Neeld!" An amiable surprise appeared on her face. "Where was he in
between?" she asked.

"I--I suppose he stayed at Berlin."

"Oh, perhaps. No--look here. He says, 'I had not previously met Sir
Silas Minting, as I left Berlin before he arrived in the beginning of
June.'"

The Imp laid down the Journal, leant back in her chair, and regarded
Neeld steadily.

"You told me right," she added; "I don't find any mention of my
mother--nor of Heidelberg. It's rather funny that he doesn't mention
Heidelberg."

She poured out a second cup of tea and--waited. The first part of her
work was done. She had made Neeld very uncomfortable. "Because," she
added, after she had given her previous remarks time to soak in,
"between May and August 1875 is just about the time I remember him at
Heidelberg--the time when he met Mrs Fitzhubert, you know."

She nodded her head slightly toward the window, the window that looked
down to the valley and gave a view of the house where Lady Tristram lay.
Mina was keenly excited now. Had the Journal told Neeld anything? Was
that the meaning of his asterisks?

"There was something about his visit to Heidelberg, but it contained
nothing of public interest, Madame Zabriska, and in my discretion I
omitted it."

"Why didn't you tell me that the other day? You gave me to understand
that he only mentioned Heidelberg casually."

"I may have expressed myself----"

"And did he mention us?"

Neeld rose to his feet and took a turn up and down the room.

"In my discretion I left the passage out. I can answer no questions
about it. Please don't press me, Madame Zabriska."

"I will know," she said excitedly, almost angrily.

Neeld came to a stand opposite her, deep perplexity expressing itself in
his look and manner.

"Did he talk about us? Did he talk about Lady Tristram?"

"I am speaking to you, and to you only, Madame Zabriska?"

"Yes, yes--to me only."

"He did mention you, and he did speak of Lady Tristram."

"That's why you weren't surprised when I told you he called me the Imp!"
She smiled a moment, and Neeld smiled too. But in an instant she was
eager again. "And about Lady Tristram?"

"It was no use reprinting poor Lady Tristram's story." He sat down
again, trying to look as though the subject were done with; but he
rubbed his hands together nervously and would not meet Mina's eyes.
There was a long pause; Mina rose, took the Journal, put it in the
cupboard and turned the key on it. She came back and stood over him.

"You know?" she said. "It was in the Journal? I'm sure you know."

"Know what?" Mr Neeld was fighting in the last ditch.

"But I don't want to tell you unless you know! No, I'm sure you know!"

"And do you know?"

"Yes, I know. My mother told me."

They understood one another now. Neeld made no further pretence.

"You mean about Harry Tristram?" he asked, simply, but in a low voice.

"Yes. At first I didn't know what it meant to him. But I know now."

Neeld made no reply, and there was another moment of silence. Neeld wore
a restless, timid, uneasy air, in strong contrast to the resolute
intensity of Mina's manner; she seemed to have taken and to keep the
upper hand of him.

"And you know what it would mean to him?" she asked.

Neeld nodded; of course he knew that.

"What are you going to do?"

He raised his hands and let them drop again in a confession that he did
not know.

"I knew, and I told," she said. He started a little. "Yes, I told,
because I was spiteful. I was the Imp! I've never been happy since I
told. Mr Tristram knows I've told, though he denies there's anything in
it. But he knows I've told. And still he's been kind to me." Her voice
shook.

"You told? Whom did you tell?"

"Never mind--or guess, if you can. I shan't tell him any more. I shan't
help him any more. I won't speak. I will not speak. I'm for Mr Tristram.
Thick and thin, I'm for Mr Tristram now." She came a step nearer to him.
"The man I told may try; but I don't think he can do much without
us--without me and without you. If we keep quiet, no, he can't do much.
Why should we tell? Is it our business? You suppressed it in the
Journal. Can't you suppress it now?"

"The Ivers?" he stammered.

"The Ivers! What's it to the Ivers compared to what it is to him? It'll
never come out. If it did--Oh, but it won't! It's life and death to him.
And isn't it right? Isn't it justice? He's her son. This thing's just a
horrible accident. Oh, if you'd heard him speak of Blent!" She paused a
moment, rubbing her hand across her eyes. Then she threw herself back
into her chair, asking again, "What are you going to do?"

He sat silent, thinking hard. It was not his business. Right and justice
seemed, in some sense at least, on Harry's side. But the law is the law.
And there were his friends the Ivers. In him there was no motive of
self-interest such as had swayed Major Duplay and made his action seem
rather ugly even to himself. Neeld owed loyalty and friendship; that was
all. Was it loyal, was it friendly, to utter no word while friends were
deceived? With what face would he greet Iver if the thing did come out
afterward? He debated with entire sincerity the point that Major Duplay
had invoked in defence of himself against his conscience. On the other
side was the strong sympathy which that story in the Journal had created
in him since first he read it, and realized its perverse little tragedy;
and there was the thought of Lady Tristram dying down at Blent.

The long silence was broken by neither of them. Neeld was weighing his
question; Mina had made her appeal and waited for an answer. The quiet
of the book-lined room (There were the yellowy-brown volumes from which
Mina had acquired her lore!) was broken by a new voice. They both
started to hear it, and turned alert faces to the window whence it came.
Harry Tristram, in flannels and a straw hat, stood looking in.

"I've got an hour off," he explained, "so I walked up to thank you for
the flowers. My mother liked them, and liked to have them from you." He
saw Neeld, and greeted him courteously. "I asked her if I should give
you her love, and she said yes--with her eyes, you know. She speaks
mostly that way now. Well, she always did a good deal, I expect." His
smile came on the last words.

"She sent her love to me?"

"Yes. I told her what you did one evening, and she liked that too."

"I hope Lady Tristram is--er--going on well?" asked Neeld.

"She doesn't suffer, thank you."

Mina invited him in; there was an appositeness in his coming which
appealed to her, and she watched Neeld with covert eagerness.

Harry looked round the room, then vaulted over the sill.

"My uncle's playing golf with Mr Iver," remarked Mina. "Tea?"

"No; too sick-roomy. I'm for nothing but strong drink now--and I've had
some." He came to the middle of the room and stood between them,
flinging his hat on the table where Mr Cholderton's Journal had so
lately lain. "My mother's an extraordinary woman," he went on, evidently
so full of his thought that he must speak it out; "she's dying
joyfully."

After an instant Mina asked, "Why?" Neeld was surprised at the baldness
of the question, but Harry took it as natural.

"It's like going off guard--I mean, rather, off duty--to her, I think."
He made the correction thoughtfully and with no haste. "Life has always
seemed rather like an obligation to do things you don't want to--not
that she did them all--and now she's tired, she's glad to leave it to
me. Only she wishes I was a bit better-looking, though she won't admit
it. She couldn't stand a downright ugly man at Blent, you know. I've a
sort of notion"--he seemed to forget Neeld, and looked at Mina for
sympathy--"that she thinks she'll be able to come and have a look at
Blent and me in it, all the same." His smile took a whimsical turn as he
spoke of his mother's dying fancies.

Mina glanced at Mr Neeld; was the picture visible to him that rose
before her eyes--of the poor sprite coming eagerly, but turning sadly
away when she saw a stranger enthroned at Blent, and knew not where to
look for her homeless, landless son? Mina was not certain that she could
safely credit Neeld with such a flight of imagination; still he was
listening, and his eyes were very gentle behind his spectacles.

"The parson came to see her yesterday. He's not what you'd call an
unusual man, Madame Zabriska--and she is an unusual woman, you know. It
was--yes, it was amusing, and there's an end of it." He paused, and
added, by way of excuse, "Oh, I know her so well, you see. She wouldn't
be left alone with him; she wanted another sinner there."

Mina marked the change in him--the new expansiveness, the new appeal for
sympathy. He had forgotten his suspicion and his watchfulness; she was
inclined to say that he had forgotten himself. On her death-bed Addie
Tristram had exerted her charm once more--and over her own son. Once
more a man, whatever his own position, thought mainly of her--and that
man was her son. Did Neeld see this? To Neeld it came as the strongest
reinforcement to the feelings which bade him hold his peace. It seemed
an appeal to him, straight from the death-bed in the valley below. Harry
found the old gentleman's gaze fixed intently on him.

"I beg your pardon for troubling you with all this, Mr Neeld," he said,
relapsing rather into his defensive attitude. "Madame Zabriska knows my
ways."

"No, I don't think I know this new way of yours at all," she objected.
"But I like it, Mr Tristram. I feel all you do. I have seen her." She
turned to Neeld. "Oh, how I wish you had!" she cried.

Her earnestness stirred a little curiosity in Harry. He glanced with his
old wariness at Neeld. But what could he see save a kindly precise old
gentleman, who was unimportant to him but seemed interested in what he
said. He turned back to Mina, asking:

"A new way of mine?"

"Well, not quite. You were rather like it once. But generally you've got
a veil before your face. Or perhaps you're really changed?"

He thought for a moment. "Things change a man." And he added, "I'm only
twenty-two."

"Yes, I know," she smiled, "though I constantly forget it all the same."

"Well, twenty-three, come the twentieth of July," said he. His eyes were
on hers, his characteristic smile on his lips. It was a challenge to
her.

"I shan't forget the date," she answered, answering his look too. He
sighed lightly; he was assured that she was with him.

The twentieth of July! The Editor of Mr Cholderton's Journal sat by
listening; he raised no voice in protest.

"I must get back," said Harry. "Walk with me to the dip of the hill."

With a glance of apology to Neeld, she followed him and stepped out of
the window; there were two steps at the side leading up to it. "I'll be
back directly," she cried over her shoulder, as she joined Harry
Tristram. They walked to the gate which marked the end of the terrace on
which Merrion stood.

"I'm so glad you came! You do believe in me now?" she asked.

"Yes, and I'm not afraid. But do you know--it seems incredible to
me--I'm not thinking of that now. I shall again directly, when it's
over. But now--well, Blent won't seem much without my mother."

"She couldn't rest if you weren't there," cried Mina, throwing back the
impression she had received, as her disposition made her.

"I haven't changed about that, but it will wait. Three days they say
now--three days, or maybe four, and then--she goes."

Together they stood, looking down. Mina's heart was very full. She was
with the Tristrams indeed now, thick and thin; their cause seemed hers,
their house must stand.

Harry turned to her suddenly.

"Say nothing of this to the Major. Let him alone; that's best. We'll see
about all that afterward. Good-by."

"And--and the Ivers?" She could not restrain the question.

A slight frown came on his brow; he seemed to have no relish for the
subject.

"Oh, that'll wait too," he said impatiently. He caught her by the arm as
he had done once before. "If all they said was true, if what you think
was true (he smiled at her as he spoke), I'd change with no man in
England; remember that. If it comes to a fight and I'm beaten, remember
that." And he ran down the hill.

Mina returned slowly to the library and found Neeld walking restlessly
to and fro. For the moment they did not speak. Mina sat down and
followed the old gentleman's figure in its restless pacing.

"You heard him about his mother?" she asked at last.

He nodded, but did not reply.

"You make all the difference," she blurted out after another pause.

Again he nodded, not ceasing his walk. For a minute or two longer Mina
endured the suspense, though it seemed more than she could bear. Then
she sprang up, ran to him, intercepted him, and caught hold of both his
hands, arresting his progress with an eager, imperious grip.

"Well?" she cried. "Well? What are you going to do?"

For a moment still he waited. Then he spoke deliberately.

"I can't consider it my duty to do anything, Madame Zabriska."

"Ah!" cried the Imp in shrill triumph, and she flung her arms round his
neck and kissed him. She did not mind his putting it on the score of
duty.




IX

THE MAN IN POSSESSION


In these days Janie Iver would have been lonely but for the Major's
attentions. Her father had gone to London on business--showing, to Mr
Neeld's relief, no disposition to take the Journal with him to read on
the way--Neeld was absurdly nervous about the Journal now. Her mother
was engrossed in a notable scheme which Miss Swinkerton had started for
the benefit of the poor of Blentmouth. Bible-readings, a savings-bank,
and cottage-gardens were so inextricably mingled in it that the
beneficiary, if she liked one, had to go in for them all. "Just my
object," Miss Swinkerton would remark triumphantly as she set the
flower-pots down on the Bibles, only to find that the bank-books had got
stored away with the seed. Clearly Mrs Iver, chief aide-de-camp, had no
leisure. Harry was at Blent; no word and no sign came from him. Bob
Broadley never made advances. The field was clear for the Major. Janie,
grateful for his attentions, yet felt vaguely that he was more amusing
as one of two attentive cavaliers than when he was her only resource. A
sense of flatness came over her sometimes. In fact the centre of
interest had shifted from her; she no longer held the stage; it was
occupied now, for the few days she had still to live, by Lady Tristram.
Moreover, Duplay was puzzling. Although not a girl who erected every
attention or every indication of liking into an obligation to propose
matrimony, Janie knew that after a certain point things of this kind
were supposed to go either forward or backward, not to remain _in statu
quo_. If her own bearing toward Bob contradicted this general
rule--well, that was an exceptional case. In Duplay's instance she could
see nothing exceptional. She herself was not eager for a final
issue--indeed that would probably be brought about in another way--but,
knowing nothing of his diplomatic reasons for delay, she thought he
ought to be. It is not very flattering when a gentleman takes too long
over considering such a matter; a touch of impetuosity is more becoming.
She would have preferred that he should need to be put off, and failed
to understand why (if it may be so expressed) he put himself off from
day to day.

But Duplay's reasons were, in fact, overwhelming. Lady Tristram lived
still, and he had the grace to count that as the strongest motive for
holding his hand. Harry's campaign was for the moment at a standstill;
Duplay had no doubt he would resume it as soon as his mother was buried;
on its apparent progress the Major's action would depend. It was just
possible that he could defeat his enemy without his secret weapon; in
that event he pictured himself writing a letter to Harry, half
sorrowful, half magnanimous, in which he would leave that young man to
settle matters with his conscience, and, for his own part, wash his
hands of the whole affair. But his conviction was that there would come
a critical moment at which he could go to Iver, not (as he must now)
without any compelling reason, but in the guise of a friend who acts
reluctantly yet under an imperious call. What would happen if he did?
Victory, he used to repeat to himself. But often his heart sank. Mina
was with him no more; he never thought of Neeld as a possible ally;
Harry's position was strong. Among the reasons for inactivity which
Duplay did not acknowledge to himself was the simple and common one that
he was in his heart afraid to act. He meant to act, but he shrank from
it and postponed the hour as long as he could. Defeat would be very
ignominious; and he could not deny that defeat was possible merely from
want of means to carry on the war. When the Major recognized this fact
he was filled with a sombre indignation at the inequalities of wealth,
and at the ways of a world wherein not even Truth shall triumph unless
she commands a big credit at the bank.

And Mina annoyed him intensely, assuming an aggrieved air, and hinting
severe moral condemnation in every glance of her eye. She behaved for
all the world as though the Major had begun the whole thing, and
entirely ignored her own responsibility. She conveyed the view that he
was the unscrupulous assailant, she the devoted defender, of the
Tristrams. Such a _volte-face_ as this was not only palpably unjust, it
was altogether too nimble a bit of gymnastics for Duplay to appreciate.
The general unreasonableness of woman was his only refuge; but the dogma
could not bring understanding, much less consolation, with it.

"What did you tell me for, then?" he cried at last. "You were hot on it
then. Now you say you won't help me, you'll have nothing more to do with
it!"

"I only told it you as--as a remarkable circumstance," the Imp alleged,
with a wanton disregard for truth.

"Nonsense, Mina. You were delighted to have a weapon against young
Tristram then."

"I can't help it if you insist on misunderstanding me, uncle; and,
anyhow, I suppose I can change my mind if I like, can't I?"

"No," he declared, "it's not fair to me. I can't make you out at all.
You're not in love with Harry Tristram, are you?"

"With that boy?" asked Mina, attempting to be superb.

"That's women's old nonsense," observed Duplay, twirling his mustache
knowingly. "They often fall in love with young men and always try to
pass it off by calling them boys."

"Of course I haven't your experience, uncle," she rejoined, passing into
the sarcastic vein.

"And if you are," he went on, reverting to the special case, "I don't
see why you make his path smooth to Janie Iver."

"Some people are capable of self-sacrifice in their love."

"Yes, but I shouldn't think you'd be one of them," said the Major rather
rudely. He looked at her curiously. Her interest in Harry was
unmistakable, her championship of him had become thorough-going, fierce,
and (to the Major's mind) utterly unscrupulous. Was he faced with a
situation so startlingly changed? Did his niece object to turning Harry
off his throne because she harbored a hope of sharing it with him? If
that were so, and if the hope had any chance of becoming a reality,
Duplay would have to reconsider his game. But what chance of success
could there be? She would (he put it bluntly in his thoughts) only be
making a fool of herself.

The Imp screwed up her little lean face into a grimace which served
effectually to cover any sign of her real feelings. She neither admitted
nor denied the charge levied against her. She was bewildering her uncle,
and she found, as usual, a genuine pleasure in the pursuit. If she were
also bewildering herself a little with her constant thoughts of Harry
Tristram and her ardent championship of his cause, well, in the country
there is such a thing as being too peaceful, and up to the present time
the confusion of feeling had been rather pleasant than painful.

"I don't really know what I feel," she remarked the next moment. "But
you can read women, uncle, you've often said so, and I dare say you
really know more about what I feel than I do myself." A grossness of
innocence was her new assumption. "Now judging from what I do and
look--that's the way to judge, isn't it, not from what I say?--what do
you think my real inmost feelings are about Mr Tristram?"

If the Major had been asked what his real inmost feelings about his
niece were at the moment, he would have been at some difficulty to
express them decorously. She was back at fifteen--a particularly
exasperating child of fifteen. Her great eyes, with their mock gravity,
were fixed on his irritated face. He would have agreed absolutely with
Mr Cholderton's estimate of the evil in her, and of its proper remedy.

Wherein Duplay was derided his niece made very plain to him; wherein his
words had any effect was studiously concealed. Yet she repeated the
words when he had, with a marked failure of temper, gone his way and
slammed the door behind him. "In love with Harry Tristram!" Mina found
the idea at once explanatory and picturesque. Why otherwise was she his
champion? She paused (as they say) for a reply. How better could she
draw to herself a part and a share in the undoubtedly romantic situation
in which she grouped the facts of the case? By being in love with Harry
she became part of the drama; and she complicated the drama most
delightfully. Janie knew nothing--she knew everything. Janie
hesitated--what if she did not hesitate? A big _rôle_ opened before her
eyes. What if it were very unlikely that Harry would reciprocate her
proposed feelings? The Imp hesitated between a natural vexation and an
artistic pleasure. Such a failure on his part would wound the woman, but
it would add pathos to the play. She became almost sure that she could
love Harry; she remained uncertain whether he should return the
compliment. And, after all, to be Lady Tristram of Blent! That was
attractive. Or (in case Harry suffered defeat) to be Lady Tristram of
Blent in the sight of heaven (a polite and time-honored way of
describing an arrangement not recognized on earth, and quite adaptable
to the present circumstances); that had a hardly less alluring, and at
least a rarer, flavor. The Imp looked down on Blent with an access of
interest. Monsieur Zabriska had left her with unexhausted reserves of
feeling. Moreover she could not be expected to help her uncle if she
were seriously attached to Harry. The moral of all this for the Major
was that it is unwise to suggest courses of action unless you are
willing to see them carried out, or channels of emotion unless you are
prepared to find them filled.

"Some people are capable of self-sacrifice in their love." That would
mean being his champion still, and letting him marry Janie Iver. She did
not object much to her own part, but she cavilled suddenly at
Janie's--or at Harry's relation to Janie. Would it be better to share
adversity with him? Perhaps. But, after all, she did not fancy him in
adversity. The third course recommended itself--victory for him, but not
Janie. Who then?

At this point Mina became sensible of no more than the vaguest visions,
not at all convincing even to herself. By a sad deficiency of
imagination, she could give no definiteness to a picture of Harry
Tristram making love. He had never, to her mind, looked like it with
Janie Iver, even while he had purported to be doing it. He never looked
like it at all, not even as though he could do it. Stay, though! That
new way of his, which she had marked when he came up the hill to thank
her for the flowers, was an exception. But the new way had been for his
mother's sake. Now a man cannot be in love with his mother. The question
grew more puzzling, more annoying, more engrossing still.

While full of these problems, refusing indeed to be anything else, Mina
was surprised by a visit from Miss Swinkerton, who sought a subscription
for the scheme of which an inadequate account has already been given.
Miss Swinkerton (for some reason she was generally known as Miss S., a
vulgar style of description possessing sometimes an inexplicable
appropriateness) was fifty-five, tall and bony, the daughter of a
Rear-Admiral, the sister of an Archdeacon. She lived for good works and
by gossip. Mina's sovereign (foreigners will not grasp the cheap
additional handsomeness of a guinea) duly disbursed, conversation became
general--that is to say, they talked about their neighbors.

"A hard young man," said Miss S. (Why be more genteel than her friends?)
"And if Janie Iver thinks he's in love with her----"

"What do you mean by being in love, Miss Swinkerton?"

Miss Swinkerton had always been rather surprised, not to say hurt, when
the Catechism asked for an explanation of what she meant by the Lord's
Prayer. This question of Mina's was still more uncalled for.

"You know enough English, my dear----"

"It's not a question of English," interrupted Mina, "but of human
nature, Miss Swinkerton."

"When I was a girl there were no such questions."

"What about Lady Tristram, then?"

There was flattery in this, ten or fifteen years of flattery. Miss S.
was unmoved.

"I am happy to say that Lady Tristram never called at Seaview." Miss
S.'s house was called Seaview--Sea-Backview would have been a more
precise description.

"I call him in love with Janie Iver. He must want to marry her or----"

"They do say that money isn't very plentiful at Blent. And there'll be
the Death Duties, you know."

"What are they?" asked Mina.

"Like stamps," explained Miss S., vaguely. "For my part, I think it's
lucky he is what he is. There's been enough of falling in love in the
Tristram family. If you ask me who is in love with her, of course it's
poor young Broadley. Well, you know that, as you're always driving up to
Mingham with her."

"We've only been three or four times, Miss Swinkerton."

"Six, I was told," observed Miss S., with an air of preferring accuracy.
"Oh, I should be very pleased to see him married to Janie--Mr Tristram,
I mean, of course--but she mustn't expect too much, my dear. Where's
your uncle?"

"At Fairholme, I expect," answered the Imp demurely. As a matter of fact
the Major had gone to Exeter on a business errand.

"Fairholme?" Miss S.'s air was significant, Mina's falsehood rewarded.
Mina threw out a smile; her visitor's pursed lips responded to it.

"He goes there a lot," pursued Mina, "to play golf with Mr Iver."

"So I've heard." Her tone put the report in its proper place. To play
golf indeed!

"I think Janie's rather fond of Mr Tristram, anyhow." This was simply a
feeler on Mina's part.

"Well, my dear, the position! Blent's been under a cloud--though people
don't seem to mind that much nowadays, to be sure. But the new Lady
Tristram! They've always been the heads of the neighborhood. She'll have
him, no doubt, but as for being in love with him--well, could you,
Madame Zabriska?"

"Yes," said the Imp, without the least hesitation. "I think he's most
attractive--mysterious, you know. I'm quite taken with him."

"He always looks at me as if I wanted to pick his pocket."

"Well, you generally do--for your charities." The laugh was confined to
Mina herself. "But I know the manner you mean."

"Poor young man! I'm told he's very sensitive about his mother. That's
it perhaps." The guess was at all events as near as gossip generally
gets to truth. "It would make him a very uncomfortable sort of husband
though, even if one didn't mind having that kind of story in the
family."

With a flash of surprise--really she had not been thinking about
herself, in spite of her little attempts to mystify Miss S.--Mina caught
that lady indulging in a very intent scrutiny of her, which gave an
obvious point to her last words and paved the way (as it appeared in a
moment) for a direct approach to the principal object of Miss S.'s
visit. That this object did not come to the front till Miss S. was on
her feet to go was quite characteristic.

"I'm really glad, my dear," she observed, hanging her silk bag on her
arm, "to have had this talk with you. They do say such things, and now I
shall be able to contradict them on the best authority."

"What do they say?"

"Well, I never repeat things; still I think perhaps you've a right to
know. They do say that you're more interested in Harry Tristram than a
mere neighbor would be, and--well, really, I don't quite know how to put
it."

"Oh, I do!" cried Mina, delightedly hitting the mark. "That uncle and I
are working together, I suppose?"

"I don't listen to such gossip, but it comes to my ears," Miss S.
admitted.

"What diplomatists we are!" said the Imp. "I didn't know we were so
clever. But why do I take Janie to Mingham?"

"They'd say that Bob Broadley's no real danger, and if it _should_
disgust Harry Tristram----"

"I am clever! Dear Miss Swinkerton, I never thought of anything half so
good myself. I'll tell uncle about it directly."

Miss S. looked at her suspiciously. The innocence seemed very much
over-done.

"I knew you'd laugh at it," she observed.

"I should do that even if it was true," said Mina, thoroughly enjoying
herself.

Miss S. took her leave, quite undecided whether to announce on the best
authority that the idea was true, or that it was quite unfounded. One
thing only was certain; whatever she decided to say, she would say on
the best authority. If it turned out incorrect in the end, Miss S. would
take credit for an impenetrable discretion and an unswerving loyalty to
the friends who had given her their confidence.

Mina was left very unquiet. Miss S. chimed in with the Major; the
neighborhood too seemed in the same tune. She could laugh at the
ingenuities attributed to her, yet the notions which had given them
birth found, as she perceived more and more clearly, a warrant in her
feelings, if not in her conduct. Look at it how she would, she was
wrapped up in Harry Tristram; she spent her days watching his fortunes,
any wakeful hour of the night found her occupied in thinking of him. Was
she a traitor to her friend Janie Iver? Was that treachery bringing her
back, by a roundabout way, to a new alliance with her uncle? Did it
involve treason to Harry himself? For certainly it was hard to go on
helping him toward a marriage with Janie Iver.

"But I will all the same if he wants it," she exclaimed, as she paced
about on the terrace, glancing now and then down at Blent. And again she
stood aghast at the thorough-going devotion which such an attitude as
that implied. "If only I could keep out of things!" she murmured. "But I
never can."

Major Duplay drove up the hill in a Blentmouth station fly; he had met
the doctor on the road, and the news was that in all probability Lady
Tristram would not live out the night. The tidings gained added
solemnity from Duplay's delivery of them, even though a larger share of
his impressiveness was directed to the influence the event might have on
his fortunes than to the event itself.

"Then we shall see. He'll assume the title, I suppose. That's no affair
of mine. And then he'll go to Fairholme. That is." He turned suddenly,
almost threateningly, upon her. "I hope you've come to your senses,
Mina," said he. "You'll have to speak, you know. If I can't make you,
Iver will." He paused and laughed. "But you'll speak fast enough when
you find yourself in the lawyer's office."

Mina refused to be frightened by the threatened terrors of the law.

"Who's going to take me to a lawyer's office?" she demanded.

"Why, Iver will, of course." He showed contemptuous surprise. "Oh,
you've gone too far to think you can get out of it now."

She studied him attentively for a moment or two. The result was
reassuring; his blustering manner hid, she believed, a sinking heart.

"You can't frighten me, uncle. I've made up my mind what to do, and I
shall do it."

She was not afraid of him now. She was wondering how she had come to be
bullied into telling her secret at all, looking back with surprise to
that scene in the library when, with sullen obedience and childish fear,
she had obeyed his command to speak. Why was it all different now? Why
was his attempt to take the same line with her not only a failure, but a
ridiculous effort? She knew the angry answer he would give. Could she
give any other answer herself? A new influence had come into her life.
She had not ceased to be afraid, but she was afraid of somebody else. A
domination was over her still, but it was no longer his. Like some
turbulent little city of old Greece, she had made her revolution: the
end had been to saddle her with a new tyrant. There seemed no more use
in denying it; the Major said it, Miss S. said it, the neighborhood was
all agreed. What she herself was most conscious of, and most oppressed
by, was a sense of audacity. How dared she devote herself to Harry
Tristram? He had asked nothing of her. No, but he had imposed something
on her. She had volunteered for his service. It was indeed "women's
nonsense" when she spoke of him as "That Boy."

Duplay turned away from her, disheartened and disgusted. Things looked
well for the enemy. He was alone with his unsupported story of a
conversation which Mina would not repeat, with his empty purse which
could supply no means of proving what he said. He ran the risk of losing
what chance he had of Janie Iver's favor, and he was in sore peril of
coming off second-best again in his wrestling-bout with Harry Tristram.
The Man in Possession was strong. The perils that had seemed so
threatening were passing away. Mina was devoted; Neeld would be silent.
Who would there be who could effectively contest his claim, or oust him
from his place? Thus secure, he would hardly need the check always by
him. Yet he was a cautious wary young man. There is little doubt that he
would still like to have the check by him, and that he would take the
only means of getting it.

Now that the moment had come for which all his life had been a
preparation, Harry Tristram had little reason to be afraid.




X

BEHOLD THE HEIR!


Addie Tristram died with all her old uncommonness. Death was to her an
end more fully than it is to most; had she been herself responsible for
it, she could hardly have thought less of any possible consequences. And
it was to her such a beginning as it can seldom seem. She had been
living in anticipation of dying, but in a sense utterly remote from that
contemplation of their latter end which is enjoined on the pious. So
that, together with an acquiescence so complete as almost to justify her
son in calling it joyful, there was an expectation, nearly an
excitement--save that the tired body failed to second the mind. She
might have shown remorse, both for her own acts and for the position in
which she was leaving Harry; she fell in with the view he had always
maintained with her, that all these things had come about somehow, had
produced a certain state of affairs, and must be made to seem as if they
had done nothing of the sort. During the last day or two she was
delirious at intervals; as a precaution Harry was with her then, instead
of the nurse. The measure was superfluous; there was nothing on Lady
Tristram's mind, and when she spoke unconsciously, she spoke of trifles.
The few final hours found her conscious and intelligent, although very
weak. Just at the end a curious idea got hold of her. She was a little
distressed that the Gainsboroughs were not there; she whispered her
feeling to Harry apologetically, well remembering his objection to that
branch of the family, and his disinclination to have them or any of them
at Blent. "Cecily ought to be here," she murmured. Harry started a
little; he was not accustomed in his own mind to concede Cecily any
rights. His mother's fear of offending him by the suggestion was very
obvious. "She'd come after you, you see, if----" she said once or twice.
There did not pass between them a word of acknowledgment that Cecily
ought to come before him. Yet he was left wondering whether that idea,
so scorned before, had not won its way to her with some sudden
strength--as though an instinct for the true heir made itself felt in
spite of all her resolution and all her prejudices, and forced her to do
something toward recognizing the claims which they were both determined
to thwart.

The barest hint of this kind would have raised Harry's suspicion and
anger a few weeks before; the new mood which Mina Zabriska had marked in
him made him take it quietly now, and even affectionately. For this
Addie Tristram was grateful; she had always the rare grace of seeming
surprised at her own power over men. It was no less in keeping with her
character and her life that the feeling she suffered under, and
manifested, was very easily appeased. Harry promised to ask the
Gainsboroughs to her funeral. Addie Tristram's conscientious scruples
were entirely laid to rest; with a sigh of peace she settled herself to
die. It was the feudal feeling, Harry decided, which insisted that the
family must not be ignored; it did not deny their humble position, or
the gulf that separated them from the succession. Yet he was vaguely
vexed, even while he agreed to what she wanted.

So she passed away in the full tide of the darkness of night. The doctor
had left her some hours before, the nurse had been sent to bed, for
there was nothing that could be done. Harry was alone with her; he
kissed her when she was dead, and stood many minutes by her, looking
from her to the picture of her that hung on the wall. A strange
loneliness was on him, a loneliness which there seemed nobody to solace.
He had said that Blent would not be much without his mother. That was
not quite right; it was much, but different. She had carried away with
her the atmosphere of the place, the essence of the life that he had
lived there with her. Who would make that the same to him again?
Suddenly he recollected that in four days he was to ask Janie Iver for
her answer. Say a week now, for the funeral would enforce or excuse so
much postponement. Janie Iver would not give him back the life or the
atmosphere. A description of how he felt, had it been related to him a
year ago, would have appeared an absurdity. Yet these crowding
unexpected thoughts made not a hair's breadth of difference in what he
purposed. It was only that he became aware of an irreparable change of
scene; there was to be no change in his action. He was Tristram of Blent
now--that he must and would remain. But it was not the same Blent, and
did not seem as though it could be again. So much of the poetry had gone
out of it with Addie Tristram.

After he had left her room, he walked through the house, carrying a
shaded candle in his hand along the dark corridors of shining oak. He
bent his steps toward the long gallery which filled all the upper floor
of the left wing. Here were the Valhalla and the treasure-house of the
Tristrams, the pictures of ancestors, the cases of precious things which
the ancestors had amassed. At the end of this gallery Addie Tristram had
used to sit when she was well, in a large high-backed arm-chair by the
big window that commanded the gardens and the river. He flung the
window open and stood looking out. The wind swished in the trees and
the Blent washed along leisurely. A beautiful stillness was about him.
It was as though she were by his side, her fair head resting against the
old brocade cover of the arm-chair, her eyes wandering in delighted
employment round the room she had loved so well. Who should sit there
next? As he looked now at the room, now out into the night, his eyes
filled suddenly with tears; the love of the place came back to him, his
pride in it lived again, he would keep it not only because it was his
but because it had been hers before him. His blood spoke strong in him.
Suddenly he smiled. It was at the thought that all this belonged in law
to Miss Cecily Gainsborough--the house, the gallery, the pictures, the
treasures, the very chair where Addie Tristram had used to sit. Every
stick and stone about the place was Cecily Gainsborough's, aye, and the
bed of the Blent from shore to shore. He had nothing at all--according
to law.

Well, the law must have some honor, some recognition, at all events. The
Gainsboroughs should, as he had promised, be asked to the funeral. They
should be invited with all honor and most formally, in the name of
Tristram of Blent--which, by the by was, according to law, also Miss
Cecily Gainsborough's. Harry had no name according to law; no more than
he had houses or pictures or treasures, any stick or stone, or the
smallest heritage in the bed of the Blent. He had been son to the
mistress of it all; she was gone and he was nobody--according to law. It
was, after all, a reasonable concession that his mother had urged on
him; the Gainsboroughs ought to be asked to the funeral. The last of his
vexation on this score died away into a sense of grim amusement at Addie
Tristram's wish and his own appreciation of it. He had no sense of
danger; Tristram had succeeded to Tristram; all was well.

Little inclined to sleep, he went down into the garden presently, lit
his cigar, and strolled on to the bridge. The night had grown clearer
and some stars showed in the sky; it was nearly one o'clock. He had
stood where he was only a few moments when to his surprise he heard the
sound of a horse's hoofs on the road from Blentmouth. Thinking the
doctor, who often did his rounds in the saddle, might have returned, he
crossed the bridge, opened the gate, and stood on the high road. The
rider came up in a few minutes and drew rein at the sight of his figure,
but, as Harry did not move, made as though he would ride on again with
no more than the customary country salute of "Good-night."

"Who is it?" asked Harry, peering through the darkness.

"Me--Bob Broadley," was the answer.

"You're late."

"I've been at the Club at Blentmouth. The Cricket Club's Annual Dinner,
you know."

"Ah, I forgot."

Bob, come to a standstill, was taking the opportunity of lighting his
pipe. This done, he looked up at the house and back to Harry rather
timidly.

"Lady Tristram----?" he began.

"My mother has been dead something above an hour," said Harry.

After a moment Bob dismounted and threw his reins over the gatepost.

"I'm sorry, Tristram," he said, holding out his hand. "Lady Tristram was
always very kind to me. Indeed she was that to everybody." He paused a
moment and then went on slowly. "It must seem strange to you. Why, I
remember when my father died I felt--besides the sorrow, you know--sort
of lost at coming into my bit of land at Mingham. But you----" Harry
could see his head turn as he looked over the demesne of Blent and
struggled to give some expression to the thoughts which his companion's
position suggested. The circumstances of this meeting made for sincerity
and openness; they were always Bob's characteristics. Harry too was in
such a mood that he liked Bob to stay and talk a little.

They fell into talk with more ease and naturalness than they had
recently achieved together, getting back to the friendliness of boyhood,
although Bob still spoke as to one greater than himself and infused a
little deference into his manner. But they came to nothing intimate till
Bob had declared that he must be on his way and was about to mount his
horse.

"As soon as I begin to have people here, I hope you'll come often," said
Harry, cordially. "Naturally we shall be a little more lively than we've
been able to be of late, and I shall hope to see all my friends."

He did not instantly understand the hesitation in Bob's manner as he
answered, "You're very kind. I--I shall like to come."

"Blent must do its duty," Harry pursued.

Bob turned back to him, leaving his horse again. "Yes, I'll come. I hope
I know how to take a licking, Tristram." He held out his hand.

"A licking?" Both the word and the gesture seemed to surprise Harry
Tristram.

"Oh, you know what I mean. You're engaged to her, aren't you? Or as good
as anyhow? I don't want to ask questions----"

"Not even as good as, yet," answered Harry slowly.

"Of course you know what I feel. Everybody knows that, though I've never
talked about it--even to her."

"Why not to her? Isn't that rather usual in such cases?" Harry was
smiling now.

"It would only worry her. What chance should I have?"

"Well, I don't agree with being too humble."

"Oh, I don't know that I'm humble. Perhaps I think myself as good a man
as you. But"--he laughed a little--"I'm Broadley of Mingham, not
Tristram of Blent."

"I see. That's it? And our friend the Major?"

"I shouldn't so much mind having a turn-up with the Major."

"But Tristram of Blent is--is too much?"

"It's not your fault, you can't help it," smiled Bob. "You're born to it
and----" He ended with a shrug.

"You're very fond of her?" Harry asked, frowning a little.

"I've been in love with her all my life--ever since they came to
Seaview. Fairholme wasn't dreamed of then."

He spoke of Fairholme with a touch of bitterness which he hastened to
correct by adding--"Of course I'm glad of their good luck."

"You mean, if it were Seaview still and not Fairholme----?"

"No, I don't. I've no business to think anything of the sort, and I
don't think it," Bob interposed quickly. "You asked me a question and I
answered it. I'm not in a position to know anything about you, and I'm
not going to say anything."

"A good many reasons enter into a marriage sometimes," remarked Harry.

"Yes, with people like you. I know that."

His renewed reference to Harry's position brought another frown to
Harry's face, but it was the frown of thoughtfulness, not of anger.

"I can't quarrel with the way of the world, and I'm sure if it does come
off you'll be good to her."

"You think I don't care about her--about her herself?"

"I don't know, I tell you. I don't want to know. I suppose you like
her."

"Yes, I like her." He took the word from Bob and made no attempt to
alter or to amplify it.

Bob was mounting now; the hour was late for him to be abroad and work
waited him in the morning.

"Good-night, Tristram," he said, as he settled in his saddle.

"Good-night. And, Bob, if by any chance it doesn't come off with me, you
have that turn-up with the Major!"

"Well, I don't like the idea of a foreign chap coming down and---- But,
mind you, Duplay's a very superior fellow. He knows the deuce of a lot."

"Thinks he does, anyhow," said Harry, smiling again. "Good-night, old
fellow," he called after Bob in a very friendly voice as horse and rider
disappeared up the road.

"I must go to bed, I suppose," he muttered as he returned to the bridge
and stood leaning on the parapet. He yawned, not in weariness but in a
reaction from the excitement of the last few days. His emotional mood
had passed for the time at all events; it was succeeded by an apathy
that was dull without being restful. And in its general effect his
interview with Bob was vaguely vexatious in spite of its cordial
character. It left with him a notion which he rejected but could not
quite get rid of--the notion that he was taking, or (if all were known)
would be thought to be taking, an unfair advantage. Bob had said he was
born to it and that he could not help it. If that had indeed been so in
the fullest possible sense, would he have had the notion that irritated
him now? Yes, he told himself; but the answer did not quite convince.
Still the annoyance was no more than a restless suggestion of something
not quite satisfactory in his position, and worth mentioning only as the
first such feeling he had ever had. It did not trouble him seriously. He
smoked another cigar on the bridge and then went into the house and to
bed. As he undressed it occurred to him (and the idea gave him both
pleasure and amusement) that he had made a sort of alliance with Bob
against Duplay, although it could come into operation only under
circumstances which were very unlikely to happen.

The blinds drawn at Blent next morning told Mina what had happened, and
the hour of eleven found her at a Committee Meeting at Miss
Swinkerton's, which she certainly would not have attended otherwise. As
it was, she wanted to talk and to hear, and the gathering afforded a
chance. Mrs Iver was there, and Mrs Trumbler the vicar's wife, a meek
woman, rather ousted from her proper position by the energy of Miss
Swinkerton; she was to manage the Bible-reading department, which was
not nearly so responsible a task as conducting the savings-bank, and did
not involve anything like the same amount of supervision of other
people's affairs. Mrs Trumbler felt, however, that on matters of morals
she had a claim to speak _jure mariti_.

"It is so sad!" she murmured. "And Mr Trumbler found he could do so
little! He came home quite distressed."

"I'm told she wasn't the least sensible of her position," observed Miss
S., with what looked rather like satisfaction.

"Didn't she know she was dying?" asked Mina, who had established her
footing by a hypocritical show of interest in the cottage-gardens.

"Oh, yes, she knew she was dying, my dear," said Miss S. What poor Lady
Tristram might have known, but apparently had not, was left to an
obvious inference.

"She was very kind," remarked Mrs Iver. "Not exactly actively, you know,
but if you happened to come across her." She rose as she spoke and bade
Miss S. farewell. That lady did not try to detain her, and the moment
the door had closed behind her remarked:

"Of course Mrs Iver feels in a delicate position and can't say anything
about Lady Tristram; but from what I hear she never realized the
peculiarity of her position. No (this to Mrs Trumbler), I mean in the
neighborhood, Mrs Trumbler. And the young man is just the same. But I
should have liked to hear that Mr Trumbler thought it came home to her
at the last."

Mr Trumbler's wife shook her head gently.

"Well, now we shall see, I suppose," Miss S. pursued. "The engagement is
to be made public directly after the funeral."

Mina almost started at this authoritative announcement.

"And I suppose they'll be married as soon as they decently can. I'm glad
for Janie Iver's sake--not that I like him, the little I've seen of
him."

"We never see him," said Mrs Trumbler.

"Not at church, anyhow," added Miss S. incisively. "Perhaps he'll
remember what's due to his position now."

"Are you sure they're engaged?" asked Mina.

Miss S. looked at her with a smile. "Certain, my dear."

"How?" asked Mina. Mrs Trumbler stared at her in surprised rebuke.

"When I make a mistake, it will be time to ask questions," observed Miss
S. with dignity. "For the present you may take what I say. I can wait to
be proved right, Madame Zabriska."

"I've no doubt you're right; only I thought Janie would have told me,"
said Mina; she had no wish to quarrel with Miss S.

"Janie Iver's very secretive, my dear. She always was. I used to talk to
Mrs Iver about it when she was a little girl. And in your case----" Miss
S.'s smile could only refer to the circumstance that Mina was Major
Duplay's niece; the Major's manœuvres had not escaped Miss S.'s eye. "Of
course the funeral will be very quiet," Miss S. continued. "That avoids
so many difficulties. The people who would come and the people who
wouldn't--and all that, you know."

"There are always so many questions about funerals," sighed Mrs
Trumbler.

"I hate funerals," said Mina. "I'm going to be cremated."

"That may be very well abroad, my dear," said Miss S. tolerantly, "but
you couldn't here. The question is, will Janie Iver go--and if she does,
where will she walk?"

"Oh, I should hardly think she'd go, if it's not announced, you know,"
said Mrs Trumbler.

"It's sometimes done, and I'm told she would walk just behind the
family."

Mina left the two ladies debating this point of etiquette, Miss S.
showing some deference to Mrs Trumbler's experience in this particular
department, but professing to be fortified in her own view by the
opinion of an undertaker with a wide connection. She reflected, as she
got into her pony carriage, that it is impossible even to die without
affording a good deal of pleasure to other people--surely a fortunate
feature of the world!

On her way home she stopped to leave cards at Blent, and was not
surprised when Harry Tristram came out of his study, having seen her
through the window, and greeted her.

"Send your trap home and walk up the hill with me," he suggested, and
she fell in with his wish very readily. They crossed the foot-bridge
together.

"I've just been writing to ask my relations to the funeral," he said.
"At my mother's wish, not mine. Only two of them--and I never saw them
in my life."

"I shouldn't think you'd cultivate your relations much."

"No. But Cecily Gainsborough ought to come, I suppose. She's my heir."

Mina turned to him with a gesture of interest or surprise.

"Your heir?" she said. "You mean----?"

"I mean that if I died without having any children, she'd succeed me.
She'd be Lady Tristram in her own right, as my mother was." He faced
round and looked at Blent. "She's never been to the place or seen it
yet," he added.

"How intensely interested she'll be!"

"I don't see why she should," said Harry rather crossly. "It's a great
bore having her here at all, and if I'm barely civil to her that's all I
shall manage. They won't stay more than a few days, I suppose." After a
second he went on: "Her mother wouldn't know my mother, though after her
death the father wanted to be reconciled."

"Is that why you dislike them so?"

"How do you know I dislike them?" he asked, seeming surprised.

"It's pretty evident, isn't it? And it would be a good reason for
disliking the mother anyhow."

"But not the daughter?"

"No, and you seem to dislike the daughter too--which isn't fair."

"Oh, I take the family in the lump. And I don't know that what we've
been talking of has anything to do with it."

He did not seem inclined to talk more about the Gainsboroughs, though
his frown told her that something distasteful was still in his thoughts.
What he had said was enough to rouse in her a great interest and
curiosity about this girl who was his heir. Questions and rights
attracted her mind very little till they came to mean people; then she
was keen on the track of the human side of the matter. The girl whom he
chose to call his heir was really the owner of Blent!

"Are you going to ask us to the funeral?" she said.

"I'm not going to ask anybody. The churchyard is free; they can come if
they like."

"I shall come. Shall you dislike my coming?"

"Oh, no." He was undisguisedly indifferent and almost bored.

"And then I shall see Cecily Gainsborough."

"Have a good look at her. You'll not have another chance--at Blent
anyhow. She'll never come here again."

She looked at him in wonder, in a sort of fear.

"How hard you are sometimes," she said. "The poor girl's done nothing to
you."

He shook his head impatiently and came to a stand on the road.

"You're going back? Good-by, Lord Tristram."

"I'm not called that till after the funeral," he told her, looking as
suspicious as he had in the earliest days of their acquaintance.

"And will you let me go on living at Merrion--or coming every summer
anyhow?"

"Do you think of coming again?"

"I want to," she answered with some nervousness in her manner.

"And Major Duplay?" He smiled slightly.

"I don't know whether he would want. Should you object?"

"Oh, no," said Harry, again with the weary indifference that seemed to
have fastened on him now.

"I've been gossiping," she said, "with Mrs Trumbler and Miss
Swinkerton."

"Good Lord!"

"Miss Swinkerton says your engagement to Janie will be announced
directly after the funeral."

"And Major Duplay says that directly it's announced----!"

"You don't mean to tell me anything about it?"

"Really, I don't see why I should. Well, if you like--I want to marry
her."

Mina had really known this well for a long while, yet she did not like
to hear it. She had been spinning fancies about the man; what he had in
his mind for himself was very prosaic. At least it seemed so to
her--though she would have appreciated the dramatic side of it, had he
told her of his idea of living with the big check by him.

"I can't help thinking that somehow you'll do something more exciting
than that."

"She won't marry me?" He was not looking at her, and he spoke rather
absently.

"I don't suppose she'll refuse you, but--no, I've just a feeling. I
can't explain."

"A feeling? What feeling?" He was irritable, but his attention was
caught again.

"That something more's waiting for you."

"That it's my business to go on affording you amusement perhaps?"

Mina glanced at him; he was smiling; he had become good-tempered.

"Oh, I don't expect you to do it for that reason, but if you do it----"

"Do what?" he asked, laughing outright.

"I don't know. But if you do, I shall be there to see--looking so hard
at you, Mr Tristram." She paused, and then added, "I should like Cecily
Gainsborough to come into it too."

"Confound Cecily Gainsborough! Good-by," said Harry.

He left with her two main impressions; the first was that he had not the
least love for the girl whom he meant to marry; the second that he
hardly cared to deny to her that he hated Cecily Gainsborough because
she was the owner of Blent.

"All the same," she thought, "I suppose he'll marry Janie, and I'm
certain he'll keep Blent." Yet he seemed to take no pleasure in his
prospects and just at this moment not much in his possessions. Mina was
puzzled, but did not go so far wrong as to conceive him
conscience-stricken. She concluded that she must wait for light.




XI

A PHANTOM BY THE POOL


In a quite little street running between the Fulham and the King's Road,
in a row of small houses not yet improved out of existence, there was
one house smallest of all, with the smallest front, the smallest back,
and the smallest garden. The whole thing was almost impossibly small, a
peculiarity properly reflected in the rent which Mr Gainsborough paid to
the firm of Sloyd, Sloyd, and Gurney for the fag-end of a long lease. He
did some professional work for Sloyds from time to time, and that member
of the firm who had let Merrion Lodge to Mina Zabriska was on friendly
terms with him; so that perhaps the rent was a little lower still than
it would have been otherwise; even trifling reductions counted as
important things in the Gainsborough Budget. Being thus small, the house
was naturally full; the three people who lived there were themselves
enough to account for that. But it was also unnaturally full by reason
of Mr Gainsborough's habit of acquiring old furniture of no value, and
new bric-à-brac whose worth could be expressed only by minus signs.
These things flooded floors and walls, and overflowed on to the strip of
gravel behind. From time to time many of them disappeared; there were
periodical revolts on Cecily's part, resulting in clearances; the gaps
were soon made good by a fresh influx of the absolutely undesirable.
When Sloyd came he looked round with a professional despair that there
was not a thing in the place which would fetch a sovereign! Such is the
end of seeking beauty on an empty purse; some find a pathos in it, but
it is more generally regarded as a folly in the seeker, a wrong to his
dependents, and a nuisance to his friends.

In no other way could Gainsborough--Melton John Gainsborough,
Architect--be called a nuisance, unless by Harry Tristram's capricious
pleasure. For he was very unobtrusive, small like his house, lean like
his purse, shabby as his furniture, humbler than his bric-à-brac. He
asked very little of the world; it gave him half, and he did not
complain. He was never proud of anything, but he was gratified by his
honorable descent and by his alliance with the Tristrams. The family
instinct was very strong in him. Among the rubbish he bought somebody
else's pedigree was often to be found. His wife's hung framed on the
wall (ending with "Adelaide Louisa Aimée" in large letters for one
branch, and "Cecily" in small for the other); his own was the constant
subject of unprofitable searchings in county histories--one aspect of
his remarkable genius for the unremunerative in all its respectable
forms. He worked very hard and gave the impression of doing nothing--and
the impression perhaps possessed the higher truth. Anyhow, while he and
his had (thanks to a very small property which came with the late Mrs
Gainsborough) always just enough to eat, they had always just not enough
of anything else; short commons were the rule.

And now they were going to Blent. Sloyd, calling on a matter of business
and pleasantly excusing his intrusion by the payment of some fees, had
heard about it from Gainsborough. "This'll just take us to Blent!" the
little gentleman had observed with satisfaction as he waved the slip of
paper. Sloyd knew Blent and could take an interest; he described it,
raising his voice so that it travelled beyond the room and reached the
hammock in the garden where Cecily lay. She liked a hammock, and her
father could not stand china figures and vases on it, so that it secured
her where to lay her head. Gainsborough was very fussy over the news; a
deeper but quieter excitement glowed in Cecily's eyes as, listening to
Sloyd, she feigned to pay no heed. She had designs on the check. Beauty
unadorned may mean several things; but moralists cannot be right in
twisting the commendation of it into a eulogium on thread-bare frocks.
She must have a funeral frock.

Sloyd came to the door which opened on the garden, and greeted her. He
was as smart as usual, his tie a new creation, his hat mirroring the
sun. Cecily was shabby from necessity and somewhat touzled from lolling
in the hammock. She looked up at him, smiling in a lazy amusement.

"Do you ever wear the same hat twice?" she asked.

"Must have a good hat in my profession, Miss Gainsborough. You never
know where you'll be sent for. The Duchess of This, or Lady That, loses
her money at cards--or the Earl drops a bit at Newmarket--must let the
house for the season--sends off for me--mustn't catch me in an old hat!"

"Yes, I see!"

"Besides, you may say what you like, but a gentleman ought to wear a
good hat. It stamps him, Miss Gainsborough."

"Yours positively illuminates you. I could find the way by you on the
darkest night."

"With just a leetle touch of oil----" he admitted cautiously, not quite
sure how far she was serious in the admiration her eyes seemed to
express. "What have you been doing with yourself?" he asked, breaking
off after his sufficient confession.

"I've been drawing up advertisements of my own accomplishments." She sat
up suddenly. "Oh, why didn't I ask you to help me? You'd have made me
sound eligible and desirable, and handsome and spacious, and all the
rest of it. And I found nothing at all to say!"

"What are you advertising for?"

"Somebody who knows less French than I do. But I shall wait till we come
back now." She yawned a little. "I don't in the least want to earn my
living, you know," she added candidly, "and there's no way I could
honestly. I don't really know any French at all."

Sloyd regarded her with mingled pleasure and pain. His taste was for
more robust beauty and more striking raiment, and she--no, she was not
neat. Yet he decided that she would, as he put it, pay for dressing; she
wanted some process analogous to the thorough repair which he loved to
see applied to old houses. Then she would be attractive--not his sort,
of course, but still attractive.

"I wonder if you'll meet Madame Zabriska, the lady I let Merrion Lodge
to, and the gentleman with her, her uncle."

"I expect not. My cousin invites us for the funeral. It's on Saturday. I
suppose we shall stay the Sunday, that's all. And I don't suppose we
shall see anybody, to speak to, anyhow." Her air was very careless; the
whole thing was represented as rather a bore.

"You should make a longer visit--I'm sure his lordship will be delighted
to have you, and it's a charming neighborhood, a very desirable
neighborhood indeed."

"I dare say. But desirable things don't generally come our way, Mr
Sloyd, or at any rate not much of them."

"It's pretty odd to think it'd all be yours if--if anything happened to
Lord Tristram." His tone showed a mixture of amusement and awe. She was
what he saw--she might become My Lady! The incongruity reached his sense
of humor, while her proximity to a noble status nearly made him take off
his hat.

"It may be pretty odd," she said indolently, "but it doesn't do me much
good, does it?"

This last remark summed up the attitude which Cecily had always adopted
about Blent, and she chose to maintain it now that she was at last to
see Blent. Probably her father's family instinct had driven her into an
insincere opposition; or she did not consider it dignified to show
interest in relatives who had shown none in her. She had never been
asked to Blent. If she was asked now it was as a duty; as a duty she
would go. Harry did not monopolize the Tristram blood or the Tristram
pride. But this attitude was not very comprehensible to her present
companion. As a personal taste, Mr Sloyd would have liked to be
connected, however remotely, with the aristocracy, and, if he had been,
would have let his social circle hear a good deal about it; even a
business connection was something, and suffered no loss of importance in
his practised hands.

Yet in her heart she was on fire with an excitement which Sloyd would
have wondered at, and which made her father's fussy nervousness seem
absurd. At last she was to see with her eyes the things she had always
heard of. She was to see Blent. Addie Tristram indeed she could no
longer see; that had always been denied to her, and the loss was
irreparable. But even the dead Lady Tristram she would soon be able to
realize far better than she had yet done; she would put her into her
surroundings. And Harry would be there, the cousin who had never been
cousinly, the young man whom she did not know and who was a factor of
such importance in her life. She had dreams in abundance about the
expedition; and it was in vain that reason said "It'll be all over in
three days. Then back to the little house and the need for that
advertisement!" Luckily, this sort of suggestion, made by reason, never
sounds probable, however well reason proves to us that it must come to
pass. Cecily was sure that at last--ah, at last!--a change in life had
come. Life had been always so very much the same; changes generally need
money, and money had not been hers. Knowledge usually needs money too,
and of the kinds of life outside her own narrow sphere she was very
ignorant. Beautiful things also need money; of them she had seen and
enjoyed very little; only the parodies came to the small house in the
small road. All these things joined to make her feel that a great moment
was at hand; she might and did deride herself, but the feeling was
there, and at last she admitted it to her father when she said with a
little laugh:

"I don't suppose anybody ever was so excited over a funeral before!"

But perhaps there was ignorance in that remark too. It has been seen,
for instance, that Miss Swinkerton and her friends could be very
excited, although they had not the excuse of youth, of dreams, or of any
kinship with the Tristrams.

"It's begun!" Cecily said to herself when, three days afterward, they
got out of their third-class carriage and got into the landau that
waited for them. The footman, touching his hat, asked if Miss
Gainsborough had brought a maid. ("The maid," not "A maid," was the form
of reference familiar to Miss Gainsborough.) Her father was in new
black, she was in new black, the two trunks had been well polished; and
the seats of the landau were very soft.

"They don't use the Fitzhubert crest, I observe," remarked Gainsborough.
"Only the Tristram fox. Did you notice it on the harness?"

"I was gazing with all my eyes at the coronet on the panel," she
answered, laughing.

A tall and angular lady came up and spoke to the footman, as he was
about to mount the box.

"At two on Saturday, miss," they heard him reply. Miss Swinkerton
nodded, and walked slowly past the carriage, giving the occupants a
leisurely stare. Of course Miss S. had known the time of the funeral
quite well; now her intimates would be made equally well acquainted with
the appearance of the visitors.

Blent was in full beauty that summer evening, and the girl sat in
entranced silence as they drove by the river and came where the old
house stood. The blinds were down, the escutcheon, with the Tristram fox
again, above the door in the central tower. They were ushered into the
library. Gainsborough's eyes ran over the books with a longing envious
glance; his daughter turned to the window, to look at the Blent and up
to Merrion. A funny remembrance of Sloyd crossed her mind, and she
smiled. Had she already so caught the air of the place that Sloyd seemed
to her both remote and very plebeian? Turning her head, she saw the left
wing with the row of windows that lighted the Long Gallery; she had
never seen such a room in a private house, and thought there must be
several rooms in that wing. A man-servant brought in tea, and told them
that Mr Tristram was engaged in pressing business and begged to be
excused; dinner would be at 8.15. Disappointed at her host's
invisibility, she gave her father tea with a languid air. The little man
was nervous and excited; he walked the carpet carefully; but soon he
pounced on a book--a county history--and sat down with it. After a few
minutes' idleness Cecily rose, strolled into the hall, and thence out
into the garden. The hush of the house had become oppressive to her.

Yes, everything was very beautiful; she felt that again, and drank it
in, indulging her thirst so long unsatisfied. She had seen larger
places, such palaces as all the folk of London are allowed to see. The
present scene was new. And in the room above lay Addie Tristram in her
coffin--the lovely strange woman of whom her mother had told her. She
would not see Lady Tristram, but she seemed now to see all her life and
to be able to picture her, to understand why she did the things they
talked of, and what manner of woman she had been. She wandered to the
little bridge. The stream below was the Blent! Geographies might treat
the rivulet with scanty notice and with poor respect; to her it was
Jordan--the sacred river. Might not its god have been ancestor to all
the Tristrams? In such a place as this one could have many such fancies;
they would come to feed the mind and make it grow, to transform it into
something that could appreciate poetry. A big rose-tree climbed the wall
of the right wing. Who had picked its blossoms and through how many
years? Its flowers must often have adorned Addie Tristram's unsurpassed
loveliness. After the years of short commons there came this bountiful
feast to her soul. She felt herself a Tristram. A turn of chance might
have made all this her own. Her breath seemed to stop as she thought of
this. The idea now was far different from what it had sounded when Sloyd
gave it utterance in the tiny strip of garden behind the tiny house, and
she had greeted it with scorn and a mocking smile. She did not want all
this for her own; but she did want--how she wanted!--to be allowed to
stop and look at it, to stay long enough to make it part of her and
have it to carry back with her to her home between the King's Road and
the Fulham Road in London.

She crossed the bridge and walked up the valley. Twenty minutes brought
her to the Pool. It opened on her with a new surprise. The sun had just
left it and its darkness was touched by mystery. The steep wooded bank
opposite cast a dull heavy shadow across half the surface; the low
lapping of the water sounded like somebody whispering old secrets that
she seemed half to hear, garrulous histories of the dead--the dead whose
blood was in her veins--old glories, old scandals, old trifles, all
mixed together, all of great importance in the valley of the Blent. Who
cares about such things in London, about anybody's family, or anybody
himself? There is no time for such things in London. It is very
different in the valley of the Blent when the sun is low and the cry of
a bird makes a sound too shrill to be welcome.

Turning by chance to look up the road toward Mingham, she saw a man
coming down the hill. He was sauntering idly along, beating the grass by
the road-side with his stick. Suddenly he stopped short, put his hand
above his eyes, and gave her a long look; he seemed to start. Then he
began to walk toward her with a rapid eager stride. She turned away and
strolled along by the Pool on her way back to Blent Hall. But he would
not be denied; his tread came nearer; he overtook her and halted almost
by her side, raising his hat and gazing with uncompromising straightness
in her face. She knew him at once; he must be Harry Tristram. Was
lounging about the roads his pressing business?

"I beg your pardon," he said with a curious appearance of agitation. "I
am Harry Tristram, and you must be----?"

"Cecily Gainsborough," said she with a distant manner, inclined to be
offended that their meeting should be by accident. Why had he not
received his guests if he had nothing to do but lounge about the roads?

"Yes, I was sure. The moment I thought, I was sure." He took no heed of
her manner, engrossed in some preoccupation of his own. "At first I was
startled." He smiled now, as he offered her his hand. Then he
recollected. "You must forgive me for being out. I have been hard at
work all day, and the craving for the evening was on me. I went out
without thinking."

"They said you were engaged on pressing business."

"They lied for me. I forgot to leave any message. I'm not generally
discourteous."

His apology disarmed her and made her resentment seem petty.

"How could you think of us at such a time? It's good of you to have us
at all."

"My mother wanted you to come." He added no welcome of his own. "You
never saw her, did you?" he asked a moment later.

Cecily shook her head. She was rather confused by the steady gaze of his
eyes. Did Cousin Harry always stare at people as hard as that? Yet it
was not exactly a stare; it was too thoughtful, too ruminative, too
unconscious for that.

"Let's walk back together. You've had a look at the place already
perhaps?"

"It's very beautiful."

"Yes," he assented absently, as they began to walk.

If she did not stare, still she used her eyes, curiously studying his
face with its suggestion of strength and that somehow rather
inconsistent hint of sensitiveness. He was gloomy; that was just now
only proper. She saw something that puzzled her; Mina Zabriska could
have told her what it was, but she herself did not succeed in
identifying Harry's watching look. She was merely puzzled at a certain
shade of expression in the eyes. She had not seen it at the first
moment, but it was there now as he turned to her from time to time while
they sauntered along.

"That's Merrion, our dower-house. But it's let now to a funny little
woman, Madame Zabriska. She's rather a friend of mine, but her uncle,
who lives with her, doesn't like me." He smiled as he spoke of the
Major. "She's very much interested in you."

"In me? Has she heard of me?"

"She hears of most things. She's as sharp as a needle. I like her
though."

He said no more till they were back in the garden; then he proposed that
they should sit down on the seat by the river.

"My mother used to sit here often," he said. "She always loved to see
the sun go down from the garden. She didn't read or do anything; she
just sat watching."

"Thinking?" Cecily suggested.

"Well, hardly. Letting thoughts happen if they wanted to, perhaps. She
was always rather--rather passive about things, you know. They took hold
of her if--well, as I say, if they wanted to." He turned to her quickly
as he asked, "Are you at all like that?"

"I believe I'm only just beginning to find out that I'm anything or like
anything. And, anyhow, I'm quite different from what I was yesterday."

"From yesterday?"

"Yes. Just by coming here, I think."

"That's what I mean! Things do take hold of you then?"

"This place does apparently," she answered laughing, as she leaned back
on the seat, throwing her arm behind her and resting her head on it. She
caught him looking at her again with marked and almost startled
intensity. He was rather strange with his alternations of apparent
forgetfulness and this embarrassing scrutiny.

"Tell me about yourself," he asked, or rather commanded, so brusque and
direct was the request.

She told him about the small house and the small life she had led in it,
even about the furniture and the bric-à-brac, confessing to her
occasional clearances and the deception she had to practise on her
father about them. He was very silent, but he was a good listener. Soon
he began to smoke, but did not ask leave. This might be rudeness, but
seemed a rather cousinly sort of rudeness, and was readily forgiven.

"And suddenly I come to all this!" she murmured. Then with a start she
added, "But I'm forgetting your mother's death and what you must feel,
and chattering about myself!"

"I asked you to talk about yourself. Is it such a great change to come
here?"

"Immense! To come here even for a day! Immense!" She waved her hand a
moment and found him following it with his eyes as it moved.

"You don't look," he said slowly, "as if it was any change at all."

"What do you mean?" she asked, interested in what he seemed to suggest.

"You fit in," he murmured, looking up at the house--at the window of
Addie Tristram's room. "And you're very poor?" he asked.

"Yes. And you----!"

"Oh, I'm not rich as such things go. The estate has fallen in value very
much, you know. But----" He broke off, frowning a little. "Still we're
comfortable enough," he resumed.

"I should think so. You'd always have it to look at anyhow. What did you
think I should be like?"

"Anything in the world but what you are."

The tone was at once too sincere and too absent for a compliment. Cecily
knew herself not to be plain; but he was referring to something else
than that.

"In fact I hardly thought of you as an individual at all. You were the
Gainsboroughs."

"And you didn't like the Gainsboroughs?" she cried in a flash of
intuition.

"No, I didn't," he admitted.

"Why not?"

"A prejudice," answered Harry Tristram after a pause.

She crossed her legs, sticking one foot out in front of her and looking
at it thoughtfully. He followed the movement and slowly broke into a
smile; it was followed by an impatient shrug. With the feminine instinct
she pushed her gown lower down, half over the foot. Harry laughed. She
looked up, blushing and inclined to be angry.

"Oh, it wasn't that," he said, laughing again rather contemptuously.
"But----" He rose, took some paces along the lawn, and then, coming
back, stood beside her, staring at the Blent and frowning rather
formidably.

"Did you see me when I first saw you by the Pool?" he asked in a moment.

"Yes. How you hurried after me!"

Another pause followed, Harry's frown giving way to a smile, but a
perplexed and reluctant one. Cecily watched him with puzzled
interest--still sitting with her foot stuck out in front of her and her
head resting on the bend of her arm; her eyes looked upward, and her
lips were just parted.

"Have I been staring at you?" he inquired abruptly.

"Well, yes, you have," she answered, laughing. "But a strange cousin
expects to be examined rather carefully. Do I pass muster among the
Tristrams? Or am I all the hated Gainsborough?"

He looked at her again and earnestly. She met the look without lowering
her eyes or altering her position in any particular.

"It's too absurd!" he declared, half fretful, half amused. "You're
features aren't so very much alike--except the eyes, they are--and your
hair's darker. But you move and carry yourself and turn your head as she
did. And that position you're in now--why I've seen her in it a thousand
times! Your arm there and your foot stuck out----"

His voice grew louder as he went on, his petulant amusement giving way
to an agitation imperfectly suppressed.

"What do you mean?" she asked, catching excitement from him.

"Why, my mother. That's her attitude, and your walk's her walk, and your
voice her voice. You're her--all over! Why, when I saw you by the Pool
just now, a hundred yards off, strolling on the bank----"

"Yes?" she half-whispered. "You started, didn't you?"

"Yes, I started. I thought for a moment I saw my mother's ghost. I
thought my mother had come back to Blent. And it is--you!"

He threw out his hands in a gesture of what seemed despair.




XII

FIGHTERS AND DOUBTERS


"Miss S. wasn't so far wrong after all!" exclaimed Mina Zabriska,
flinging down a letter on the table by her.

It was three days after Addie Tristram's funeral. Mina had attended that
ceremony, or rather watched it from a little way off. She had seen
Gainsborough's spare humble figure, she had seen too, with an acute
interest, the tall slim girl all in black, heavily veiled, who walked
beside him, just behind the new Lord Tristram. She had also, of course,
seen all the neighbors who were looking on like herself, but who gave
their best attention to Janie Iver and disappointed Miss S. by asking
hardly any questions about the Gainsboroughs. Little indeed would have
been said concerning them except for the fact that Gainsborough (true to
his knack of the unlucky) caught a chill on the occasion and was
confined to his bed down at Blent. A most vexatious occurrence for Lord
Tristram, said Miss S. But one that he ought to bear patiently, added
Mrs Trumbler. And after all, both ladies agreed, it would have been
hardly decent to turn the Gainsboroughs out on Monday, as it was well
known the new lord had proposed.

But the Gainsboroughs were not in Mina's thoughts just now.

     "Nothing is to be made public yet--please remember this. But I want
     you to know that I have just written to Harry Tristram to say I
     will marry him. I have had a great deal of trouble, dear Mina, but
     I think I have done right, looking at it all round. Except my own
     people I am telling only one friend besides you ('Bob Broadley!'
     said Mina with a nod, as she read the letter the second time). But
     I want you to know; and please tell your uncle too. I hope you will
     both give me your good wishes. I do think I'm acting wisely; and I
     thought I had no right to keep him waiting and worrying about this
     when he has so much to think of besides. You must stay at Merrion
     after I come to Blent.--JANIE."

Barring the matter of the immediate announcement then, Miss S. was
justified. Janie had done the obviously right thing--and was obviously
not quite sure that it was right. That mattered very little; it was
done. It was for Mina Zabriska--and others concerned--to adapt
themselves and conform their actions to the accomplished fact. But would
Major Duplay take that view? To Mina was intrusted the delicate task of
breaking the news to her uncle. It is the virtue of a soldier not to
know when he is beaten; of a general not to let others know. To what
standard of martial conduct would the Major adhere? This matter of the
Major was in every way a nuisance to his niece. In the first place she
wanted to think about herself and her own feelings--the one luxury of
the unhappy. Secondly she was afraid again. For Harry suddenly seemed to
be no protection now, and the horrors threatened by Duplay--the
interrogation, the lawyer's office, and the like--recovered their
dreadfulness. It had been easy--perhaps pleasant--to suffer for the
confidential friend who had opened his heart to her on the hillside. It
became less easy and certainly more unpleasant to be sacrificed for
Janie Iver's _fiancé_. But Mina, though no longer exultant and no more
fearless, would be loyal and constant all the same. Should she, after
saving others, be herself a castaway? She experienced a longing for the
sympathy and support of Mr Jenkinson Neeld. Surely he would stand firm
too? He was still at Fairholme. Was he included in Janie's "own people"?
Had he been told the news?

The delicate task! The Imp's temper was far too bad for delicacy; she
found a positive pleasure in outraging it. She took her letter, marched
into the smoking-room, and threw it to (not to say at) her uncle.

"Read that!" she said and strode off to the window to have a look at
Blent. The letter had succeeded, it seemed, in taking away from her life
all she wanted, and introducing into it all she did not.

"This is very serious," declared the Major solemnly, "very serious
indeed, Mina."

"Don't see how," snapped the Imp, presenting an unwavering back-view to
her uncle. "If they like to get married, why is it serious?"

"Pray be reasonable," he urged. "You must perceive that the situation I
have always contemplated----"

"Well, you can go on contemplating it, can't you, uncle? It won't do
much good, but still----"

"The situation, I say, has arisen." She heard him get up, walk to the
hearth-rug, and strike a match. Of course he was going to have a
cigarette! He would smoke it all through with exasperating slowness and
then arrive at an odious conclusion. Mina had not been married for
nothing; she knew men's ways. He justified her forecast; it was minutes
before he spoke again.

"The terms of this letter," he resumed at last, "fortify me in my
purpose. It is evident that Miss Iver is influenced--largely
influenced--by--er--the supposed position of--er--Mr Tristram."

"Of who?"

"Of the present possessor of Blent."

"If you want people to know who you mean, you'd better say Lord
Tristram."

"For the present, if you wish it. I say, she is----" Duplay's pompous
formality suddenly broke down. "She's taking him for his title, that's
all."

"Oh, if you choose to say things like that about your friends!"

"You know it's true. What becomes my duty then?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Only I hate people to talk about duty
when they're going to----" Well, one must stop somewhere in describing
one's relatives' conduct. The Imp stopped there. But the sentence really
lost nothing; Duplay could guess pretty accurately what she had been
going to say.

Fortunately, although he was very dependent on her help, he cared little
about her opinion. She neither would nor could judge his position
fairly; she would not perceive how he felt, how righteous was his anger,
how his friends were being cheated and he was being jockeyed out of his
chances by one and the same unscrupulous bit of imposture. He had
brought himself round to a more settled state of mind and had got his
conscience into better order. If he were acting unselfishly, he deserved
commendation. But even if self-interest guided him he was free of blame.
No man is bound to let himself be swindled. He doubted seriously of
nothing now except his power to upset Harry Tristram's plans. He was
resolved to try; Mina must speak--and if money were needed, it must come
from somewhere. The mere assertion of what he meant to allege must at
least delay this hateful marriage. It must be added--though the Major
was careful not to add--that it would also give Harry Tristram a very
unpleasant shock; the wrestling bout by the Pool and the loss of that
shilling were not forgotten. It may further be observed--though the
Major could not be expected to observe--that he had such an estimate of
his own attractions as led him to seize very eagerly on any evidences of
liking for Harry's position, rather than of preference for Harry
himself, which Janie's letter might be considered to afford. The Major,
in fact, had a case; good argument made it seem a good case. It is
something to have a case that can be argued at all; morality has a sad
habit of leaving us without a leg to stand on. In the afternoon of that
day Duplay went down to Fairholme. Miss Swinkerton passed him on the
road and smiled sagaciously. Oh, if Miss S. had known the truth about
his errand! A gossip in ignorance has pathos as a spectacle.

Mr Neeld was still at Fairholme; he had been pressed to stay and needed
little pressing; in fact, in default of the pressure he would probably
have taken lodgings in the town. He could not go away; he had seen Addie
Tristram buried, and her son walking behind the coffin, clad in his new
dignity. His mind was full of the situation. Yet he had shrunk from
discussing it further with Mina Zabriska. The family anxiety about
Janie's love affair had been all round him. Now he suspected strongly
that some issue was being decided upon. He ought to speak, to break his
word to Mina and speak--or he ought to go. From day to day he meant to
go and cease to accept the hospitality which his silence seemed to
abuse. But he did not go. These internal struggles were new in his
placid and estimable life; this affair of Harry Tristram's had a way of
putting people in strange and difficult positions.

"Mind you say nothing--nothing--nothing." That sentence had reached him
on the reverse side of an invitation to take tea at Merrion--a vague
some-day-when-you're-passing sort of invitation, in Neeld's eyes plainly
and merely a pretext for writing and an opportunity of conveying the
urgent little scrawl on the other side. It arrived at mid-day; in the
afternoon Duplay had come and was now alone with Iver.

The outward calm of the gray-haired old gentleman who sat on the lawn at
Fairholme, holding a weekly review upside down, was no index to the
alarming and disturbing questions which were agitating him within. At
the end of a blameless life it is hard to discover that you must do one
of two things and that, whichever you do, you will feel like a villain.
The news that Josiah Cholderton's Journal was going off very fairly well
with the trade had been unable to give its editor any consolation; he
did not care about the Journal now.

Iver came out and sat down beside him without speaking. Neeld hastily
restored his paper to a position more befitting its dignity and became
apparently absorbed in an article on _Shyness in Elephants_; the subject
was treated with a wealth of illustration and in a vein of introspective
philosophy exceedingly instructive. But it was all wasted on Mr Neeld.
He was waiting for Iver; no man could be so silent unless he had
something important to say or to leave unsaid. And Iver was not even
smoking the cigar which he always smoked after tea. Neeld could bear it
no longer; he got up and was about to move away.

"Stop, Neeld. Do you mind sitting down again for a moment?"

Neeld could do nothing but comply. The review fell on the ground by him
and he ceased to struggle with the elephants.

"I want to ask your opinion----"

"My dear Iver, my opinion! Oh, I'm not a business man, and----"

"It's not business. You know Major Duplay? What do you think of him?"

"I--I've always found him very agreeable."

"Yes, so have I. And I've always thought him honest, haven't you?"

Neeld admitted that he had no reason to impugn the Major's character.

"And I suppose he's sane," Iver pursued. "But he's just been telling me
the most extraordinary thing." He paused a moment. "I dare say you've
noticed something between Janie and young Tristram? I may as well tell
you that she has just consented to marry him. But I don't want to talk
about that except so far as it comes into the other matter--which it
does very considerably." He laid his hand on Neeld's knee. "Neeld,
Duplay came and told me that Harry Tristram has no title to the peerage
or to Blent. I'm not going to trouble you with the details now. It comes
to this--Harry was born before, not after, the marriage of his parents.
Duplay says Mina knows all about it, and will give us information that
will make the proof easy. That's a tolerably startling story, eh? One's
prepared for something where Lady Tristram was involved, but this----!"

It was fortunate that he did not glance at Neeld; Neeld had tried to
appear startled, but had succeeded only in looking supremely miserable.
But Iver's eyes were gazing straight in front of him under brows that
frowned heavily.

"Now, what I want you to do," he resumed, "and I'm sure you won't refuse
me, is this. I'm inclined to dismiss the whole thing as a blunder. I
believe Duplay's honest, but I think certain facts in his own position
have led him to be too ready to believe a mere yarn. But I've consented
to see Mina and hear what she has to say. And I said I should bring you
as a witness. I go to Merrion Lodge to-morrow for this purpose, and I
shall rely on you to accompany me." With that the cigar made its
appearance; Iver lit it and lay back in his chair, frowning still in
perplexity and vexation. He had not asked his friend's opinion but his
services. It was characteristic of him not to notice this fact. And the
fact did nothing to relieve Neeld's piteous embarrassment.

"I knew it all along;" he might say that. "I know nothing about it;" he
might act that. Or he might temporize for a little while. This was what
he did.

"It would make a great difference if this were true?" His voice shook,
but Iver was absorbed.

"An enormous difference," said Iver (Lady Tristram herself had once said
the same). "I marry my daughter to Lord Tristram of Blent or to--to
whom? You'll call that snobbishness, or some people would. I say it's
not snobbish in us new men to consider that. It's the right thing for us
to do, Neeld. Other things equal--if the man's a decent fellow and the
girl likes him--I say it's the right thing for us to do. That's the way
it always has happened, and the right way too."

Mr Neeld nodded. He had sympathy with these opinions.

"But if it's true, why, who's Harry Tristram? Oh, I know it's all a
fluke, a damned fluke, if you like, Neeld, and uncommonly hard on the
boy. But the law's the law, and for my own part I'm not in favor of
altering it. Now do you suppose I want my daughter to marry him, if it's
true?"

"I suppose you wouldn't," murmured Neeld.

"And there's another thing. Duplay says Harry knows it--Duplay swears he
knows it. Well then, what's he doing? In my opinion he's practising a
fraud. He knows he isn't what he pretends to be. He deceives me, he
deceives Janie. If the thing ever comes out, where is she? He's treated
us very badly if it's true."

The man, ordinarily so calm and quiet in his reserved strength, broke
out into vehemence as he talked of what Harry Tristram had done if the
Major's tale were true. Neeld asked himself what his host would say of a
friend who knew the story to be true and yet said nothing of it. He
perceived too that although Iver would not have forced his daughter's
inclination, yet the marriage was very good in his eyes, the proper end
and the finest crown to his own career. This had never come home to
Neeld with any special force before. Iver was English of the English in
his repression, in his habit of meeting both good and bad luck
with--well, with something like a grunt. But he was stirred now; the
suddenness of the thing had done it. And in face of his feelings how
stood Mr Neeld? He saw nothing admirable in how and where he stood.

"Well, we'll see Mina and hear if she's got anything to say. Fancy that
little monkey being drawn into a thing like this! Meanwhile we'll say
nothing. I don't believe it, and I shall want a lot of convincing. Until
I am convinced everything stands as it did. I rely on you for that,
Neeld--and I rely on you to come to Merrion to-morrow. Not a word to my
wife--above all not a word to Janie!" He got up, took possession of
Neeld's review, and walked off into the house with his business-like
quick stride.

Neeld sat there, slowly rubbing his hands against one another between
his knees. He was realizing what he had done, or rather what had
happened to him. When his life, his years, and what he conceived to be
his character were considered, it was a very surprising thing, this
silence of his--the conspiracy he had entered into with Mina Zabriska,
the view of duty which the Imp, or Harry, or the thought of beautiful
Addie Tristram, or all of them together, had made him take. So strange a
view for him! To run counter to law, to outrage good sense, to slight
the claims of friendship, to suppress the truth, to aid what Iver so
relentlessly called a fraud--all these were strange doings for him to be
engaged in. And why had he done it? The explanation was as strange as
the things that he invoked it to explain. Still rubbing his hands, palm
against palm, to and fro, he said very slowly, with wonder and
reluctance:

"I was carried away. I was carried away by--by romance."

The word made him feel a fool. Yet what other word was there for the
overwhelming unreasoning feeling that at the cost of everything the
Tristrams, mother and son, must keep Blent, the son living and the
mother dead, that the son must dwell there and the spirit of the mother
be about him she loved in the spot that she had graced? It was very rank
romance indeed--no other word for it! And--wildest paradox--it all came
out of editing Josiah Cholderton's Journal.

Before he had made any progress in unravelling his skein of perplexities
he saw Janie coming across the lawn. She took the chair her father had
left and seemed to take her father's mood with it; the same oppressive
silence settled on her. Neeld broke it this time.

"You don't look very merry, Miss Janie," he said, smiling at her and
achieving a plausible jocularity.

"Why should I, Mr Neeld?" She glanced at him. "Oh, has father told you
anything?"

"Yes, that you're engaged. You know how truly I desire your happiness,
my dear." With a pretty courtesy the old man took her hand and kissed
it, baring his gray hair the while.

"You're very, very kind. Yes, I've promised to marry Harry Tristram. Not
yet, you know. And it isn't to be announced. But I've promised."

He stole a glance at her, and then another. She did not look merry
indeed. Neeld knew his ignorance of feminine things, and made guesses
with proper diffidence; but he certainly fancied she had been crying--or
very near it--not so long ago. Yet the daughter of William Iver was
sensible and not given to silly tears.

"I think I've done right," she said--as she had said when she wrote to
Mina. "Everybody will be pleased. Father's very pleased." Suddenly she
put out her hand and took hold of his, giving it a tight grip. "Oh, but,
Mr Neeld, I've made somebody so unhappy."

"I dare say, my dear, I dare say. I was a young fellow once. I dare
say."

"And he says nothing about it. He wished me joy--and he does wish me joy
too. I've no right to talk to you, to tell you, or anything. I don't
believe people think girls ever mind making men unhappy; but they do."

"If they like the men?" This suggestion at least was not too difficult
for him.

"Yes, when they like them, when they're old friends, you know. I only
spoke to him for a moment, I only just met him on the road. I don't
suppose I shall ever talk to him about it, or about anything in
particular, again." She squeezed Neeld's hand a second time, and then
withdrew her own.

This was unknown country again for Mr Neeld; his sense of being lost
grew more acute. These were not the sort of problems which had occupied
his life; but they seemed now to him no less real, hardly less
important. It was only a girl wondering if she had done right. Yet he
felt the importance of it.

"You can't help the unhappiness," he said. "You must go to the man you
love, my dear."

With a little start she turned and looked at him for an instant. Then
she murmured in a perfunctory fashion:

"Yes, I must make the best choice I can, of course." She added after a
pause, "But I wish----"

Words or the inclination to speak failed her again, and she relapsed
into silence.

As he sat there beside her, silent too, his mind travelled back to what
her father had said; and slowly he began to understand. No doubt she
liked Harry, even as her father did. No doubt she thought he would be a
good husband, as Iver had thought him a good fellow. But it became plain
to the searcher after truth that not to her any more than to her father
was it nothing that Harry was Tristram of Blent. Her phrases about doing
right and making the right choice included a reference to that, even if
that were not their whole meaning. She had mentioned her father's
pleasure--everybody's pleasure. That pleasure would be found largely in
seeing her Lady Tristram. What then would she have to say on the
question that so perplexed Mr Neeld? Would she not echo Iver's
accusation of fraud against Harry Tristram and (as a consequence)
against those who aided and abetted him? Would she understand or accept
as an excuse the plea that Neeld had been led away by romance or
entrapped into a conspiracy by Mina Zabriska? No. She too would call out
"Fraud, fraud!" and he did not blame her. He called himself a fool for
having been led away by romance, by unreasoning feeling. Should he blame
her because she was not led away? His disposition was to praise her for
a choice so wise, and to think that she had done very right in
accepting Lord Tristram of Blent. Aye, Lord Tristram of Blent!
Precisely! Deep despair settled on Mr Neeld's baffled mind.

Meanwhile, Duplay walked home, the happier for having crossed his
Rubicon. He had opened his campaign with all the success he could have
expected. Like a wise man, Iver held nothing true till it was proved;
but like a wise man also he dubbed nothing a lie merely because it was
new or improbable. And on the whole he had done the Major justice. He
had smiled for a moment when he hinted that Duplay and Harry were not
very cordial; the Major met him by a straightforward recognition that
this was true, and by an indirect admission of the reason. As to this
latter Iver had dropped no word; but he would give Duplay a hearing. Now
it remained only to bring Mina to reason. If she spoke, the case would
be so strong as to demand inquiry. The relief in Duplay's mind was so
great that he could not explain it, until he realized that his niece's
way of treating him had so stuck in his memory that he had been prepared
to be turned from Iver's doors with contumely. Such an idea seemed
absurd now, and the Major laughed.

Mina was strange, Duplay never ceased to think that. They had parted on
impossible terms; but now, as soon as he appeared, she ran at him with
apparent pleasure and with the utmost eagerness. She asked nothing about
his expedition either, though she could easily have guessed where he had
been and for what purpose. She almost danced as she cried:

"I've seen her! I've been talking to her! I met her in the meadow near
Matson's cottage, and she asked me the way back to Blent. Uncle, she's
wonderful!"

"Who are you talking about?"

"Why, Cecily Gainsborough, of course. I just remember how Lady Tristram
spoke. She speaks the same way exactly! I can't describe it, but it's
the sort of voice that makes you want to do anything in the world it
asks. Don't you know? She told me a lot about herself; then she talked
about Blent. She's full of it; she admires it most tremendously----"

"That's all right," interrupted Duplay with a malicious smile. "Because,
so far as I can understand, she happens to own it."

"What?" The Imp stood frozen into stillness.

"You've been talking to Lady Tristram of Blent," he added with a nod.
"Though I suppose you didn't tell her so?"

To Lady Tristram of Blent! She had never once thought of that while they
talked. The shock of the idea was great, so great that Mina forgot to
repudiate it, or to show any indignation at Harry's claims being passed
by in contemptuous silence. All the while they talked, she had thought
of the girl as far removed from Blent, as even more of a visitor to the
countryside than she herself was, a wonderful visitor indeed, but no
part of their life. And she was--well, at the least she was heir to
Blent! How had she forgotten that? The persistent triumph of Duplay's
smile marked his sense of the success of his sally.

"Yes, and she'll be installed there before many months are out," he went
on. "So I hope you made yourself pleasant, Mina?"

Mina gave him one scornful glance, as she passed by him and ran out on
to her favorite terrace. There was a new thing to look and to wonder at
in Blent. The interest, the sense of concern in Blent and its affairs,
which the news of the engagement had blunted and almost destroyed,
revived in her now. She forgot the prose of that marriage arrangement
and turned eagerly to the poetry of Cecily Gainsborough, of the poor
girl there in the house that was hers, unwitting guest of the man who
was---- The Imp stopped herself with rude abruptness. What had she been
about to say, what had she been about to think? The guest of the man who
was robbing her? That had been it. But no, no, no! She did not think
that. Confused in her mind by this new idea, none the less she found her
sympathy going out to Harry again. He was not a robber; it was his own.
The blood, she cried still, and not the law. But what was to be done
about Cecily Gainsborough? Was she to go back to the little house in
London, was she to go back to ugliness, to work, to short commons? There
seemed no way out. Between the old and the new attraction, the old
allegiance and the new claim to homage that Cecily made, Mina Zabriska
stood bewildered. She had a taste now of the same perplexity that she
had done so much to bring on poor Mr Neeld at Fairholme. Yet not quite
the same. He did not know what he ought to do; she did not feel sure of
what she wanted. Both stood undecided. Mr Cholderton's Journal was still
at its work of disturbing people's minds.

But Major Duplay was well content with the day's work. If his niece had
a divided mind she would be easier to bend to his will. He did not care
who had Blent, if only it passed from Harry. But it was a point gained
if Mina could think of its passing from Harry to somebody who would be
welcome to her there. Then she would tell the story which she had
received from her mother, and the first battle against Harry Tristram
would be won. The excitement of fighting was on the Major now. He could
neither pity the enemy nor distrust his own cause till the strife was
done.

Amongst all the indecision there was about, Duplay had the merit of a
clear vision of his own purpose and his own desires.




XIII

IN THE LONG GALLERY


The man with whom the fighters and the doubters were concerned, in whose
defence or attack efforts and hopes were enlisted, round whom hesitation
and struggles gathered, was thinking very little about his champions or
his enemies. No fresh whispers of danger had come to Harry Tristram's
ears. He knew nothing of Neeld and could not think of that quiet old
gentleman as a possible menace to his secret. He trusted Mina Zabriska
and relied on the influence which he had proved himself to possess over
her. He did not believe that Duplay would stick to his game, and was not
afraid of him if he did. The engagement was accomplished; the big check,
or the prospect of it, lay ready to his hand; his formal proofs, perfect
so long as they were unassailed, awaited the hour when formal proofs
would be required. To all appearance he was secure in his inheritance
and buttressed against any peril. No voice was raised, no murmur was
heard, to impugn the right of the new Lord Tristram of Blent. The object
of all those long preparations, which had occupied his mother and
himself for so many years, was achieved. He sat in Addie Tristram's
place, and none said him nay.

His mind was not much on these matters at all. Even his engagement
occupied him very little. Janie's letter had arrived and had been read.
It came at mid-day, and the evening found it still unacknowledged. It
had broken in from outside as it were, intruding like something foreign
into the life that he had begun to live on the evening before Addie
Tristram was buried, the evening when for an instant he had thought he
saw her phantom by the Pool; a life foreshadowed by the new mood which
Mina had noticed in him while Lady Tristram still lived, but brought
into reality by the presence of another. It seemed a new life coming to
one who was almost a new man, so much of the unexpected in him did it
reveal to himself. He had struggled against it, saying that the Monday
morning would see an end of this unlooked-for episode of feeling and of
companionship. Accident stepped in; Gainsborough lay in bed with a chill
and could not move. Harry acquiesced in the necessity of his remaining,
not exactly with pleasure, rather with a sense that something had begun
to happen, not by his will, but affecting him deeply. What would come of
it he did not know; that it would end in a day or two, that it would be
only an episode and leave no permanent mark seemed now almost
impossible; it was fraught with something bigger than that.

But with what? He had no reasoned idea; he was unable to reason. He was
passive in the hands of the feelings, the impressions, the fancies that
laid hold of him. Addie Tristram's death had moved him strangely; then
came that hardly natural, eerily fascinating reminiscence--no, it was
more than that--that re-embodiment or resurrection of her in the girl
who moved and talked and sat like her, who had her ways though not her
face, her eyes set in another frame, her voice renewed in youthful
richness, the very turns of her head, even her old trick of sticking out
her foot. He scowled sometimes, he was surprised into laughter
sometimes; at another moment he would rebel against the malicious Power
that seemed to be having a joke with him; for the most part he looked,
and looked, and looked, unwilling to miss a single one of the
characteristic touches which had been Addie Tristram's belongings and
which he had never expected to see again after her spirit had passed
away. And the outcome of all his looking was still the same as the
effect of his first impression on the evening before the funeral--a sort
of despair. A thing was there which he did not know how to deal with.

And she was so happy, so absurdly happy. She had soon found that he
expected no conventional solemnity; he laughed himself at the idea of
Addie Tristram wanting people to pull long faces, and keep them long
when pulled, because she had laid her burden down and was at peace.
Cecily found she might be merry, and merry she was. A new life had come
to her too, a life of river and trees and meadows; deeper than that, a
life of beauty about her. She absorbed it with a native thirst. There
was plenty of it, and she had been starved so long. She seized on Blent
and enjoyed it to the full. She enjoyed Harry too, laughing now when he
stared at her and making him laugh, yet herself noting all his ways, his
pride, his little lordlinesses--these grew dear to her--his air of
owning the countryside, and making no secret of her own pleasure in
being part of the family and in living in the house that owned the
countryside. It is to be feared that Mr Gainsborough and his chill were
rather neglected, but he got on very well with Addie Tristram's ancient
maid; she had the nobility at her fingers' ends and even knew something
about their pedigrees. Cecily was free, or assumed the freedom, to spend
her time with Harry, or, if he failed her, at least with and among the
things that belonged to him and had belonged to beautiful Addie Tristram
who had been like her--so Harry said, and Cecily treasured the thought,
teasing him now sometimes, as they grew intimate, with a purposed
repetition of a pose or trick that she had first displayed
unconsciously, and found had power to make him frown or smile. She
smiled herself in mischievous triumph when she hit her mark, or she
would break into the rich gurgle of delight that he remembered hearing
from his young mother when he himself was a child. The life was to her
all pure delight; she had no share in the thoughts that often darkened
his brow, no knowledge of the thing which again and again filled him
with that wondering despair.

On the evening of the day when Major Duplay went to Fairholme, the two
sat together in the garden after dinner. It was nine o'clock, a close
still night, with dark clouds now and then slowly moving off and on to
the face of a moon nearly full. They had been silent for some minutes,
sipping coffee. Cecily pointed to the row of windows in the left wing of
the house.

"I've never been there," she said. "What's that?"

"The Long Gallery--all one long room, you know," he answered.

"One room! All that! What's in it?"

"Well, everything mostly," he smiled. "All our treasures, and our
pictures, and so on."

"Why haven't you taken me there?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "You never asked me," he said.

"Well, will you take me there now--when you've finished your cigar?"

There was a pause before he answered, "Yes, if you like." He turned to
the servant who had come to take away the coffee. "Light up the Long
Gallery at once."

"Yes, my lord." A slight surprise broke through the respectful
acceptance of the order.

"It was lighted last for my mother, months ago," Harry said, as though
he were explaining his servant's surprise. "She sat there the last
evening before she took to her room."

"Is that why you haven't taken me there?"

"I expect it is." His tone was not very confident.

"And you don't much want to now?"

"No, I don't know that I do." But his reluctance seemed vague and weak.

"Oh, I must go," Cecily decided, "but you needn't come unless you like,
you know."

"All right, you go alone," he agreed.

Window after window sprang into light. "Ah!" murmured Cecily in
satisfaction; and Mina Zabriska saw the illumination from the terrace of
Merrion on the hill. Cecily rose, waved her hand to Harry, and ran off
into the house with a laugh. The next moment he saw her figure in the
first window; she threw it open, waved her hand again, and again
laughed; the moon, clear for a moment, shone on her face and turned it
pale.

He sat watching the lighted windows. From time to time she darted into
sight; once he heard the big window at the end facing the river flung
open, the next instant she was in sight at the other extremity of the
Gallery. Evidently she was running about, examining all the things. She
came to a window presently and cried, "I wish you'd come and tell me all
about it." "I don't think I will," he called back. "Oh, well----!" she
laughed impatiently, and disappeared. Minutes passed and he did not see
her again; she must have settled down somewhere, he supposed; or perhaps
her interest was exhausted and she had gone off to her father's room.
No, there she was, flitting past a window again. His reluctance gave way
before curiosity and attraction. Flinging away his cigar, he got up and
walked slowly into the house.

The passage outside the Gallery was dimly lighted, and the door of the
Gallery was open. Harry stood in the shadow unseen, watching intently
every movement of the girl's. She was looking at a case of miniatures
and medals, memorials of beauties and of warriors. She turned from them
to the picture of an Elizabethan countess, splendid in ruff and rich in
embroidery. She caught up a candle and held it over her head, up toward
the picture. Then setting the candle down she ran to the end window and
looked out on the night. Addie Tristram's tall arm-chair still stood by
the window. Cecily threw herself into it, sighing and stretching her
arms in a delighted weariness. Mina Zabriska could make out a figure in
the Long Gallery now.

Slowly and irresolutely Harry Tristram came in; Cecily's face was not
turned toward the door, and he stood unnoticed just within the
threshold. His eyes ranged round the room but came back to Cecily. She
was very quiet, but he saw her breast rise and fall in quick breathing.
She was stirred and moved. A strange agitation, an intensity of feeling,
came over him as he stood there motionless, everything seeming
motionless around him, while his ancestors and hers looked down on them
from the walls, down on their successors. The Lords of Blent were about
him. Their trophies and their treasures decked the room. And she sat
there in Addie Tristram's chair, in Addie Tristram's place, in Addie
Tristram's attitude. Did the dead know the secret? Did the pictures
share it? Who was to them the Lord of Blent?

He shook off these idle fancies--a man should not give way to them--and
walked up the room with a steady assured tread. Even then she did not
seem to hear him till he spoke.

"Well, do you like it?" he asked, leaning against a table in the middle
of the upper part of the room, a few feet from the chair where she sat.
Now Mina Zabriska made out two figures, cast up by the bright light
against the darkness, and watched them with an eagerness that had no
reason in it.

"Like it!" she cried, springing to her feet, running to him, holding out
her hands. "Like it! Oh, Harry! Why, it's better than all the rest.
Better, even better!"

"It's rather a jolly room," said Harry. "The pictures and all the things
about make it look well."

"Oh, I'm not going to say anything if you talk like that. You don't feel
like that!--'Rather a jolly room!' That's what one says if the inn
parlor's comfortable. This isn't a room. It's--it's----"

"Shall we call it a temple?" he suggested, smiling.

"I believe it's heaven--the private particular Tristram heaven. They're
all here!" She waved toward the pictures. "Here in a heaven of their
own."

"And we're allowed to visit it before we die?"

"Yes. At least I am. You let me visit it. It belongs to you--to the dead
and you."

"Do you want to stay here any longer?" he asked with a sudden roughness.

"Yes, lots longer," she laughed defiantly, quite undismayed. "You
needn't, though. You'll have it all your life. Perhaps I shall never
have it again. Father's better! And I don't know if you'll ever ask us
here again. You never did before, you know. So I mean to have all of it
I can get." She darted away from him and ran back to the miniatures. A
richly ornamented sword hung on the wall just above them. This caught
her notice; she took it down and unsheathed it.

"_Henricus Baro Tristram de Blent_," she spelt out from the enamelled
steel. "_Per Ensem Justitia._ What does that mean? No, I know. Rather a
good motto, cousin Harry. 'That he shall take who has the power, and he
shall keep who can!' That was his justice, I expect!"

"Do you quarrel with it? If this was all yours, would you give it up?"

"Not without a fight!" she laughed. "_Per Ensem Justitia!_" She waved
the blade.

Harry left her busy with the things that were so great a delight and
walked to the window at the other end of the long room. Thence he
watched, now her, now the clouds that lounged off and on to the moon's
disk. More and more, though, his eyes were caught by her and glued to
her; she was the centre of the room; it seemed all made and prepared for
her even as it had seemed for Addie Tristram. The motto ran in his
head--_Per Ensem Justitia_. What was the justice and what the sword? He
awoke to the cause of the changed mood in him and of the agitation in
which he had been living. It was nothing to defy the law, to make light
of a dry abstraction, to find right against it in his blood. His
opponent now was no more the law, it was no more even some tiresome,
unknown, unrealized girl in London, with surroundings most unpicturesque
and associations that had no power to touch his heart. Here was the
enemy, this creature whose every movement claimed the blood that was
hers, whose coming repaired the loss Blent had suffered in losing Addie
Tristram, whose presence crowned its charms with a new glory. Nature
that fashioned her in the Tristram image--had it not put in her hand the
sword by which she should win justice? The thought passed through his
mind now without a shock; he seemed to see her mistress of Blent; for
the moment he forgot himself as anyone save an onlooker; he did not seem
concerned.

Once more he roused himself. He had fallen into a fear of the fancies
that threatened to carry him he did not know where. He wanted to get
away from this room with its suggestions, and from the presence that
gave them such force.

"Aren't you ready yet?" he called to her. "It's getting late."

"Are you still there?" she cried back in a gay affectation of surprise.
"I'd forgotten all about you, I thought I had it to myself. I was trying
to think it was all mine."

"Shall we go downstairs?" His voice was hard and constrained.

"No, I won't," she said squarely. "I can't go. It's barely ten o'clock.
Come, we'll talk here. You smoke--or is that high treason?--and I'll sit
here." She threw herself into Addie Tristram's great chair. There was a
triumphant gayety in her air that spoke of her joy in all about her, of
her sense of the boundless satisfaction that her surroundings gave. "I
love it all so much," she murmured, half perhaps to herself, yet still
as a plea to him that he would not seek to hurry her from the place.

Harry turned away, again with that despair on him. She gave him
permission to go, but he could not leave her--neither her nor now the
room. Yet he was afraid that he could not answer for himself if he
stayed. It was too strange that every association, and every tradition,
and every emotion which had through all the years seemed to justify and
even to sanctify his own position and the means he was taking to
preserve it, should in two or three days begin to desert him, and should
now in this hour openly range themselves against him and on her side; so
that all he invoked to aid him pleaded for her, all that he had prayed
to bless him and his enterprise blessed her and cursed the work to which
he had put his hand.

Which of them could best face the world without Blent? Which of them
could best look the world in the face having Blent? These were the
questions that rose in his mind with tempestuous insistence.

"I could sit here forever," she murmured, a lazy enjoyment succeeding to
the agile movements of her body and the delighted agitation of her
nerves. "It just suits me to sit here, cousin Harry. Looking like a
great lady!" Her eyes challenged him to deny that she looked the part to
perfection. She glanced through the window. "I met that funny little
Madame Zabriska who lives up at Merrion Lodge to-day. She seems very
anxious to know all about us."

"Madame Zabriska has a healthy--or unhealthy--curiosity." The mention of
Mina was a fresh prick. Mina knew; suddenly he hated that she should
know.

"Is she in love with you?" asked Cecily, mockingly yet languidly, indeed
as a great lady might inquire about the less exalted, condescending to
be amused.

"Nobody's in love with me, not even the girl who's going to marry me."

"To marry you?" She sat up, looking at him. "Are you engaged?"

"Yes, to Janie Iver. You know who I mean?"

"Yes, I know. You're going to be married to her?"

"I asked her a week ago. To-day she wrote to say she'd have me." He was
on his feet even as he spoke. "To marry me and to marry all this, you
know."

She was too sympathetic to waste breath on civil pretences.

"To be mistress here? To own this? To be Lady Tristram of Blent?"

"Yes. To have what--what I'm supposed to have," said he.

Cecily regarded him intently for another moment. Then she sank back
into Addie Tristram's great arm-chair, asking, "Will she do it well?"

"No," said Harry. "She's a good sort, but she won't do it well."

Cecily sighed and turned her head toward the window.

"Why do you do it? Do you care for her?"

"I like her. And I want money. She's very rich. Money might be useful to
me."

"You seem very rich. Why do you want money?"

"I might want it."

There was silence for a moment. "Well, I hope you'll be happy," she said
presently.

She herself was the reason--the embodied reason (was reason ever more
fairly embodied?), why he was going to marry Janie Iver. The
monstrousness of it rose before his mind. When he told of his
engagement, there had been for an instant a look in her eyes. Wonder it
was at least. Was it disappointment? Was it at all near to
consternation? She sat very still now; her gayety was gone. She was like
Addie Tristram still, but like Addie when the hard world used her ill,
when there were aches to be borne and sins to be reckoned with. As he
watched her, yet another new thing came upon him, or a thing that seemed
to be as new as the last quarter chimed by the old French clock on the
mantel-piece, and yet might date back so long as three days ago. Even
now it hardly reached consciousness, certainly did not attain
explicitness. It was still rather than Janie was no mistress for Blent
and that this girl was the ideal. It was Blent still rather than
himself, Blent's mistress rather than his. But it was enough to set a
new edge on his questioning. Was he to be the man--he who looked on her
now and saw how fair she was--was he to be the man to deny her her own,
to rob her of her right, to parade before the world in the trappings
which were hers? It was all so strange, so overwhelming. He dropped into
a chair by him and pressed his hand across his brow. A low murmur,
almost a groan, escaped him in the tumult of his soul. "My God!" he
whispered, in a whisper that seemed to echo through the room.

"Harry! Are you unhappy?" In an instant she was by him. "What is it? I
don't understand. You tell me you're engaged, and you look so unhappy.
Why do you marry her if you don't love her? Are you giving her all
this--and yourself--you yourself--without loving her? Dear Harry--yes,
you've been very good to me--dear Harry, why?"

"Go back," he said. "Go back to your chair. Go and sit there."

With wonder in her eyes and a smile fresh-born on her lips she obeyed
him.

"Well?" she said. "You're very odd. But--why?"

"I'm marrying her for Blent's sake--and I think she's marrying me for
Blent's sake."

"I call that horrible."

"No." He sprang to his feet. "If Blent was yours, what would you do to
keep it?"

"Everything," she answered. "Everything--except sell myself, Harry."

She was superb. By a natural instinct, all affectation forgotten, she
had thrown herself into Addie Tristram's attitude. There was the head on
the bend of the arm, there was the dainty foot stuck out. There was all
the defiance of a world insensate to love, greedy to find sin, dull to
see grace and beauty, blind to a woman's self while it cavilled at a
woman's deeds.

"Everything except sell yourself?" he repeated, his eyes set on her
face.

"Yes--_Per Ensem Justitia!_" she laughed. "But not lies, and not buying
and selling, Harry."

"My word is given. I must marry her now."

"Better fling Blent away!" she flashed out in a brilliant indignation.

"And if I did that?"

"A woman would love you for yourself," she cried, leaning forward to him
with hands clasped.

Again he rose and paced the length of the Long Gallery. The moment was
come. There was a great alliance against him. He fought still. At every
step he took he came to something that still was his, that he prized,
that he loved, that meant much to him, that typified his position as
Tristram of Blent. A separate pang waited on every step, a great agony
rose in him with the thought that he might be walking this room as its
master for the last time. Yes, it had come to that. For against all,
threatening to conquer all, was the girl who sat in his mother's chair,
her very body asserting the claim that her thoughts did not know and her
mouth could not utter. And yet his mood had affected her. The upturned
eyes were full of excitement, the parted lips waited for a word from
him. Mina Zabriska had left her terrace and gone to bed, declaring that
she was still on Harry's side; but she was not with him in this fight.

He returned to Cecily and stood by her. The sympathy between them kept
her still; she watched, she waited. For minutes he was silent; all
thought of time was gone. Now she knew that he had something great to
say. Was it that he would and could have no more to do with Janie Iver,
that another had come, that his word must go, and that he loved her? She
could hardly believe that. It was so short a time since he had seen her.
Yet why could it not be true of him, if it were true of her? And was it
not? Else why did she hang on his words and keep her eyes on his? Else
why was it so still in the room, as though the world too waited for
speech from his lips?

"I can't do it!" burst from him suddenly. "By God, I can't do it!"

"What, Harry?" The words were no more than breathed. He came right up to
her and caught her by the arm.

"You see all that--everything here? You love it?"

"Yes."

"As much as I do? As much as I do?" His self-control was gone. She made
no answer; she could not understand.

With an effort he mastered himself.

"Yes, you love it," he said, and a smile came on his face. "I'm glad you
love it. As God lives, unless you'd loved it, I'd have spoken not a word
of this. But you're one of us, you're a Tristram. I don't know the real
rights of it, but I'll run no risk of cheating a Tristram. You love it
all?"

"Yes, yes, Harry. But why, dear Harry, why?"

"Why? Because it's yours."

He let go her hand and reeled back a step.

"Mine? What do you mean?" she cried. Still the idea, the wild idea, that
he offered it with himself was in her mind.

"It's yours, not mine--it's never been mine. You're the owner of it.
You're Tristram of Blent."

"I--I Tristram of Blent?" She was utterly bewildered. For he was not a
lover--no lover ever spoke like that.

"Yes, I say, yes." His voice rose imperiously as it pronounced the words
that threw away his rule. "You're Lady Tristram of Blent."

She did not understand; yet she believed. He spoke so that he must be
believed.

"This is all yours--yours--yours. You're Tristram of Blent."

She rose to her height, and stood facing him.

"And you? And you?"

"I? I'm--Harry."

"Harry? Harry? Harry what?"

He smiled as he looked at her; as his eyes met hers he smiled.

"Harry what? Harry Nothing," he said. "Harry Nothing-at-all."

He turned and left her alone in the room. She sank back into the great
arm-chair where Addie Tristram had been wont to sit.




XIV

THE VERY SAME DAY


"Shall I wait up, my lord? Miss Gainsborough has gone to her room. I've
turned out the lights and shut up the house."

Harry looked at the clock in the study. It was one o'clock.

"I thought you'd gone to bed long ago, Mason." He rose and stretched
himself. "I'm going to town early in the morning. I shan't want any
breakfast and I shan't take anybody with me. Tell Fisher to pack my
portmanteau--things for a few days--and send it to Paddington. I'll have
it fetched from there. Tell him to be ready to follow me, if I send for
him."

"Yes, my lord."

"Give that letter to Miss Gainsborough in the morning." He handed Mason
a thick letter. Two others lay on the table. After a moment's apparent
hesitation Harry put them in his pocket. "I'll post them myself," he
said. "When did Miss Gainsborough go to her room?"

"About an hour back, my lord."

"Did she stay in the Long Gallery till then?"

"Yes, my lord."

"I may be away a little while, Mason. I hope Miss Gainsborough--and Mr
Gainsborough too--will be staying on some time. Make them comfortable."

Not a sign of curiosity or surprise escaped Mason. His "Yes, my lord,"
was just the same as though Harry had ordered an egg for breakfast.
Sudden comings and goings had always been the fashion of the house.

"All right. Good-night, Mason."

"Good-night, my lord." Mason looked round for something to carry
off--the force of habit--found nothing, and retired noiselessly.

"One o'clock!" sighed Harry. "Ah, I'm tired. I won't go to bed though, I
couldn't sleep."

He moved restlessly about the room. His flood of feeling had gone by;
for the time the power of thought too seemed to have deserted him. He
had told Cecily everything; he had told Janie enough; he had yielded to
an impulse to write a line to Mina Zabriska--because she had been so
mixed up in it all. The documents that were to have proved his claim
made a little heap of ashes in the grate.

All this had been two hours' hard work. But after all two hours is not
long to spend in getting rid of an old life and entering on a new. He
found himself rather surprised at the simplicity of the process. What
was there left to do? He had only to go to London and see his lawyer--an
interview easy enough for him, though startling no doubt to the lawyer.
Cecily would be put into possession of her own. There was nothing
sensational. He would travel a bit perhaps, or just stay in town. He had
money enough to live on quietly or to use in making more; for his
mother's savings were indubitably his, left to him by a will in which
he, the real Harry, was so expressly designated by his own full
name--even more than that--as "Henry Austen Fitzhubert Tristram,
otherwise Henry Austen Fitzhubert, my son by the late Captain Austen
Fitzhubert"--that no question of his right could arise. That money would
not go with the title. Only Blent and all the realty passed with that;
the money was not affected by the date of his birth; that must be
explained to Cecily by his lawyer or perhaps she would expect to get
it. For the moment there was nothing to do but to go to London--and then
perhaps travel a bit. He smiled for an instant; it certainly struck him
as rather an anti-climax. He threw himself on a sofa and, in spite of
his conviction that he could not sleep, dozed off almost directly.

It was three when he awoke; he went up to his room, had a bath, shaved,
and put on a tweed suit. Coming down to the study again, he opened the
shutters and looked out. It would be light soon, and he could go away.
He was fretfully impatient of staying. He drank some whiskey and
soda-water, and smoked a cigar as he walked up and down. Yes, there were
signs of dawn now; the darkness lifted over the hill on which Merrion
stood.

Merrion! Yes, Merrion. And the Major? Well, Duplay had not frightened
him, Duplay had not turned him out. He was going of his own will--of his
own act anyhow, for he could not feel so sure about the will. But for
the first time it struck him that his abdication might accrue to the
Major's benefit, that he had won for Duplay the prize which he was sure
the gallant officer could not have achieved for himself. "I'll be hanged
if I do that," he muttered. "Yes, I know what I'll do," he added,
smiling.

He got his hat and stick and went out into the garden. The windows of
the Long Gallery were all dark. Harry smiled again and shook his fist at
them. There was no light in Cecily's window. He was glad to think that
the girl slept; if he were tired she must be terribly tired too. He was
quite alone--alone with the old place for the last time. He walked to
where he had sat with Cecily, where his mother used to sit. He was easy
in his mind about his mother. When she had wanted him to keep the house
and the name, she had no idea of the true state of the case. And in
fact she herself had done it all by requesting him to invite the
Gainsboroughs to her funeral. That was proof enough that he had not
wronged her; in the mood he was in it seemed quite proof enough.
Realities were still a little dim to him, and fancies rather real. His
outward calmness of manner had returned, but his mind was not in a
normal state. Still he was awake enough to the every-day world and to
his ordinary feelings to remain very eager that his sacrifice should not
turn to the Major's good.

He started at a brisk walk to the little bridge, reached the middle of
it, and stopped short. The talk he had had with Mina Zabriska at this
very spot came back into his mind. "The blood, not the law!" he had
said. Well, it was to the blood he had bowed and not to the law. He was
strong about not having been frightened by the law. Nor had he been
dispossessed, he insisted on that too. He had given; he had chosen to
give. He made a movement as though to walk on, but for a moment he could
not. When it came to going, for an instant he could not go. The parting
was difficult. He had no discontent with what he had done; on the whole
it seemed far easier than he could ever have imagined. But it was hard
to go, to leave Blent just as the slowly growing day brought into sight
every outline that he knew so well, and began to warm the gardens into
life. "I should rather like to stay a day," was his thought, as he
lingered still. But the next moment he was across the bridge, slamming
the gate behind him and beginning to mount the road up the valley. He
had heard a shutter thrown open and a window raised; the sound came from
the wing where Cecily slept. He did not want to see her now; he did not
wish her to see him. She was to awake to undivided possession, free from
any reminder of him. That was his fancy, his idea of making his gift to
her of what was hers more splendid and more complete. But she did see
him; she watched him from her window as he walked away up the valley. He
did not know; true to his fancy, he never turned his head.

Bob Broadley was an early riser, as his business in life demanded. At
six o'clock he was breakfasting in a bright little room opening on his
garden. He was in the middle of his rasher when a shadow fell across his
plate. Looking up, he started to see Harry Tristram at the doorway.

"Lord Tristram!" he exclaimed.

"You've called me Tristram all your life. I should think you might
still," observed Harry.

"Oh, all right. But what brings you here? These aren't generally your
hours, are they?"

"Perhaps not. May I have some breakfast?"

The maid was summoned and brought him what he asked. She nearly dropped
the cup and saucer when she realized that the Great Man was there--at
six in the morning!

"I'm on my way to London," said Harry. "Going to take the train at
Fillingford instead of Blentmouth, because I wanted to drop in on you.
I've something to say."

"I expect I've heard. It's very kind of you to come, but I saw Janie
Iver in Blentmouth yesterday."

"I dare say; but she didn't tell you what I'm going to."

Harry, having made but a pretence of breakfasting, pushed away his
plate. "I'll smoke if you don't mind. You go on eating," he said. "Do
you remember a little talk we had about our friend Duplay? We agreed
that we should both like to put a spoke in his wheel."

"And you've done it," said Bob, reaching for his pipe from the
mantel-piece.

"I did do it. I can't do it any more. You know there were certain
reasons which made a marriage between Janie Iver and me seem desirable?
I'm saying nothing against her, and I don't intend to say a word against
myself. Well, those reasons no longer exist. I have written to her to
say so. She'll get that letter this afternoon."

"You've written to break off the engagement?" Bob spoke slowly and
thoughtfully, but with no great surprise.

"Yes. She accepted me under a serious misapprehension. When I asked her
I was in a position to which I had no----" He interrupted himself,
frowning a little. Not even now was he ready to say that. "In a position
which I no longer occupy," he amended, recovering his placidity. "All
the world will know that very soon. I am no longer owner of Blent."

"What?" cried Bob, jumping up and looking hard at Harry. The surprise
came now.

"And I am no longer what you called me just now--Lord Tristram. You know
the law about succeeding to peerages and entailed lands? Very well. My
birth has been discovered [he smiled for an instant] not to satisfy that
law--the merits of which, Bob, we won't discuss. Consequently not I, but
Miss Gainsborough succeeds my mother in the title and the property. I
have informed Miss Gainsborough--I ought to say Lady Tristram--of these
facts, and I'm on my way to London to see the lawyers and get everything
done in proper order."

"Good God, do you mean what you say?"

"Oh, of course I do. Do you take me for an idiot, to come up here at six
in the morning to talk balderdash?" Harry was obviously irritated.
"Everybody will know soon. I came to tell you because I fancy you've
some concern in it, and, as I say, I still want that spoke put in the
Major's wheel."

Bob sat down and was silent for many moments, smoking hard.

"But Janie won't do that," he broke out at last. "She's too straight,
too loyal. If she's accepted you----"

"A beautiful idea, Bob, if she was in love with me. But she isn't. Can
you tell me you think she is?"

Bob grunted inarticulately--an obvious, though not a skilful, evasion of
the question.

"And anyhow," Harry pursued, "the thing's at an end. I shan't marry her.
Now if that suggests any action on your part I--well, I shall be glad I
came to breakfast." He got up and went to the window, looking out on the
neat little garden and to the paddock beyond.

In a moment Bob Broadley's hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned and
faced him.

"What a thing for you! You--you lose it all?"

"I have given it all up."

"I can't realize it, you know. The change----"

"Perhaps I can't either. I don't know that I want to, Bob."

"Who made the discovery? How did it come out? Nobody ever had any
suspicion of it!"

Harry looked at him long and thoughtfully, but in the end he only shook
his head, saying, "Well, it's true anyhow."

"It beats me. I see what you mean about myself and--Still I give you my
word I hate its happening. Who's this girl? Why is she to come here? Who
knows anything about her?"

"You don't, of course," Harry conceded with a smile. "No more did I a
week ago."

"Couldn't you have made a fight for it?"

"Yes, a deuced good fight. But I chose to let it go. Now don't go on
looking as if you didn't understand the thing. It's simple enough."

"But Lady Tristram--your mother--must have known----"

"The question didn't arise as long as my mother lived," said Harry
quickly. "Her title was all right, of course."

There was another question on the tip of Bob's tongue, but after a
glance at Harry's face he did not put it; he could not ask Harry if he
had known.

"I'm hanged!" he muttered.

"Yes, but you understand why I came here?"

"Yes. That was kind."

"Oh, no. I want to spike the Major's guns, you know." He laughed a
little. "And--well, yes, I think I'm promoting the general happiness
too, if you must know. Now I'm off, Bob."

He held out his hand and Bob grasped it. "We'll meet again some day,
when things have settled down. Beat Duplay for me, Bob. Good-by."

"That's grit, real grit," muttered Bob, as he returned to the house
after seeing Harry Tristram on his way.

It was that--or else the intoxication of some influence whose power had
not passed away. Whatever it was, it had a marked effect on Bob
Broadley. There was an appearance of strength and resolution about
it--as of a man knowing what he meant to do and doing it. As he
inspected his pigs an hour later, Bob came to the conclusion that he
himself was a poor sort of fellow. People who waited for the fruit to
fall into their mouths were apt to find that a hand intervened and
plucked it. That had happened to him once, and probably he could not
have helped it; but he meant to try to prevent its happening again. He
was in a ferment all the morning, partly on his own account, as much
about the revolution which had suddenly occurred in the little kingdom
on the banks of the Blent.

In the afternoon he had his gig brought round and set out for
Blentmouth. As he passed Blent Hall, he saw a girl on the bridge--a girl
in black looking down at the water. Lady Tristram? It was strange to
call her by the title that had been another's. But he supposed it must
be Lady Tristram. She did not look up as he passed; he retained a vision
of the slack dreariness of her pose. Going on, he met the Iver carriage;
Iver and Neeld sat in it, side by side; they waved their hands in
careless greeting and went on talking earnestly. On the outskirts of the
town he came on Miss Swinkerton and Mrs Trumbler walking together. As he
raised his hat, a dim and wholly inadequate idea occurred to him of the
excitement into which these good ladies would soon be thrown, a
foreshadowing of the wonder, the consternation, the questionings, the
bubbling emotions which were soon to stir the quiet backwaters of the
villas of Blentmouth. For himself, what was he going to do? He could not
tell. He put up his gig at the inn and sauntered out into the street;
still he could not tell. But he wandered out to Fairholme, up to the
gate, and past it, and back to it, and past it again.

Now would Harry Tristram do that? No; either he would never have come or
he would have been inside before this. Bob's new love of boldness did
not let him consider whether this was the happiest moment for its
display. Those learned in the lore of such matters would probably have
advised him to let her alone for a few days, or weeks, or months,
according to the subtilty of their knowledge or their views. Bob rang
the bell.

Janie was not denied to him, but only because no chance was given to her
of denying herself. A footman, unconscious of convulsions external or
internal, showed him into the morning-room. But Janie's own attitude was
plain enough in her reception of him.

"Oh, Bob, why in the world do you come here to-day? Indeed I can't talk
to you to-day." Her dismay was evident. "If there's nothing very
particular----"

"Well, you know there is," Bob interrupted.

She turned her head quickly toward him. "I know there is? What do you
mean?"

"You've got Harry Tristram's letter, I suppose?"

"What do you know of Harry Tristram's letter?"

"I haven't seen it, but I know what's in it all the same."

"How do you know?"

"He came up to Mingham to-day and told me." Bob sat down by her,
uninvited; certainly the belief in boldness was carrying him far. But he
did not quite anticipate the next development. She sprang up, sprang
away from his neighborhood, crying,

"Then how dare you come here to-day? Yes, I've got the letter--just an
hour ago. Have you come to--to triumph over me?"

"What an extraordinary idea!" remarked Bob in the slow tones of a
genuine astonishment.

"You'd call it to condole, I suppose! That's rather worse."

Bob confined himself to a long look at her. It brought him no
enlightenment.

"You must see that you're the very----" She broke off abruptly, and,
turning away, began to walk up and down.

"The very what?" asked Bob.

She turned and looked at him; she broke into a peevishly nervous laugh.
Anybody but Bob--really anybody but Bob--would have known! The laugh
encouraged him a little, which again it had no right to do.

"I thought you'd be in trouble, and like a bit of cheering up," he said
with a diplomatic air that was ludicrously obvious.

She considered a moment, taking another turn about the room to do it.

"What did Harry Tristram say to you?"

"Oh, he told me the whole thing. That--that he's chucked it up, you
know."

"I mean about me."

"He didn't say much about you. Just that it was all ended, you know."

"Did he think I should accept his withdrawal?"

"Yes, he seemed quite sure of it," answered Bob. "I had my doubts, but
he seemed quite sure of it." Apparently Bob considered his statement
reassuring and comforting.

"You had your doubts?"

"Yes. I thought perhaps----"

"You were wrong then, and Harry Tristram was right." She flung the words
at him in a fierce hostility. "Now he's not Lord Tristram any longer, I
don't want to marry him." She paused. "You believe he isn't, don't you?
There's no doubt?"

"I believe him all right. He's a fellow you can rely on."

"But it's all so strange. Why has he done it? Well, that doesn't matter.
At any rate he's right about me."

Bob sat stolidly in his chair. He did not know at all what to say, but
he did not mean to go. He had put no spoke in the Major's wheel yet,
and to do that was his contract with Harry Tristram, as well as his own
strong desire.

"Have you sympathized--or condoled--or triumphed--enough?" she asked;
she was fierce still.

"I don't know that I've had a chance of saying anything much," he
observed with some justice.

"I really don't see what you can have to say. What is there to say?"

"Well, there's just this to say--that I'm jolly glad of it."

She was startled by his blunt sincerity, so startled that she passed the
obvious chance of accusing him of cruelty toward Harry Tristram, and
thought only of how his words touched herself.

"Glad of it! Oh, if you knew how it makes me feel about myself! But you
don't, or you'd never be here now."

"Why shouldn't I be here now?" He spoke slowly, as though he were
himself searching for any sound reason.

"Oh, it's----" The power of explanation failed her. People who will not
see obvious things sometimes hold a very strong position. Janie began to
feel rather helpless. "Do go. I don't want anybody to come and find you
here." She had turned from command to entreaty.

"I'm jolly glad," he resumed, settling himself back in his chair, "that
the business between you and Harry Tristram's all over. It ought never
to have gone so far, you know."

"Are you out of your mind to-day, Bob?"

"And now, what about the Major, Miss Janie?"

She flushed red in indignation, perhaps in guilt too. "How dare you?
You've no business to----"

"I don't know the right way to say things, I dare say," he admitted,
but with an abominable tranquillity. "Still I expect you know what I
mean all the same."

"Do you accuse me of having encouraged Major Duplay?"

"I should say you'd been pretty pleasant to him. But it's not my
business to worry myself about Duplay."

"I wish you always understood as well what isn't your business."

"And it isn't what you have done but what you're going to do that I'm
interested in." He paused several moments and then went on very slowly,
"I tell you what it is. I'm not very proud of myself. So if you happen
to be feeling the same, why that's all right, Miss Janie. The fact is, I
let Harry Tristram put me in a funk, you know. He was a swell, and he's
got a sort of way about him too. But I'm hanged if I'm going to be in a
funk of Duplay." He seemed to ask her approval of the proposed firmness
of his attitude. "I've been a bit of an ass about it all, I think," he
concluded with an air of thoughtful inquiry.

The opening was irresistible. Janie seized it with impetuous
carelessness. "Yes, you have, you have indeed. Only I don't see why you
think it's over, I'm sure."

"Well, I'm glad you agree with me," said he. But he seemed now rather
uncertain how he ought to go on. "That's what I wanted to say," he
added, and looked at her as if he thought she might give him a lead.

The whole thing was preposterous; Janie was bewildered. He had outraged
all decency in coming at such a moment and in talking like this. Then
having got (by such utter disregard of all decency) to a point at which
he could not possibly stop, he stopped! He even appeared to ask her to
go on for him! She stood still in the middle of the room, looking at him
as he sat squarely in his chair.

"Since you've said what you wanted to say, I should think you might go."

"Yes, I suppose I might, but----" He was puzzled. He had said what he
wanted to say, or thought he had, but it had failed to produce the
situation he had anticipated from it. If he went now, leaving matters
just as they stood, could he be confident that the spoke was in the
wheel? Up to now nothing was really agreed upon except that he himself
had been an ass. No doubt this was a pregnant conclusion, but Bob was
not quite clear exactly how much it involved; while it encouraged him,
it left him still doubtful. "But don't you think you might tell me what
you think about it?" he asked in the end.

"I think I'm not fit to live," cried Janie. "That's what I think about
it, Bob." Her voice trembled; she was afraid she might cry soon if
something did not happen to relieve the strain of this interview. "And
you saw what Harry thought by his sending me that letter. The very
moment it happened, he sent me that letter!"

"I saw what he thought pretty well, anyhow," said Bob, smiling
reflectively again.

"Oh, yes, if that makes it any better for me!"

"Well, if he's not miserable, I don't see why you need be."

"The things you don't see would fill an encyclopædia!"

Bob looked at his watch; the action seemed in the nature of an
ultimatum; his glance from the watch to Janie heightened the impression.

"You've nothing more to say?" he asked her.

"No. I agreed with what you said--that you'd been--an ass. I don't know
that you've said anything else."

"All right." He got up and came to her, holding out his hand. "Good-by
for the present, then."

She took his hand--and she held it. She could not let it go. Bob allowed
it to lie in hers.

"Oh, dear old Bob, I'm so miserable; I hate myself for having done it,
and I hate myself worse for being so glad it's undone. It did seem best
till I did it. No, I suppose I really wanted the title and--and all
that. I do hate myself! And now--the very same day--I let you----"

"You haven't let me do much," he suggested consolingly.

"Yes, I have. At least----" She came a little nearer to him. He took
hold of her other hand. He drew her to him and held her in his arms.

"That's all right," he remarked, still in tones of consolation.

"If anybody knew this! You won't say a word, will you, Bob? Not for ever
so long? You will pretend it was ever so long before I--I mean,
between----?"

"I'll tell any lie," said Bob very cheerfully.

She laughed hysterically. "Because I should never be able to look people
in the face if anybody knew that on the very same day----"

"I should think a--a week would be about right?"

"A week! No, no. Six months."

"Oh, six months be----"

"Well then, three? Do agree to three."

"We'll think about three. Still miserable, Janie?"

"Yes, still--rather. Now you must go. Fancy if anybody came!"

"All right, I'll go. But, I say, you might just drop a hint to the
Major."

"I can't send him another message that I'm--that I've done it again!"

She drew a little away from him. Bob's hearty laugh rang out; his latent
sense of humor was touched at the idea of this second communication to
the Major. For a moment Janie looked angry, for a moment deeply hurt.
Bob laughed still. There was nothing for it but to join in. Her own
laugh rang out gayly as he caught her in his arms again and kissed her.

"Oh, if anybody knew!" sighed Janie.

But Bob was full of triumph. The task was done, the spoke was in the
wheel. There was an end of the Major as well as of Harry--and an end to
his own long and not very hopeful waiting. He kissed his love again.

There was a sudden end to the scene too--startling and sudden. The door
of the room opened abruptly, and in the doorway stood Mrs Iver. Little
need to dilate on the situation as it appeared to Mrs Iver! Had she
known the truth, the thing was bad enough. But she knew nothing of Harry
Tristram's letter. After a moment of consternation Janie ran to her,
crying,

"I'm not engaged any more to Harry Tristram, mother!"

Mrs Iver said nothing. She stood by the open door. There was no
mistaking her meaning. With a shame-faced bow, struggling with an
unruly smile, Bob Broadley got through it somehow. Janie was left alone
with Mrs Iver.

Such occurrences as these are very deplorable. Almost of necessity they
impair a daughter's proper position of superiority and put her in a
relation toward her mother which no self-respecting young woman would
desire to occupy. It might be weeks before Janie Iver could really
assert her dignity again. It was strong proof of her affection for Bob
Broadley that, considering the matter in her own room (she had not been
exactly sent there, but a retreat had seemed advisable) she came to the
conclusion that, taking good and bad together, she was on the whole glad
that he had called.

But to Bob, with the selfishness of man, Mrs Iver's sudden appearance
wore rather an amusing aspect. It certainly could not spoil his triumph
or impair his happiness.




XV

AN INQUISITION INTERRUPTED


"My mother told it me just as a bit of gossip. She didn't believe it, no
more did I."

"But you repeated it."

It was Iver who was pressing her. He was not now the kind host Mina knew
so well. He was rather the keen man of business, impatient of shuffling,
incredulous of any action for which he could not see the motive,
distrustful and very shrewd.

"Oh, I repeated it to my uncle, because I thought it might amuse
him--just for something to say."

"Your idea of small talk is rather peculiar," was Iver's dry comment. He
looked at the Major on his right, and at Neeld on his left at the table;
Mina was opposite, like the witness before the committee.

"So is yours of politeness," she cried. "It's my house. Why do you come
and bully me in it?"

Duplay was sullenly furious. Poor Mr Neeld's state was lamentable. He
had not spoken a word throughout the interview. He had taken refuge in
nodding, exhausting the significance of nods in reply to the various
appeals that the other three addressed to him. If their meaning had been
developed, his nods must have landed him in a pitiable mess of
inconsistencies; he had tried to agree with everybody, to sympathize all
round, to indorse universally. He had won momentary applause, and in the
end created general dissatisfaction.

Iver had his temper in hand still, but he was hard and resolute.

"You don't seem to understand the seriousness of the thing in the
least," he said. "I've spoken plainly to you. My daughter's future is at
stake. You say it was all idle gossip. I find that hard to believe. Even
if so, I must have that gossip investigated and proved to be nothing but
gossip."

"Investigate it then," said the Imp peevishly.

"You refuse me the materials. What you told Major Duplay was too vague.
You know more. You can put me on the track."

Mina was silent. Neeld wiped his brow with his handkerchief. Iver
changed his tone.

"Mina, we've been friends to you. I'm not ashamed to remind you of it.
Janie's a great friend of yours; my wife and I have welcomed you first
for her sake, then for your own. Is this the best return you can make
us? Consult anybody you like, if you think I'm prejudiced, whether your
conduct is honorable, is square." He paused a moment. "Ask Mr Neeld here
what he would do. I'm willing to abide by his judgment."

Mina was sorely tempted to say, "Ask him then." The situation would thus
become so much the more piquant. But Mr Neeld was in such distress--to
her sharp eyes a distress so visible--that she did not dare to risk the
_coup_. If he were let alone he might keep silence and quiet his
conscience by the plea that he had been asked no questions. But she did
not venture to face him with a demand for a verdict on her conduct; for
her conduct was also his own.

"I must judge for myself. Mr Neeld can't help me," she answered. "Uncle
has chosen to say he can prove these things. Let him try." She drew
herself up with a prim prudish air. "I don't think it's desirable to mix
myself up in such very peculiar questions at all, and I don't think it's
nice of men to come and cross-question me about them."

"Oh, we're not in a girls' school," said Iver, with a touch of
irritation hardly suppressed. "We come as men of the world to a sensible
woman."

"Anybody will tell you I'm not that," interrupted the Imp.

"Well, then, to a woman of good feeling, who wishes to be honest and to
be true to her friends. Duplay, have you no influence with Madame
Zabriska?"

"I've spared no effort," replied the Major. "I can't believe that she
won't help us in the end." His tone was almost menacing. Mina,
remembering how he had terrorized the secret out of her before, and
resenting the humiliation of the memory, stiffened her neck once more.

"I've nothing to say. You must do as you think best," she said.

"You must be made to speak."

Iver's threats alarmed where Duplay's only annoyed. He spoke calmly and
with weight.

"Who can make me speak?" she cried, more angry from her fear.

"The law. When we have reached a certain stage in the inquiry, we shall
be able to compel you to speak."

"I thought you couldn't move a step without me?"

Iver was rather set back, but he braved it out.

"The difficulties are immensely increased, but they're not insuperable,"
he said.

"I shan't stay to be questioned and bullied. I shall go abroad."

Iver looked at the Major; the Major returned his glance; they were both
resolute men.

"No, you won't go away," declared Iver slowly.

The Imp was frightened; she was an ignorant young woman in a land of
whose laws she knew nothing. Neeld would have liked to suggest
something soothing about the liberty of the individual and the Habeas
Corpus Act. But he dared show no sympathy--beyond nodding at her
unobserved. The nod told her nothing.

"You'll stop me?" Still she tried to sneer defiantly.

Another glance passed between Iver and Duplay. A shrewd observer might
have interpreted it as meaning, "Even if we can't do it, she'll think we
can."

"We shall," said the Major, executing the bluff on behalf of himself and
his partner.

The Imp thought of crying--not for her uncle--which would be
hopeless--but for Iver. She concluded it would be hopeless there too;
Iver would not heed tears in business hours, however tender-hearted he
might be in private life. So she laughed again instead. But the laugh
was a failure, and Iver was sharp enough to see it.

"In this country people aren't allowed to play fast and loose in this
fashion," he remarked. "I'll tell you one way in which we can make you
speak. I have only to go to Lord Tristram and tell him you have spread
these reports, that you have made and repeated these imputations on his
birth and on his title. What will he do? Can he rest content without
disproving them at law? I say he can't. In those proceedings you would
be compelled to speak. I must assume you would tell the truth. I refuse
to suppose you would commit perjury."

"I should hold my tongue," said Mina.

"Then you'd be sent to prison for contempt of court."

The bluff worked well. Mina knew nothing at all of what Harry Tristram
would do, or might do, or must do, of what the law would, or might, or
might not do, in the circumstances supposed. And Iver spoke as though
he knew everything, with a weighty confidence, with an admirable air of
considered candor. She was no match for him; she grew rather pale, her
lips twitched, and her breath came quick. Tears were no longer to be
treated merely as a possible policy; they threatened to occur of their
own accord.

What wonder that a feeling of intolerable meanness attacked Mr Jenkinson
Neeld? He was on the wrong side of the table, on the bench instead of in
the dock. He sat there judging; his proper place was side by side with
the criminal, in charge of the same policeman, wearing the handcuffs
too. And he had less excuse for his crime than she. He was even more in
Iver's debt; he had eaten his bread these weeks past; even now he was
pretending to be his adviser and his witness; his deception was deeper
than hers. Besides he was not a young woman who might find excuse in the
glamour of Harry's position or the attraction of Harry's eyes; he was
not a romantic young woman; he was only a romantic old fool. He could
bear it no longer. He must speak. He could not get into the dock beside
her--for that would throw away the case which she was defending so
gallantly--but he must speak a word for her.

"In my opinion," he said nervously, but not without his usual precision,
"we can carry this matter no further. Madame Zabriska declines to speak.
I may say that I understand and respect the motive which I believe
inspires her. She regrets her idle words. She thinks that by repeating
them she would give them greater importance. She does not wish to assume
responsibility. She leaves the matter in your hands, Iver. It is not her
affair; she had no reason to suppose that it would be yours. By a train
of events for which she is not accountable the question has become of
importance to you. In her view it is for you to take your own steps. She
stands aside."

"She's my friend, she's my daughter's friend. The question is whether my
daughter marries Lord Tristram of Blent or an impostor (whether
voluntary or involuntary) without a name, an acre, or, so far as I know,
a shilling. She can help me. She stands aside. You think her right,
Neeld?"

"Yes, I do," said the old gentleman with the promptness of desperation.

"Then your idea of friendship differs diametrically from mine. I desire
no such friends as that."

It is to be hoped that the sting of Iver's remark was somewhat mitigated
by Mina's covertly telegraphed gratitude. Yet Neeld was no happier after
his effort than before it. A silence fell on them all. Mina glanced from
her uncle's face to Iver's. Both men were stern and gloomy. Her sense of
heroism barely supported her; things were so very uncomfortable. If
Harry could know what she suffered for him, it would be something. But
Mina had an idea that Harry was thinking very little about her.
Moreover, in taking sides in a controversy, perhaps the most important
practical question is--whom has one got to live with? She had to live
not with Harry Tristram, but with that glowering uncle, Major Duplay.
Agree with your enemy whiles you are in the house with him, even more
than whiles you are in the way.

At this point--the deadlock demanded by the canons of art having been
reached by the force of circumstances and the clash of wills--enter the
_Deus ex Machina_, in the shape of a pretty parlormaid in a black gown
and white apron, with a bow of pink ribbon at her neck; instead of the
car, a silver salver, and on it a single letter.

"For you, ma'am," said the _Deus_, and with a glance at Neeld (merely
because he was a man and a stranger) she ended her brief but momentous
appearance on the stage.

The Imp was in no mood for ceremony; one glance at the handwriting, and
she tore the envelope open eagerly. Iver was whispering to Duplay.
Neeld's eyes were on the ceiling, because he did not know where else he
could direct them with any sense of safety.

Mina read. A gasp of breath from her brought Neeld's eyes down from
their refuge and stayed Iver and the Major's whispered talk. She gazed
from one to the other of them. She had flushed red; her face was very
agitated and showed a great stress of feeling. Duplay with an
exclamation of surprise put out his hand for the letter. But Mina kept
hers on it, pinning it immovably to the table. For another minute she
sat there, facing the three. Then all composure failed her; she burst
into tears, and bowing her head to meet her arms on the table, covering
the letter with her hair, she sobbed violently.

The fort she had been defending was betrayed from within. For some
reason unknown, unguessable, the champion she fought for had fled from
the fight. And the few words of his message--aye, and that he should
send a message to her--pierced her to the heart. Strained already by her
battle, she was broken down by this sudden end to it, this sudden and
disastrous end.

"I can't help it, I can't help it," the men heard her say between her
sobs.

Her apology did nothing to relieve their extreme discomfort. All three
felt brutal; even the Major's face lost its gloomy fierceness and
relaxed into an embarrassed solicitude. "Ought we to call the maid?" he
whispered. "Poor child!" murmured Neeld.

The sobs dominated these timid utterances. Was it they who had brought
her to this state, or was it the letter? Iver stirred uneasily in his
chair, his business manner and uncharitable shrewdness suddenly seeming
out of place. "Give her time," he said gently. "Give her time, poor
girl."

Mina raised her head; tears ran down her cheeks; she was woe
personified.

"Time's no use," she groaned. "It's all over now."

Neeld caught at the state of affairs by an intuition to which his
previous knowledge helped him. Duplay had been baffled by Harry's
diplomacy and expected no action from his side. To Neeld such a
development seemed possible, and it was the only thing which to his mind
could throw light on Mina's behavior.

"Won't you show us the letter?" he asked gently.

"Oh, yes. And I'll tell you anything you like now. It doesn't matter
now." She looked at Neeld; she was loyal to the end. "I was the only
person who knew it," she said to Iver.

That was too much. Timid he might be, even to the point of cowardice;
but now, when the result of confession would be no harm to anybody but
himself, Neeld felt he must speak if he were to have any chance of going
on thinking himself a gentleman--and it is an unpleasant thing for a man
to realize that he has none.

"I must correct Madame Zabriska," he said. "I knew it too."

"What?" cried Duplay. Iver turned quick scrutinizing eyes on his friend.

"You knew too? You knew what?" he demanded.

"The facts we have been endeavoring to obtain from Madame Zabriska."

"The facts about----"

"Oh, it's all in the letter," cried Mina in a quick burst of impatience.
"There it is."

She flung it across to Iver and rested her chin on her hands, while her
eyes followed his expression as he read. Duplay was all excitement, but
old Mr Neeld had sunk back in his chair with a look of fretful
weariness. Iver was deliberate; his glasses needed some fitting on; the
sheet of paper required some smoothing after its contact with Mina's
disordered and disordering hair. Besides, he was really as excited as
Duplay and almost as agitated as Mina herself. But these emotions are
not appropriate to business men. So he was very calm and deliberate in
his demeanor; he might have been going to deliver a whole speech from
the way he cleared his throat.

"I have thrown up the sponge and fled. Please make friends with Lady
Tristram of Blent.--H. T."

It was enough. What need of further witness? And if there had been, the
principal criminal had confessed and the lips of his accomplices were
unsealed.

For a while nobody spoke. Then Neeld, leaning forward to the table
again, began to explain and excuse his silence, to speak of the hard
case he was in, of the accidental and confidential character of his
knowledge. Neither Mina nor her uncle even appeared to heed him. Iver
seemed to listen patiently and courteously, but his mind too was
distracted, and he did not cease fidgeting with Harry Tristram's letter
and referring ever and again to its brief sufficient message.

"I dare say I was wrong. The position was very difficult," pleaded
Neeld.

"Yes, yes," said Iver in an absent tone. "Difficult no doubt, Neeld;
both for you and Mina. And now he has--he has given up the game himself!
Or was his hand forced?"

"No," flashed out Mina, restored in a moment to animation, her fighting
instincts awake again. "He'd never have been forced. He must have done
it of his own accord."

"But why?" Again he returned to the letter. "And why does he write to
you?"

"Because he knew I knew about it. He didn't know that Mr Neeld did."

"And this--this Lady Tristram of Blent?" Iver's voice was hesitating and
conscious as he pronounced the name that was to have become his
daughter's.

Again the pink-ribboned _Deus_ made entry on the scene, to give the
speaker a more striking answer.

"A lady to see you, ma'am. Miss Gainsborough."

The three men sprang to their feet; with a sudden wrench Mina turned her
chair round toward the door. A tall slim girl in black came in with a
quick yet hesitating step.

"Forgive me, Madame Zabriska. But I had to come. Harry said you were his
friend. Do you know anything about him? Do you know where he is?" She
looked at the men and blushed as she returned their bow with a hurried
recognition.

"No, I haven't seen him. I know nothing," said Mina.

"The letter, Mina," Duplay reminded her, and Mina held it out to Cecily.

Cecily came forward, took and read it. She looked again at the group,
evidently puzzled.

"He doesn't say where he's gone," she said.

"You are----?" Iver began.

"I'm Cecily Gainsborough. But I think he means me when he says Lady
Tristram of Blent."

"Yes, he must mean you, Miss Gainsborough."

"Yes, because last night he told me--it was so strange, but he wouldn't
have done it unless it was true--he told me that he wasn't Lord Tristram
really, and that I----" Her eyes travelled quickly over their faces,
and she re-read the letter. "Do you know anything about it?" she
demanded imperiously. "Tell me, do you know what he means by this letter
and whether what he says is true?"

"We know what he means," answered Iver gravely, "and we know that it's
true."

"Have you known it long?" she asked.

Iver glanced at Duplay and Neeld. It was Neeld who answered gently:
"Some of us have been sure of it for some time. But----" He looked at
Mina before he went on. "But we didn't intend to speak."

Cecily stood there, seeming to consider and for a moment meeting Mina's
intense gaze which had never left her face.

"Had he known for long?" was her next question.

It met with no immediate answer. Duplay rose abruptly and walked to the
mantelpiece; he leant his arm on it and turned half away from the group
at the table.

"Had he known for long?" Cecily repeated.

"Ever so long," answered Mina Zabriska in a low voice, but very
confidently.

"Ah, he was waiting till Lady Tristram died?"

Iver nodded; he thought what she suggested a very good explanation to
accept. It was plausible and sensible; it equipped Harry Tristram with a
decent excuse for his past silence, and a sound reason for the moment of
his disclosure. He looked at Neeld and found ready acquiescence in the
old gentleman's approving nod. But Mina broke out impatiently--

"No, no, that had nothing to do with it. He never meant to speak. Blent
was all the world to him. He never meant to speak." A quick remembrance
flashed across her. "Were you with him in the Long Gallery last night?"
she cried. "With him there for hours?"

"Yes, we were there."

"Yes, I saw you from the terrace here. Did he tell you there?"

"He told me there." There was embarrassment as well as wonder in her
manner now.

"Well then, you must know why he told you. We don't know." Mina was very
peevish.

"Is it any use asking----?" Iver began. An unceremoniously impatient and
peremptory wave of Mina's arm reduced him to silence. Her curiosity left
no room for his prudent counsels of reticence.

"What were you doing in the Gallery?" demanded Mina.

"I was looking at all the things there and--and admiring them. He came
up presently and--I don't remember that he said very much. He watched
me; then he asked me if I loved the things. And--well, then he told me.
He told me and went straight out of the room. I waited a long while, but
he didn't come back, and I haven't spoken to him since." She looked at
each of them in turn as though someone might be able to help her with
the puzzle.

"Somehow you made him do it--you," said Mina Zabriska.

Slowly Cecily's eyes settled on Mina's face; thus she stood silent for a
full minute.

"Yes, I think so. I think I must have somehow." Her voice rose as she
asked with a sudden access of agitation, "But what are we to do now?"

Mina had no thought for that; it was the thing itself that engrossed
her, not the consequences.

"There will, of course, be a good many formalities," said Iver. "Subject
to those, I imagine that the--er--question settles itself."

His phrase seemed to give Cecily no enlightenment.

"Settles itself?" she repeated.

"Subject to formal proof, I mean, and in the absence of opposition from"
(he hesitated a second) "--from Mr Tristram, which can't be anticipated
now, you will be put into possession of the estates and the title." He
pointed to Harry's letter which was still in her hands. "You see what he
himself calls you there, Miss Gainsborough."

She made no answer. With another glance at Neeld, Iver pushed back his
chair and rose. Neeld followed his example. They felt that the interview
had better end. Duplay did not move, and Cecily stood where she was. She
seemed to ask what was to be done with her; her desolation was sad, but
it had something of the comic in it. She was so obviously lost.

"You might walk down to Blent with Miss Gainsborough, Mina," Iver
suggested.

"No," cried the Imp in a passion, leaping up from her chair. "I don't
want to have anything to do with her."

Cecily started and her cheeks flushed red as though she had been struck.
Iver looked vexed and ashamed.

"It's all her fault that Harry Tristram's--that Harry Tristram's----"
The Imp's voice was choked; she could get no further.

Old Mr Neeld came forward. He took Harry's letter from Cecily and gave
it to Mina.

"My dear, my dear!" he said gently, as he patted her hand. "Read that
again."

Mina read, and then scrutinized Cecily keenly.

"Well, I'll walk down with you," she said grudgingly. She came nearer to
Cecily. "I wonder what you did!" she exclaimed, scanning her face. "I
must find out what you did!"

Iver came forward. "I must introduce myself to you, Miss Gainsborough. I
live at Blentmouth, and my name is Iver."

"Iver!" She looked at him curiously. At once he felt that she had
knowledge of the relation between his daughter and Harry Tristram.

"Yes, and since we shall probably be neighbors----" He held out his
hand. She put hers into it, still with a bewildered air. Neeld contented
himself with a bow as he passed her, and Duplay escaped from the room
with a rapidity and stillness suggestive of a desire not to be observed.
When the men were gone Cecily sank into a chair and covered her face
with her hands for a minute. She looked up to find Mina regarding her,
still with mingled inquisitiveness and hostility.

"What were you all doing here when I came?" asked Cecily.

"They were trying to make me tell what I knew about Harry Tristram. But
I wouldn't tell."

"Wouldn't you?" Cecily's eyes sparkled in sudden approval, and she broke
into a smile. "I like you for that," she cried. "I wouldn't have told
either."

"But now!" The Imp pouted disconsolately. "Well, it's not your fault, I
suppose, and----" She walked up to Cecily and gave her a brief but
friendly kiss. "And you needn't be so upset as all that about it. We'll
just talk over what we'd better do."

There was not much prospect of their talk affecting either the laws of
England or the determination of Harry Tristram to any appreciable
extent. But the proposal seemed to comfort Cecily; and the Imp rang the
bell for tea. Coming back from this task, she gave Cecily a critical
glance.

"You'll look it anyhow," she concluded with a reluctant smile.

Meanwhile Iver and Neeld drove back to Blentmouth. Iver said nothing
about his friend's bygone treachery; oddly enough it was not in the
culprit's mind either.

"Now, Neeld, to break this news to Janie!" said Iver.

Neeld nodded once again.

But of course a situation quite other than they expected awaited them at
Fairholme.




XVI

THE NEW LIFE


"You haven't mentioned it to the young man himself?" asked Lady
Evenswood.

"Certainly not. I've only seen him once, and then he didn't talk of his
own affairs. He takes the thing very well. He's lost his position and
he's the hero of the newspapers, and he bears both afflictions quite
coolly. A lad of good balance, I think."

"Is he agreeable?"

"Hum, I'm not sure of that. No excess of modesty, I fancy."

"I suppose you mean he's not shy? All young men are conceited. I think I
should like you to bring him to see me."

For forty years such an intimation from Lady Evenswood had enjoyed the
rank of a command; Lord Southend received it with proper obedience.

"The solution I spoke of has occurred to some of us," he went on. "He's
poor now, but with that he could make a marriage. The case is very
exceptional----"

"So is what you propose, George."

"Oh, there are precedents. It was done in the Bearsdale case."

"There was a doubt there." Lady Evenswood knew all about the Bearsdale
case; though it was ancient history to Southend, she had danced with
both the parties to it.

"The House was against the marriage unanimously." But he did not deny
the doubt.

"Well, what are you going to do?" she asked.

"It would be necessary to approach Disney." Southend spoke with some
appearance of timidity. Mr Disney was Prime Minister. "And the truth is,
none of us seemed to like the job. So John Fullcombe suggested you."

"What brave men you are!" Her face wrinkled humorously.

"Well, he might bite us, and he couldn't bite you--not so hard anyhow."

"And you want me to ask for a higher rank! That wasn't done in the
Bearsdale case, nor in any other that I ever heard of."

"We shouldn't press that. A barony would do. But if Disney thought that
under the very exceptional circumstances a viscounty----"

"I don't see why you want it," she persisted. The slight embarrassment
in Southend's manner stirred the old lady's curiosity. "It's rather odd
to reward a man for his mother's----. There, I don't say a word about
Addie. I took her to her first ball, poor girl."

"Disney used to know her as a girl."

"If you're relying on Robert Disney's romantic memories----" But she
stopped, adding after a pause, "Well, one never knows. But again, why a
viscounty?"

Driven into a corner, but evidently rather ashamed of himself, Southend
explained.

"The viscounty would be more convenient if a match came about between
him and the girl."

"What, the new Lady Tristram? Well, George, romance has taken possession
of you to-day!"

"Not at all," he protested indignantly. "It's the obviously sensible way
out."

"Then they can do it without a viscounty."

"Oh, no, not without something. There's the past, you see."

"And a sponge is wanted? And the bigger the sponge the better? And I'm
to get my nose bitten off by asking Robert Disney for it? And if by a
miracle he said yes, for all I know somebody else might say no!"

This dark reference to the Highest Quarters caused Southend to nod
thoughtfully: they discussed the probable attitude--a theme too exalted
to be more than mentioned here. "Anyhow the first thing is to sound
Disney," continued Southend.

"I'll think about it after I've seen the young man," Lady Evenswood
promised. "Have you any reason to suppose he likes his cousin?"

"None at all--except, of course, the way he's cleared out for her."

"Yielding gracefully to necessity, I suppose?"

"Really, I doubt the necessity; and, anyhow, the gracefulness needs some
explanation in a case like this. Still I always fancied he was going to
marry another girl, a daughter of a friend of mine--Iver--you know who I
mean?"

"Oh, yes. Bring Harry Tristram to see me," said she. "Good-by, George.
You're looking very well."

"And you're looking very young."

"Oh, I finished getting old before you were forty."

A thought struck Southend. "You might suggest the viscounty as
contingent on the marriage."

"I shan't suggest anything till I've seen the boy--and I won't promise
to then."

Later in the afternoon Southend dropped in at the Imperium, where to his
surprise and pleasure he found Iver in the smoking-room. Asked how he
came to be in town, Iver explained:

"I really ran away from the cackling down at Blentmouth. All our old
ladies are talking fifteen to the dozen about Harry Tristram, and Lady
Tristram, and me, and my family, and--well, I dare say you're in it by
now, Southend! There's an old cat named Swinkerton, who is positively
beyond human endurance; she waylays me in the street. And Mrs Trumbler,
the vicar's wife, comes and talks about Providence to my poor wife every
day. So I fled."

"Leaving your wife behind, I suppose?"

"Oh, she doesn't mind Mrs Trumbler. But I do."

"Well, there's a good deal of cackling up here too. But tell me about
the new girl." Lord Southend did not appear to consider his own question
"cackling" or as tending to produce the same.

"I've only seen her once. She's in absolute seclusion and lets nobody in
except Mina Zabriska--a funny little foreign woman--You don't know her."

"I know about her, I saw it in the paper. She had something to do with
it?"

"Yes." Iver passed away from that side of the subject immediately. "And
she's struck up a friendship with Cecily Gainsborough--Lady Tristram, I
ought to say. I had a few words with the father. The poor old chap
doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels; but as they're of
about equal value, I should imagine, for thinking purposes, it doesn't
much matter. Ah, here's Neeld. He came up with me."

The advent of Neeld produced more discussion. Yet Southend said nothing
of the matter which he had brought to Lady Evenswood's attention.
Discretion was necessary there. Besides he wished to know how the land
lay as to Janie Iver. On that subject his friend preserved silence.

"And the whole thing was actually in old Joe's diary!" exclaimed
Southend.

Neeld, always annoyed at the "Joe," admitted that the main facts had
been recorded in Mr Cholderton's Journal, and that he himself had known
them when nobody else in England did--save, of course, the conspirators
themselves.

"And you kept it dark? I didn't know you were as deep as that, Neeld."
He looked at the old gentleman with great amazement.

"Neeld was in an exceedingly difficult position," said Iver. "I've come
to see that." He paused, looking at Southend with an amused air. "You
introduced us to one another," he reminded him with a smile.

"Bless my soul, so I did! I'd forgotten. Well, it seems my fate too to
be mixed up in the affair." Just at present, however, he was assisting
fate rather actively.

"It's everybody's. The Blent's on fire from Mingham to the sea."

"I've seen Harry Tristram."

"Ah, how is he?" asked Neeld.

"Never saw a young man more composed in all my life. And he couldn't be
better satisfied with himself if he'd turned out to be a duke."

"We know Harry's airs," Iver said, smiling indulgently. "But there's
stuff in him." A note of regret came into his voice. "He treated me very
badly--I know Neeld won't admit it, but he did. Still I like him and I'd
help him if I could."

"Well, he atoned for anything wrong by owning up in the end," remarked
Southend.

"That wasn't for my sake or for---- Well, it had nothing to do with us.
As far as we were concerned he'd be at Blent to-day. It was Cecily
Gainsborough who did it."

"Yes. I wonder----"

Iver rose decisively. "Look here, Southend, if you're going to do
exactly what all my friends and neighbors, beginning with Miss
Swinkerton, are doing, I shall go and write letters." With a nod he
walked into the next room, leaving Neeld alone with his inquisitive
friend. Southend lost no time.

"What's happened about Janie Iver? There was some talk----"

"It's all over," whispered Neeld with needless caution. "He released
her, and she accepted the release."

"What, on the ground that----?"

"Really I don't know any more. But it's finally over; you may depend
upon that."

Southend lit a cigar with a satisfied air. On the whole he was glad to
hear the news.

"Staying much longer in town?" he asked.

"No, I'm going down to Iver's again in August."

"You want to see the end of it? Come, I know that's it!" He laughed as
he walked away.

Meanwhile Harry Tristram, unconscious of the efforts which were being
made to arrange his future, and paying as little attention as he could
to the buzz of gossip about his past, had settled down in quiet rooms
and was looking at the world from a new point of view. He was in
seclusion like his cousin; the mourning they shared for Addie Tristram
was sufficient excuse; and he found his chief pleasure in wandering
about the streets. The season was not over yet, and he liked to go out
about eight in the evening and watch the great city starting forth to
enjoy itself. Then he could feel its life in all the rush and the gayety
of it. Somehow now he seemed more part of it and more at home in it than
when he used to run up for a few days from his country home. Then Blent
had been the centre of his life, and in town he was but a stranger and a
sojourner. Blent was gone; and London is home to homeless men. There was
a suggestion for him in the air of it, an impulse that was gradually but
strongly urging him to action, telling him that he must begin to do. For
the moment he was notorious, but the talk and the staring would be over
soon--the sooner the better, he added most sincerely. Then he must do
something if he wished still to be, or ever again to be, anybody.
Otherwise he could expect no more than to be pointed out now and then to
the curious as the man who had once been Tristram of Blent and had
ceased to be such in a puzzling manner.

As he looked back, he seemed to himself to have lived hitherto on the
banks of the river of life as well as of the river Blent; there had been
no need of swimming. But he was in the current now; he must swim or
sink. This idea took shape as he watched the carriages, the lines of
scampering hansoms, the crowds waiting at theatre doors. Every man and
every vehicle, every dandy and every urchin, represented some effort, if
it were only at one end of the scale to be magnificent, at the other not
to be hungry. No such notions had been fostered by days spent on the
banks of the Blent. "What shall I do? What shall I do?" The question
hummed in his brain as he walked about. There were such infinite
varieties of things to do, such a multitude of people doing them. To
some men this reflection brings despair or bewilderment; to Harry (as
indeed Lord Southend would have expected from his observation of him) it
was a titillating evidence of great opportunities, stirring his mind to
a busy consideration of chances. Thus then it seemed as though Blent
might fall into the background, his loved Blent. Perhaps his not
thinking of it had begun in wilfulness, or even in fear; but he found
the rule he had made far easier to keep than he had ever expected. There
had been a sort of release for his mind; he had not foreseen this as a
possible result of his great sacrifice. He even felt rather richer;
which seemed a strange paradox, till he reflected that the owners of
Blent had seldom been able to lay hands readily on a fluid sum of
fifteen thousand pounds, subject to no claims for houses to be repaired,
buildings to be maintained, cottages to be built, wages to be paid, and
the dozen other ways in which money disperses itself over the surface of
a landed estate. He had fifteen thousand pounds in form as good as cash.
He was living more or less as he had once meant to live in this one
particular; he was living with a respectable if not a big check by him,
ready for any emergency which might arise--an emergency not now of a
danger to be warded off, but of an opportunity to be seized.

These new thoughts suited well with the visit which he paid to Lady
Evenswood and gained fresh strength from it. His pride and independence
had made him hesitate about going. Southend, amazed yet half admiring,
had been obliged to plead, reminding him that it was not merely a woman
nor merely a woman of rank who wished to make his acquaintance, but also
a very old woman who had known his mother as a child. He further offered
his own company, so that the interview might assume a less formal
aspect. Harry declined the company but yielded to the plea. He was
announced as Mr Tristram. He had just taken steps to obtain a Royal
License to bear the name. Southend had chuckled again half admiringly
over that.

Although the room was in deep shadow and very still, and the old
white-haired lady the image of peace, for Harry there too the current
ran strong. Though not great, she had known the great; if she had not
done the things, she had seen them done; her talk revealed a
matter-of-course knowledge of secrets, a natural intimacy with the
inaccessible. It was like Harry to show no signs of being impressed; but
very shrewd eyes were upon him, and his impassivity met with amused
approval since it stopped short of inattention. She broke it down at
last by speaking of Addie Tristram.

"The most fascinating creature in the world," she said. "I knew her as a
little girl. I knew her up to the time of your birth almost. After that
she hardly left Blent, did she? At least she never came to London. You
travelled, I know."

"Were you ever at Blent?" he asked.

"No, Mr Tristram."

He frowned for a moment; it was odd not to be able to ask people there,
just too as he was awaking to the number of people there were in the
world worth asking.

"There never was anybody in the world like her, and there never will
be," Lady Evenswood went on.

"I used to think that; but I was wrong." The smile that Mina Zabriska
knew came on his face.

"You were wrong? Who's like her then?"

"Her successor. My cousin Cecily's very like her."

Lady Evenswood was more struck by the way he spoke than by the meaning
of what he said. She wanted to say "Bravo," and to pat him on the back;
he had avoided so entirely any hesitation or affectation in naming his
cousin--Addie Tristram's successor who had superseded him.

"She talks and moves and sits and looks at you in the same way. I was
amazed to see it." He had said not a word of this to anybody since he
left Blent. Lady Evenswood, studying him very curiously, began to make
conjectures about the history of the affair, also about what lay behind
her visitor's composed face; there was a hint of things suppressed in
his voice. But he had the bridle on himself again in a moment. "Very
curious these likenesses are," he ended with a shrug.

She decided that he was remarkable, for a boy of his age, bred in the
country, astonishing. She had heard her father describe Pitt at
twenty-one and Byron at eighteen. Without making absurd comparisons,
there was, all the same, something of that precocity of manhood here,
something also of the arrogance that the great men had exhibited. She
was very glad that she had sent for him.

"I don't want to be impertinent," she said (she had not meant to make
even this much apology), "but perhaps an old woman may tell you that she
is very sorry for--for this turn in your fortunes, Mr Tristram."

"You're very kind. It was all my own doing, you know. Nobody could have
touched me."

"But that would have meant----?" she exclaimed, startled into candor.

"Oh, yes, I know. Still--but since things have turned out differently, I
needn't trouble you with that."

She saw the truth, seeming to learn it from the set of his jaw. She
enjoyed a man who was not afraid to defy things, and she had been heard
to lament that everybody had a conscience nowadays--nay, insisted on
bringing it even into politics. She wanted to hear more--much more
now--about his surrender, and recognized as a new tribute to Harry the
fact that she could not question him. Immediately she conceived the idea
of inviting him to dinner to meet Mr Disney; but of course that must
wait for a little while.

"Everything must seem rather strange to you?" she suggested.

"Yes, very," he answered thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to think that some
day I shall look back on my boyhood with downright incredulity. I shan't
seem to have been that boy in the least."

"What are you going to do in the meantime, to procure that feeling?" She
was getting to the point she wished to arrive at, but very cautiously.

"I don't know yet. It's hard to choose."

"You certainly won't want for friends."

"Yes, that's pleasant, of course." He seemed to hint, however, that he
did not regard it as very useful.

"Oh, and serviceable too," she corrected him, with a nod of wise
experience. "Jobs are frowned at now, but many great men have started by
means of them. Robert Disney himself came in for a pocket-borough."

"Well, I really don't know," he repeated thoughtfully, but with no sign
of anxiety or fretting. "There's lots of time, Lady Evenswood."

"Not for me," she said with all her graciousness.

He smiled again, this time cordially, as he rose to take leave. But she
detained him.

"You're on friendly terms with your cousin, I suppose?"

"Certainly, if we meet. Of course I haven't seen her since I left Blent.
She's there, you know."

"Have you written to her?"

"No. I think it's best not to ask her to think of me just now."

She looked at him a moment, seeming to consider.

"Perhaps," she said at last. "But don't over-do that. Don't be cruel."

"Cruel?" There was strong surprise in his voice and on his face.

"Yes, cruel. Have you ever troubled to think what she may be feeling?"

"I don't know that I ever have," Harry admitted slowly. "At first sight
it looks as if I were the person who might be supposed to be feeling."

"At first sight, yes. Is that always to be enough for you, Mr Tristram?
If so, I shan't regret so much that I haven't--lots of time."

He stood silent before her for several seconds.

"Yes, I see. Perhaps. I daresay I can find out something about it. After
all, I've given some evidence of consideration for her."

"That makes it worse if you give none now. Good-by."

"It's less than a fortnight since I first met her. She won't miss me
much, Lady Evenswood."

"Time's everything, isn't it? Oh, you're not stupid! Think it over, Mr
Tristram. Now good-by. And don't conclude I shan't think about you
because it's only an hour since we met. We women are curious. When
you've nothing better to do it'll pay you to study us."

As Harry walked down from her house in Green Street, his thoughts were
divided between the new life and that old one which she had raised again
before his eyes by her reference to Cecily. The balance was turned in
favor of Blent by the sight of a man who was associated in his mind with
it--Sloyd, the house-agent who had let Merrion Lodge to Mina Zabriska.
Sloyd was as smart as usual, but he was walking along in a dejected way,
and his hat was unfashionably far back on his head. He started when he
saw Harry approaching him.

"Why, it's----" he began, and stopped in evident hesitation.

"Mr Tristram," said Harry. "Glad to meet you, Mr Sloyd, though you won't
have any more rent to hand over to me."

Sloyd began to murmur some rather flowery condolences.

Harry cut him short in a peremptory but good-natured fashion.

"How's business with you?" he asked.

"Might be worse, Mr Tristram. I don't complain. We're a young firm, and
we don't command the opportunities that others do." He laughed as he
added, "You couldn't recommend me to a gentleman with ten thousand
pounds to spare, could you, Mr Tristram?"

"I know just the man. What's it for?"

"No, no. Principals only," said Sloyd with a shake of his head.

"How does one become a principal then? I'll walk your way a bit." Harry
lit a cigar; Sloyd became more erect and amended the position of his
hat; he hoped that a good many people would recognize Harry. Yet social
pride did not interfere with business wariness.

"Are you in earnest, Mr Tristram? It's a safe thing."

"Oh, no, it isn't, or you wouldn't be hunting for ten thousand on the
pavement of Berkeley Square."

"I'll trust you," Sloyd declared. Harry nodded thanks, inwardly amused
at the obvious effort which attended the concession. "If you don't come
in, you'll not give it away?" Again Harry nodded. "It's a big chance,
but we haven't got the money to take it, and unless we can take it we
shall have to sell our rights. It's an option on land. I secured it, but
it's out in a week. Before then we must table twenty thousand. And ten
cleans us out."

"What'll happen if you don't?"

"I must sell the option--rather than forfeit it, you know. I've an offer
for it, but a starvation one."

"Who from?"

After a moment's scrutiny Sloyd whispered a name of immense significance
in such a connection: "Iver."

"I should like to hear some more about this. It's worth something, I
expect, if Iver wants it. Shall I go with you to your office?" He hailed
a passing cab. "I've got the money," he said, "and I want to use it. You
show me that this is a good thing, and in it goes."

An hour passed in the office of Sloyd, Sloyd, and Gurney. Harry Tristram
came out whistling. He looked very pleased; his step was alert; he had
found something to do, he had made a beginning--good or bad. It looked
good: that was enough. He was no longer an idler or merely an onlooker.
He had begun to take a hand in the game himself. He found an added,
perhaps a boyish, pleasure in the fact that the affair was for the
present to be a dead secret. He was against Iver too in a certain sense,
and that was another spice; not from any ill-will, but because it would
please him especially to show Iver that he could hold his own. It
occurred to him that in case of a success he would enjoy going and
telling old Lady Evenswood about it. He felt, as he said to himself,
very jolly, careless and jolly, more so than he remembered feeling for
many months back. Suddenly an idea struck him. Was it in whole or in
part because there was no longer anything to hide, because he need no
longer be on the watch? He gave this idea a good deal of rather amused
consideration, and came to the conclusion that there might be something
in it. He went to the theatre that night, to the pit (where he would not
be known), and enjoyed himself immensely.

And Lady Evenswood had made up her mind that she would find a way of
seeing Mr Disney soon, and throw out a cautious feeler. Everything would
have to be done very carefully, especially if the marriage with the
cousin were to be made a feature of the case. But her resolve, although
not altered, was hampered by a curious feeling to which her talk with
Harry had given rise. There was now not only the very grave question
whether Robert Disney--to say nothing of Somebody Else--would entertain
the idea. There was another, a much less obvious one--whether Harry
himself would welcome it. And a third--whether she herself would welcome
it for him. However, when Southend next called on her, she professed her
readiness to attack or at least to reconnoitre the task from which he
and John Fullcombe and the rest had shrunk.

"Only," she said, "if I were you, I should find out tolerably early--as
soon as we know that there's any chance at all--what Mr Tristram himself
thinks about it."

"There's only one thing he could think!" exclaimed Southend.

"Oh, very well," smiled Lady Evenswood.

A long life had taught her that only facts convince, and that they often
fail.




XVII

RIVER SCENES AND BRIC-À-BRAC


The Blent was on fire indeed, and Mina Zabriska occupied a position rich
in importance, prolific of pleasure. Others, such as Iver and Miss S.,
might meet Mr Gainsborough as he took timid rambles; they could extort
little beyond a dazed civility. Others again, such as Janie Iver and Bob
Broadley, might comfort themselves with the possession of a secret and
the conviction that they too could produce a fair sensation when the
appropriate (and respectable) time arrived; for the present they
commanded no public interest. Others again, the Major notably, strove
after importance by airs of previous knowledge and hints of undisclosed
details. Even Mrs Trumbler made her cast, declaring that she had always
known (the source of the information was left in obscurity) that pride
such as Harry Tristram's was the sure precursor of a fall. None of them
could compete with Mina Zabriska. To her alone the doors of Blent were
open; she held exclusive right of access to its hidden mistress. The
fact caused unmeasured indignation, the reason excited unresting
curiosity. This state of things ought to have made Mina very happy. What
more could woman want?

One thing only, but that a necessity--somebody to talk to about it. She
had nobody. Janie showed no desire to discuss Blent or anything or
anybody connected therewith, and with Janie out of the question there
was nobody to whom loyalty allowed her to talk. The Major, for instance,
was one of the enemy. She might pity him as an uncle--he was perplexed
and surly, because somehow he never happened to meet Miss Iver now--but
she could not confide in him. The gossips of Blentmouth were beneath her
lordly notice. She was bubbling over with undiscussed impressions. And
now even Mr Neeld had gone off on a visit to town!

Yet things needed talking about, hammering out, the light of another
mind thrown upon them; for they were very difficult. There was no need
to take account of Mr Gainsborough; as long as he could be kept in the
library and out of the one curiosity-shop which was to be found in
Blentmouth, he could not do himself or the house much harm. He was still
bewildered, but by no means unhappy, and he talked constantly of going
back to town to see about everything--to-morrow. There was nothing to
see about--the lawyers had done it all--and he was no more necessary or
important in London than he was at Blent. But Cecily's case was another
matter altogether, and it was about her that Mina desired the
enlightening contact of mind with mind, in order to canvass and explain
the incongruities of a behavior which conformed to no rational or
consistent theory.

Cecily had acquiesced in all the lawyers did, had signed papers at
request, had allowed herself to be invested with the property, saluted
with the title, enthroned in the fullest manner. So far then she had
accepted her cousin's sacrifice and the transformation of her own life.
Yet through and in spite of all this she maintained, even to the extreme
of punctiliousness, the air of being a visitor at Blent. She was not
exactly apologetic to the servants, but she thanked them profusely for
any special personal service they might perform for her; she made no
changes in the order of the household; when Mina--always busy in her
friend's interest--suggested re-arrangement of furniture or of curios,
Cecily's manner implied that she was prepared to take no such liberties
in another man's house. It would have been all very well-bred if Harry
had put his house at her disposal for a fortnight. Seeing that the place
was her own and that she had accepted it as being her own, Mina declared
that her conduct was little less than an absurdity. This assertion was
limited to Mina's own mind; it had not been made to the offender
herself. The fear she had felt of Harry threatened to spread to his
successor; she did not feel equal to a remonstrance. But she grew
gradually into a state of extreme irritation and impatience. This
provisional, this ostentatiously provisional, attitude could not be
maintained permanently. Something must happen one way or the other. Now
what was it to be? She could not pretend to guess. These Tristrams were
odd folk. There was the same blood in Cecily as had run in Addie
Tristram's veins. On the other hand the Gainsboroughs seemed to have
been ordinary. Was this period of indecision or of suspended action a
time of struggle between the Tristram in Cecily and the Gainsborough?
Mina, on the look-out for entertainment, had no doubt which of the two
she wished to be victorious; the Gainsborough promised nothing, the
Tristram--well--effects! The strain made Mina excited, restless, and at
times exceedingly short with Major Duplay.

The neighborhood waited too, but for the end of Lady Tristram's
mourning, not of her indecision. As a result of much discussion, based
on many rumors and an incredible number of authentic reports, it was
settled that at the end of six months Blent was to be thrown open,
visitors received, and a big house-warming given. A new era was to
begin. Splendor and respectability were to lie down together. Blent was
to pay a new homage to the proprieties. Miss Swinkerton was strongly of
opinion that bygones should be allowed to be bygones, and was author of
a theory which found much acceptance among the villas--namely, that Lady
Tristram would consider any reference to her immediate predecessor as
inconsiderate, indeed indelicate, and not such as might be expected to
proceed from lady-like mouths.

"We must remember that she's a girl, my dear," Miss S. observed to Mrs
Trumbler.

"She must know about it," Mrs Trumbler suggested. "But I dare say you're
right, Miss Swinkerton."

"If such a thing had happened in my family, I should consider myself
personally affronted by any reference to the persons concerned."

"The Vicar says he's sadly afraid that the notions of the upper classes
on such subjects are very lax."

"Not at all," said Miss S. tartly. Really she needed no instruction from
the Vicar. "And as I say, my dear, she's a girl. The ball will mark a
new departure. I said so to Madame Zabriska and she quite agreed with
me."

Mrs Trumbler frowned pensively. "I suppose Madame Zabriska has been a
widow some time?" she remarked.

"I have never inquired," said Miss S. with an air of expecting applause
for a rare discretion.

"I wonder what Mr Harry will do! The Vicar says he must be terribly
upset."

"Oh, I never professed to understand that young man. All I know is that
he's going abroad."

"Abroad?"

"Yes, my dear. I heard it in the town, and Madame Zabriska said she had
no doubt it was correct."

"But surely Madame Zabriska doesn't correspond----?"

"I don't know, my dear. I know what she said." She looked at Mrs
Trumbler and went on with emphasis: "It doesn't do to judge foreigners
as we should judge ourselves. If I corresponded with Mr Tristram it
would be one thing; if Madame Zabriska--and to be sure she has nobody to
look after her; that Major is no better than any silly young
man--chooses to do so, it's quite another. All I say is that, so far as
Blent is concerned, there's an end of Mr Tristram. Why, he hasn't got a
penny piece, my dear."

"So I heard," agreed Mrs Trumbler. "I suppose they won't let him
starve."

"Oh, arrangements are made in such cases," nodded Miss S. "But of course
nothing is said about them. For my part I shall never mention either Mr
Tristram or the late Lady Tristram to her present ladyship."

Mrs Trumbler was silent for a while; at last her mouth spoke the
thoughts of her heart.

"I suppose she'll be thinking of marrying soon. But I don't know anybody
in the neighborhood----"

"My dear, she'll have her house in town in the season. The only reason
the late Lady Tristram didn't do so was---- Well, you can see that for
yourself, Mrs Trumbler!"

"What must the Ivers think about it! What an escape! How providential!"

"Let us hope it'll be a lesson to Janie. If I had allowed myself to
think of position or wealth, I should have been married half a dozen
times, Mrs Trumbler."

"I dare say you would," said faithful Mrs Trumbler. But this assent did
not prevent her from remarking to the Vicar that Miss S. sometimes
talked of things which no unmarried woman could be expected really to
understand.

It will be observed that the Imp had been alleviating the pangs of her
own perplexity by a dexterous ministering to the delusions of others.
Not for the world would she have contradicted Miss S.'s assertions; she
would as soon have thought of giving that lady a plain and unvarnished
account of the late Monsieur Zabriska's very ordinary and quite
reputable life and death. No doubt she was right. Both she and the
neighborhood had to wait, and her efforts did something to make the
period more bearable for both of them. The only sufferer was poor Mr
Gainsborough, who was driven from Blentmouth and the curiosity shop by
the sheer terror of encountering ladies from villas who told him all
about what his daughter was going to do.

The outbreak came, and in a fashion as Tristram-esque as Mina could
desire, for all that the harbinger of it was frightened little Mr
Gainsborough, more frightened still. He came up the hill one evening
about six, praying Mina's immediate presence at Blent. Something had
happened, he explained, as they walked down. Cecily had had a
letter--from somebody in London. No, not Harry. She must see Mina at
once. That was all he knew, except that his daughter was perturbed and
excited. His manner protested against the whole thing with a mild
despair.

"Quick, quick!" cried the Imp, almost making him run to keep up with her
impatient strides.

Cecily was in her room--the room that had been Addie Tristram's.

"You've moved in here!" was Mina's first exclamation.

"Yes; the housekeeper said I must, so I did. But----" She glanced up for
a moment at Addie's picture and broke off. Then she held up a letter
which she had in her hand. "Do you know anything of Lord Southend?" she
asked.

"I've heard Mr Iver and Mr Neeld speak of him. That's all."

"He writes to say he knew Lady Tristram and--and Harry, and hopes he'll
know me soon."

"That's very friendly." Mina thought, but did not add, that it was
rather unimportant.

"Yes, but it's more than that. Don't you see? It's an opening." She
looked at her friend, impatient at her want of comprehension. "It makes
it possible to do something. I can begin now."

"Begin what?" Mina was enjoying her own bewilderment keenly.

"How long did you think I could stand it? I'm not made of--of--of soap!
You know Harry! You liked him, didn't you? And you knew Lady Tristram!
I've slept in this room two nights and----"

"You haven't seen a ghost?"

"Ghost! Oh, don't be silly. I've lain here awake, looking at that
picture. And it's looked at me--at least it seemed to. 'What are you
doing here?' That's what it's been saying. 'What are you doing here?'
No, I'm not mad. That's what I was saying myself. But the picture seemed
to say it."

There was a most satisfactory absence of Gainsborough about all this.

"Then I go into the Long Gallery! It's no better there!" Her hands were
flung out despairingly.

"You seemed to have settled down so well," murmured Mina.

"Settled down! What was there to do? Oh, you know I hadn't! I can't bear
it, Mina, and I won't. Isn't it hard? I should have loved it all so, if
it had been really mine, if it had come to me properly. And now--it's
worse than nothing!" She sat back in her chair with her face set in a
desperate unhappiness.

"It is yours; it did come to you properly," Mina protested. Her sympathy
tended always toward the person she was with, her sensitive mind
responding to the immediate appeal. She thought more of Cecily now than
of Harry, who was somewhere--vaguely somewhere--in London.

"You say that?" cried Cecily angrily. "You, Harry's friend! You, who
fought and lied--yes, lied for him. Why did you do all that if you think
it's properly mine? How can I face that picture and say it's mine? It's
a detestable injustice. Ah, and I did--I did love it so."

"Well, I don't see what you're to do. You can't give it back to Mr.
Tristram. At least I shouldn't like to propose that to him, and I'm sure
he wouldn't take it. Why, he couldn't, Cecily!"

Cecily rose and walked restlessly to the window.

"No, no, no," she said fretfully. She turned abruptly round to Mina.
"Lord Southend says he'd be glad to make my acquaintance and have a
talk."

"Ask him down here then."

"Ask him here? I'm not going to ask people to stay here."

"I think that's rather absurd." Mina had needed to summon up courage for
this remark.

"And he says---- There, look at this letter. He says he's seen Harry and
hopes to be able to do something for him. What does he mean by that?"
She came back toward Mina. "There must be something possible if he says
that."

"He can't mean anything about--about Blent. He means----"

"I must find out what he means. I must see him. The letter came when I
was just desperate. Father and I sitting down here together day after
day! As if----! As if----!" She paused and struggled for self-control.
"There, I'm going to be quite calm and reasonable about it," she ended.

Mina had her doubts about that--and would have been sorry not to have
them. The interest that had threatened to vanish from her life with
Addie Tristram's death and Harry's departure was revived. She sat
looking at the agitated girl in a pleasant suspense. Cecily took up
Southend's letter again and smoothed it thoughtfully. "What should you
think Harry must feel about me?" she asked, with a nearer approach to
the calm which she had promised; but it seemed the quiet of despair.

Here Mina had her theory ready and advanced it with confidence.

"I expect he hates you. You see he did what he did in a moment of
excitement: he must have been wrought up by something--something quite
unusual with him. You brought it about somehow."

"Yes, I know I did. Do you suppose I haven't thought about that?"

"There's sure to have been a reaction," pursued the sage Imp. "He'll
have got back to his ordinary state of mind, and in that he loved Blent
above everything. And the more he loves Blent, and the sorrier he is for
having given it up, the less he'll like you, of course."

"You think he's sorry?"

"When I've done anything on an impulse like that, I'm always sorry."
Mina spoke from a tolerably large experience of impulses and their
results; a very recent example had been the impulse of temper which made
her drop hints to the Major about Harry's right to be Tristram of Blent.

"Yes, then he would hate me," Cecily concluded. "And how she'd hate me!"
she cried the next instant, pointing at Addie Tristram's picture.

About that at least there was no doubt in Mina's mind. She nodded
emphatically.

"I've done what she spent her life trying to prevent! I've made
everybody talk about her again! Mina, I feel as if I'd thrown mud at
her, as if I'd reviled her. And she can't know how I would have loved
her!"

"I remember her when she thought her husband was dead, and that she
could be married all right to Captain Fitzhubert, and--and that it would
be all right, you know."

"What did she say?" Cecily's eyes were on the picture.

"She cried out--'Think of the difference it makes--the enormous
difference!' I didn't know what she meant then, but I remember how she
looked and how she spoke."

"And in the end there is--no difference! Yes, she'd hate me. And so must
Harry." She turned to Mina. "It's terribly unfair, isn't it, terribly?
She'd have liked me, I think, and I'd got to be such good friends with
him. I'd come to think he'd ask us down now and then--about once a year
perhaps. It would have been something to look forward to all the year.
It would have made life quite different, quite good enough, you know. I
should have been so content and so happy with that. Oh, it's terribly
unfair! Why do people do things that--that bring about things like
this?"

"Poor Lady Tristram," sighed Mina, glancing at the beautiful cause of
the terrible unfairness. "She was like that, you see," she added.

"Yes, I know that. But it oughtn't to count against other people so.
Yes, it's terribly unfair."

These criticisms on the order of the world, whether well-founded or not
(to Mina they seemed to possess much plausibility), did not advance
matters. A silence fell between the two, and Cecily walked again to the
window. The sun was setting on Blent, and it glowed in a soft beauty.

"To think that I should be here, and have this, and yet be very very
unhappy!" murmured the girl softly. She faced round suddenly. "Mina, I'm
going to London. Now--to-night. There's a train at eight."

The Imp sat up straight and stared.

"I shall wire to our house; the maid's there, and she'll have things
ready."

"What are you going to town for?"

"To see this Lord Southend. You must come with me."

"I? Oh, I can't possibly. And your father----?"

"He must stay here. You must come. Run back and pack a bag; you won't
want much. I shall go just as I am." With a gesture she indicated the
plain black frock she wore. "Oh, I can't be bothered with packing! What
does that matter? I'll call for you in the carriage at seven. We mustn't
miss the train."

Mina gasped. This was Tristram indeed; the wild resolve was announced in
tones calmer than any that Cecily had achieved during the interview.
Mina began to think that all the family must have this way of being
peculiar in ordinary things, but quite at home when there was an
opportunity of doing anything unusual.

"I just feel I must go. If anything's done at all, it'll be done in
London, not here."

"How long do you mean to stay?"

"I can't possibly tell. Till something's done. Go now, Mina, or you'll
be late."

"Oh, I'm not coming. The whole thing's absurd. What can you do? And,
anyhow, it's not my business."

"Very well. I shall go alone. Only I thought you were interested in
Harry and--and I thought you were my friend." She threw herself into a
chair; she was in Addie Tristram's attitude. "But I suppose I haven't
got any friends," she concluded, not in a distressed fashion, but with a
pensive submissive little smile.

"You're perfectly adorable," cried Mina, running across to her. "And
I'll go with you to Jericho, if you like." She caught Cecily's hands in
hers and kissed her cheek.

The scene was transformed in an instant; that also was the Tristram way.
Cecily sprang up laughing gayly, even dancing a step or two, as she
wrung Mina's hands.

"Hurrah! _Marchons! En Avant!_" she cried. "Oh, we'll do something,
Mina! Don't you hate sitting still?"

"Cecily, are you--are you in love with Harry?"

"Oh, I hope not, I hope not," she laughed softly. "Because he must hate
me so. And are you, Mina? Oh, I hope not that too! Come, to London! To
seek our fortunes in London! Oh, you tiresome old Blent, how glad I am
to leave you!"

"But your father----"

"We'll do things quite nicely, Mina dear. We won't distress father.
We'll leave a note for him. Mina, I'm sure Addie Tristram used just to
leave a note whenever she ran away! We'll sleep in London to-night!"

Suddenly Mina understood better why Harry had surrendered Blent, and
understood too, as her mind flew back, why Addie Tristram had made men
do what they had done. She was carried away by this sudden flood of
enraptured resolution, of a resolve that seemed like an inspiration, of
delight in the unreasonable, of gay defiance to the limits of the
possible.

"Oh, yes, you tiresome old Blent!" cried Cecily, shaking her fair hair
toward the open window. "How could a girl think she was going to live on
river scenes and bric-à-brac?" She laughed in airy scorn. "You must
grow more amusing if I'm to come back to you!" she threatened.

River scenes and bric-à-brac! Mina was surprised that Blent did not on
the instant punish the blasphemy by a revengeful earthquake or an
overwhelming flood. Cecily caught her by the arm, a burlesque
apprehension screwing her face up into a fantastically ugly mask.

"It was the Gainsborough in me!" she whispered, "Gainsboroughs can live
on curios! But I can't, Mina, I can't. I'm a Tristram, not a
Gainsborough. No more could Harry in the end, no more could Harry!"

Mina was panting; she had danced and she had wondered; she was on the
tip of the excitement with which Cecily had infected her.

"But what are we going to do?" she cried in a last protest of
common-sense.

"Oh, I don't know, but something--something--something," was the not
very common-sense answer she received.

It was not the moment for common-sense. Mina scorned the thing and flung
it from her. She would have none of it--she who stood between beautiful
Addie there on the wall and laughing Cecily here in the window, feeling
by a strange and welcome illusion that though there were two visible
shapes, there was but one heart, one spirit in the two. Almost it seemed
as though Addie had risen to life again, once more to charm and to defy
the world. An inexplicable impulse made her exclaim:

"Were you like this before you came to Blent?"

A sudden quiet fell on Cecily. She paused before she answered:

"No, not till I came to Blent." With a laugh she fell on her knees.
"Please forgive me what I said about the river and the bric-à-brac, dear
darling Blent!"




XVIII

CONSPIRATORS AND A CRUX


Lord Southend was devoted to his wife--a state of feeling natural often,
creditable always. Yet the reason people gave for it--and gave with
something like an explicit sanction from him--was not a very exalted
one. Susanna made him so exceedingly comfortable. She was born to manage
a hotel and cause it to pay fifteen per cent. Being a person--not of
social importance, nothing could make her that--but of social rank, she
was forced to restrict her genius to a couple of private houses. The
result was like the light of the lamps in the heroine's boudoir, a soft
brilliancy: in whose glamour Susanna's plain face and limited
intellectual interests were lost to view. She was also a particularly
good woman; but her husband knew better than to talk about that.

Behold him after the most perfect of lunches, his arm-chair in exactly
the right spot, his papers by him, his cigars to his hand (even these
Susanna understood), a sense of peace in his heart, and in his head a
mild wonder that anybody was discontented with the world. In this
condition he intended to spend at least a couple of hours; after which
Susanna would drive him gently once round the Park, take him to the
House of Lords, wait twenty minutes, and then land him at the Imperium.
He lit a cigar and took up the _Economist_; it was not the moment for
anything exciting.

"A lady to see you, my Lord--on important business."

Excessive comfort is enervating. After a brief and futile resistance he
found Mina Zabriska in the room, and himself regarding her with mingled
consternation and amusement. Relics of excitement hung about the Imp,
but they were converted to business purposes. She came as an agent. The
name of her principal awoke Southend's immediate interest.

"She's come up to London?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, both of us. We're at their old home."

Southend discovered his _pince-nez_ and studied her thin mobile little
face.

"And what have you come up for?" he asked after a pause.

Mina shrugged her shoulders. "Just to see what's going on," she said. "I
dare say you wonder what I've got to do with it?" His manner seemed to
assent, and she indicated her position briefly.

"Oh, that's it, is it? You knew the late Lady Tristram. And you
knew----" Again he regarded her thoughtfully. "I hope Lady Tristram--the
new one--is well?"

There was the sound of a whispered consultation outside the door; it
drew Mina's eyes in that direction.

"That's all right," he smiled. "It's only my wife scolding the butler
for having let you in. This is my time for rest."

"Rest!" exclaimed Mina rather scornfully. "You wrote to Cecily as if you
could do something."

"That was rash of me. What do you want done? I've heard about you from
Iver, you know."

"Oh, the Ivers have nothing to do with this. It's just between Cecily
and Mr. Tristram."

"And you and me, apparently."

"What was your idea when you wrote? I made Cecily let me come and see
you because it sounded as if you had an idea." If he had no idea, it was
clear that contempt awaited him.

"I wanted to be friendly. But as for doing anything--well, that hardly
depends on me."

"But things can't go on as they are, you know," she said brusquely.

"Unhappily, as I understand the law----"

"Oh, I understand the law too--and very silly it is. I suppose it can't
be changed?"

"Good gracious, my dear Madame Zabriska! Changed!" And on this point
too! _Nolumus leges Angliæ_---- He just stopped himself from the
quotation.

"What are Acts of Parliament for?" Mina demanded.

"Absolutely out of the question," he laughed. "Even if everybody
consented, absolutely."

"And Harry Tristram wouldn't consent, you mean?"

"Well, could any man?"

Mina looked round the room with a discontented air; there is such a
lamentable gulf between feeling that something must be done and
discovering what it is.

"I don't say positively that nothing can be done," he resumed after a
moment, dangling his glass and looking at her covertly. "Are you at
leisure this afternoon?"

"If you've got anything to suggest." Mina had grown distrustful of his
intelligence, and her tone showed it.

"I thought you might like to come and see a friend of mine, who is kind
enough to be interested in Harry Tristram." He added, with the
consciousness of naming an important person, "I mean Lady Evenswood."

"Who's she?" asked the Imp curtly.

To do them justice, Englishmen seldom forget that allowances must be
made for foreigners. Lord Southend explained gravely and patiently.

"Well, let's go," said Mina indifferently. "Not that it seems much use,"
her manner added.

"Excuse me a moment," said he, and he went out to soothe his wife's
alarm and assure her that he was not tired.

As they drove, Mina heard more of Lady Evenswood--among other things,
that she had known Addie Tristram as a child; this fact impressed the
Imp beyond all the rest. But Lady Evenswood herself made a greater
impression still. An unusual timidity assaulted and conquered Mina when
she found herself with the white-haired old lady who never seemed to do
more than gently suggest and yet exercised command. Southend watched
them together with keen amusement, while Lady Evenswood drew out of Mina
some account of Cecily's feelings and of the scene at Blent.

"Well, that's Tristram all over," sighed Lady Evenswood at the end.

"Yes, isn't it?" cried Mina, emboldened by a sympathy that spoke her own
thought. "She hates to feel she's taken everything away from him. But
Lord Southend says he can't have it back."

"Oh, no, no, my dear. Still----" She glanced at Southend, doubtful
whether to mention their scheme.

He shook his head slightly.

"I dare say Lady Tristram was momentarily excited," he remarked to Mina,
"and I think too that she exaggerates what Harry feels. As far as I've
seen him, he's by no means miserable."

"Well, she is anyhow," said Mina. "And you won't convince her that he
isn't." She turned to Lady Evenswood. "Is there nothing to be done? You
see it's all being wasted."

"All being wasted?"

"Yes, Blent and all of it. He can't have it; and as things are now she
can't enjoy it."

"Very perverse, very perverse, certainly," murmured Southend,
frowning--although he was rather amused too.

"With an obvious solution," said Lady Evenswood, "if only we lived in
the realms of romance."

"I have suggested a magician," put in Southend. "Though he doesn't look
much like one," he added with a laugh.

Mina did not understand his remark, but she caught Lady Evenswood's
meaning.

"Yes," she said, "but Harry wouldn't do that either."

"He doesn't like his cousin?"

"Yes, I think so." She smiled as she added, "And even if he didn't that
mightn't matter."

The other two exchanged glances as they listened. Mina, inspired by a
subject that never failed to rouse her, gained courage.

"Any more than it mattered with Miss Iver," she pursued. "And he might
just as likely have given Blent to Cecily in that way as in the way he
actually did--if she'd wanted it very much and--and it had been a
splendid thing for him to do."

Lady Evenswood nodded gently. Southend raised his brows in a sort of
protest against this relentless analysis.

"Because that sort of thing would have appealed to him. But he'd never
take it from her; he wouldn't even if he was in love with her." She
addressed Lady Evenswood especially. "You understand that?" she asked.
"He wouldn't be indebted to her. He'd hate her for that."

"Not very amiable," commented Southend.

"Amiable? No!" Amiability seemed at a discount with the Imp.

"You know him very well, my dear?"

"Yes, I--I came to." Mina paused, and suddenly blushed at the
remembrance of an idea that had once been suggested to her by Major
Duplay. "And I'm very fond of her," she added.

"In the deadlock," said Southend, "I think you'll have to try my
prescription, Lady Evenswood."

"You think that would be of use?"

"It would pacify this pride of Master Harry's perhaps."

Mina looked from one to the other.

"Do you mean there's anything possible?" she asked.

"My dear, you're a very good friend."

"I'm not very happy. I don't know what in the world Cecily will do. And
yet----" Mina struggled with her rival impulses of kindness and
curiosity. "It's all awfully interesting," she concluded, breaking into
a smile she could not resist.

"That's the only excuse for all of us, I suppose," sighed Lady
Evenswood.

"Not that I like the boy particularly," added Southend.

"Is there anything?" asked Mina. The appeal was to the lady, not to
Southend. But he answered chaffingly:

"Possibly--just possibly--the resources of the Constitution----"

The bell of the front door sounded audibly in the morning-room in which
they were.

"I dare say that's Robert," remarked Lady Evenswood. "He said he might
call."

"Oh, by Jove!" exclaimed Southend with a laugh that sounded a trifle
uneasy.

The door opened, and a man came in unannounced. He was of middle height,
with large features, thick coarse hair, and a rather ragged beard; his
arms were long and his hands large.

"How are you, Cousin Sylvia?" he said, crossing to Lady Evenswood, who
gave him her hand without rising. "How are you, Southend?" He turned
back to Lady Evenswood. "I thought you were alone."

He spoke in brusque tones, and he looked at Mina as if he did not know
what she might be doing there. His appearance seemed vaguely familiar to
her.

"We are holding a little conference, Robert. This young lady is very
interested in Harry Tristram and his affair. Come now, you remember
about it! Madame Zabriska, this is Mr Disney."

"Mr Disney!" The Imp gasped. "You mean----?"

The other two smiled. Mr Disney scowled a little. Obviously he had hoped
to find his relative alone.

"Madame Zabriska met Addie Tristram years ago at Heidelberg, Robert; and
she's been staying down at Blent--at Merrion Lodge, didn't you say, my
dear?"

Mr Disney had sat down.

"Well, what's the young fellow like?" he asked.

"Oh, I--I--don't know," murmured the Imp in forlorn shyness. This man
was--was actually--the--the Prime Minister! Matters would have been
rather better if he had consented to look just a little like it. As it
was, her head was in a whirl. Lady Evenswood called him "Robert" too!
Nothing about Lady Evenswood had impressed her as much as that, not even
the early acquaintance with Addie Tristram.

"Well then, what's the girl like?" asked Disney.

"Robert, don't frighten Madame Zabriska."

"Frighten her? What do you mean?"

"Oh, tell him what I mean, George," laughed Lady Evenswood, turning to
Southend. Mr Disney seemed genuinely resentful at the idea that he might
frighten anybody.

"Are you a member of the conference too, Southend?"

"Well, yes, I--I'm interested in the family." He telegraphed a glance of
caution to the old lady; he meant to convey that the present was not a
happy moment to broach the matter that was in their minds.

"I'm sorry I interrupted. Can you give me five minutes in another room,
Cousin Sylvia?" He rose and waited for her.

"Oh, but can't you do anything?" blurted out the Imp suddenly.

"Eh?" His eyes under their heavy brows were fixed on her now. There was
a deep-lying twinkle in them, although he still frowned ferociously. "Do
what?"

"Why, something for--for Harry Tristram?"

He looked round at each of them. The twinkle was gone; the frown was
not.

"Oh, was that the conference?" he asked slowly. "Well, what has the
conference decided?" It was Mina whom he questioned, for which Southend
at least was profoundly thankful. "He'd have bitten my head off, if the
women hadn't been there," he confided to Iver afterward.

Mr Disney slowly sat down again. Mina did not perceive the significance
of this action, but Lady Evenswood did.

"It's such an extraordinary case, Robert. So very exceptional! Poor
Addie Tristram! You remember her?"

"Yes, I remember Addie Tristram," he muttered--"growled," Mina described
it afterward. "Well, what do you want?" he asked.

Lady Evenswood was a woman of tact.

"Really," she said, "it can't be done in this way, of course. If
anything is to come before you, it must come before you regularly. I
know that, Robert."

The Imp had no tact.

"Oh, no," she cried. "Do listen now, Mr Disney. Do promise to help us
now!"

Tact is not always the best thing in the world.

"If you'll tell me in two words, I'll listen," said Mr Disney.

"I--I can't do that. In two words? Oh, but please----"

He had turned away from her to Southend.

"Now then, Southend?"

Lord Southend felt that he must be courageous. After all the women were
there.

"In two words? Literally?"

Disney nodded, smiling grimly at Mina's clasped hands and imploring
face.

"Literally--if you can." There was a gratuitous implication that
Southend and the rest of the world were apt to be loquacious.

"Well, then," said Southend, "I will. What we want is----" After one
glance at Lady Evenswood, he got it out. "What we want is--a viscounty."

For a moment Mr Disney sat still. Then again he rose slowly.

"Have I tumbled into Bedlam?" he asked.

"It was done in the Bearsdale case," suggested Lady Evenswood. "Of
course there was a doubt there----"

"Anyhow a barony--but a viscounty would be more convenient," murmured
Southend.

Mina was puzzled. These mysteries were beyond her. She had never heard
of the Bearsdale case, and she did not understand why--in certain
circumstances--a viscounty would be more convenient. But she knew that
something was being urged which might meet the difficulty, and she kept
eager eyes on Mr Disney. Perhaps she would have done that anyhow; men
who rule heads and hearts can surely draw eyes also. Yet at the moment
he was not inspiring. He listened with a smile (was it not rather a
grin?) of sardonic ridicule.

"You made me speak, you know," said Southend. "I'd rather have waited
till we got the thing into shape."

"And I should like you to see the boy, Robert."

"Bedlam!" said Mr Disney with savage conviction. "I'll talk to you about
what I came to say another day, Cousin Sylvia. Really to-day----!" With
a vague awkward wave of his arm he started for the door.

"You will try?" cried the Imp, darting at him.

She heard him say, half under his breath, "Damned persistent little
woman!" before he vanished through the door. She turned to her
companions, her face aghast, her lips quivering, her eyes dim. The
magician had come and gone and worked no spell; her disappointment was
very bitter.

To her amazement Southend was radiant and Lady Evenswood wore an air of
gratified contentment. She stared at them.

"It went off better than I expected," said he.

"It must be one of Robert's good days," said she.

"But--but----" gasped the Imp.

"He was very civil for him. He must mean to think about it, about
something of the sort anyhow," Southend explained. "I shouldn't wonder
if it had been in his mind," he added to Lady Evenswood.

"Neither should I. At any rate he took it splendidly. I almost wish we'd
spoken of the marriage."

"Couldn't you write to him?"

"He wouldn't read it, George."

"Telegraph then!"

"It would really be worth trying--considering how he took it." Lady
Evenswood did not seem able to get over the Prime Minister's
extraordinary affability.

"Well, if he treats you like that--great people like you--and you're
pleased, thank goodness I never met him alone!" Mina was not shy with
them any more; she had suffered worse.

They glanced at one another.

"It was you, my dear. He'd have been more difficult with us," said Lady
Evenswood.

"You interested him," Southend assured her.

"Yes, if anything's been done, you've done it."

They seemed quite sincere. That feeling of being on her head instead of
her heels came over Mina again.

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he sent for Harry."

"No, nor if he arranged to meet Cecily Gainsborough--Cecily Tristram, I
mean."

"I thought he looked--well, as if he was hit--when you mentioned Addie."

"Oh, there's really no telling with Robert. It went off very well
indeed. What a lucky thing he came!"

Still bewildered, Mina began, all the same, to assimilate this
atmosphere of contentment and congratulation.

"Do you really think I--I had anything to do with it?" she asked, a new
pride swelling in her heart.

"Yes, yes, you attracted his attention."

"He was amused at you, my dear."

"Then I'm glad." She meant that her sufferings would perhaps not go
unrecompensed.

"You must bring Lady Tristram to see me," said Lady Evenswood.

"Cecily? Oh--well, I'll try."

Lady Evenswood smiled and Southend laughed outright. It was not quite
the way in which Lady Evenswood's invitations were generally received.
But neither of them liked Mina less.

It was something to go back to the tiny house between the King's and
Fulham Road with the record of such adventures as these. Cecily was
there, languid and weary; she had spent the whole day in that hammock in
the strip of garden in which Sloyd had found her once. Despondency had
succeeded to her excitement--this was all quite in the Tristram way--and
she had expected no fruit from Mina's expedition. But Mina came home,
not indeed with anything very definite, yet laden with a whole pack of
possibilities. She put that point about the viscounty, which puzzled
her, first of all. It alone was enough to fire Cecily to animation. Then
she led up, through Lady Evenswood, to Mr Disney himself, confessing
however that she took the encouragement which that great man had given
on faith from those who knew him better than she did. Her own impression
would have been that he meant to dismiss the whole thing as impossible
nonsense.

"Still I can't help thinking we've done something," she ended in
triumph.

"Mina, are you working for him or for me?"

This question faced Mina with a latent problem which she had hitherto
avoided. And now she could not solve it. For some time back she had been
familiarized with the fact that her life was dull when Harry Tristram
passed out of it. The accepted explanation of that state of feeling was
simple enough. But then it would involve Cecily in her turn passing out
of view, or at least becoming entirely insignificant. And Mina was not
prepared for that. She tried hard to read the answer, regarding Cecily
earnestly the while.

"Mayn't I work for both of you?" she asked at last.

"Well, I can't see why you should do that," said Cecily, rolling out of
the hammock and fretfully smoothing her hair.

"I'm a busy-body. That's it," said Mina.

"You know what'll happen if he finds it out? Harry, I mean. He'll be
furious with both of us."

Mina reflected. "Yes, I suppose he will," she admitted. But the spirit
of self-sacrifice was on her, perhaps also that of adventure. "I don't
care," she said, "as long as I can help."

There was a loud knock at the door. Mina rushed into the front room and
saw a man in uniform delivering a letter. The next moment the maid
brought it to her--a long envelope with "First Lord of the Treasury"
stamped on the lower left-hand corner. She noticed that it was addressed
to Lady Evenswood's house, and must have been sent on post haste. She
tore it open. It was headed "Private and Confidential."

     "MADAME--I am directed by Mr Disney to request you to state in
     writing, for his consideration, any facts which may be within your
     knowledge as to the circumstances attendant on the marriage of the
     late Lady Tristram of Blent, and the birth of her son Mr Henry
     Austen Fitzhubert Tristram. I am to add that your communication
     will be considered confidential.--I am, Madame, Yours faithfully,

                                                    BROADSTAIRS.

      "MADAME ZABRISKA."

"Cecily, Cecily, Cecily!" Mina darted back and thrust this wonderful
document into Cecily's hands. "He does mean something, you see, he will
do something!" she cried. "Oh, who's Broadstairs, I wonder."

Cecily took the letter and read. The Imp reappeared with a red volume in
her hand.

"Viscount Broadstairs--eldest son of the Earl of Ramsgate!" she read
with wide-open eyes. "And he says he's directed to write, doesn't he?
Well, you are funny in England! But I don't wonder I was afraid of Mr
Disney."

"Oh, Mr Disney's secretary, I suppose. But, Mina----" Cecily was alive
again now, but her awakening did not seem to be a pleasant one. She
turned suddenly from her friend and, walking as far off as the little
room would let her, flung herself into a chair.

"What's the matter?" asked Mina, checked in her excited gayety.

"What will Harry care about anything they can give him without Blent?"

Mina flushed. The conspiracy was put before her--not by one of the
conspirators but by her who was the object of it. She remembered Lady
Evenswood's question and Southend's. She had answered that it might not
much matter whether Harry liked his cousin or not. He had not loved
Janie Iver. Where was the difference?

"He won't want anything if he can't have Blent. Mina, did they say
anything about me to Mr Disney?"

"No," cried Mina eagerly.

"But they will, they mean to?" Cecily was leaning forward eagerly now.

Mina had no denial ready. She seemed rather to hang on Cecily's words
than to feel any need of speaking herself. She was trying to follow
Cecily's thoughts and to trace the cause of the apprehension, the terror
almost, that had come on the girl's face.

"He'll see it--just as I see it!" Cecily went on. "And, Mina----"

She paused again. Still Mina had no words, and no comfort for her. This
sight of the other side of the question was too sudden. It was Harry
then, and Harry only, who had really been in her thoughts; and Cecily,
her friend, was to be used as a tool. There might be little ground for
blaming Southend who had never seen her, or Lady Evenswood who had been
brought in purely in Harry's interest. But how stood Mina, who was
Cecily's friend? Yet at last a thought flashed into her mind and gave
her a weapon.

"Well, what did you come to London for?" she cried defiantly. "Why did
you come, unless you meant that too?"

Cecily started a little and lay back in her chair.

"Oh, I don't know," she murmured despondently. "He hates me, but if he's
offered Blent and me he'll--he'll take us both, Mina, you know he will."
An indignant rush of color came on her cheeks. "Oh, it's very easy for
you!"

In a difficulty of that sort it did not seem that even Mr Disney could
be of much avail.

"Oh, you Tristrams!" cried Mina in despair.




XIX

IN THE MATTER OF BLINKHAMPTON


Pity for the commander who, while engaging the enemy on his front with
valor and success, breaking his line and driving him from his position,
finds himself assailed in the rear by an unexpected or despised foe and
the prize of victory suddenly wrenched from him! His fate is more bitter
than if he had failed in his main encounter, his self-reproaches more
keen.

Major Duplay was awakening to the fact that this was his situation.
Triumph was not his although Harry Tristram had fled from the battle.
Iver's carefully guarded friendliness and the touch of motherly
compassion in his wife's manner, Mrs Trumbler's tacit request (conveyed
by a meek and Christian sympathy) that he should bow to the will of
Providence, Miss S.'s malicious questions as to where he meant to spend
the winter after leaving Merrion, told him the opinion of the world.
Janie Iver had begun to think flirtation wrong; and there was an
altogether new and remarkable self-assertion about Bob Broadley. The
last thing annoyed Duplay most. It is indeed absurd that a young man,
formerly of a commendable humility, should think a change of demeanor
justified merely because one young woman, herself insignificant, chooses
for reasons good or bad to favor him. Duplay assumed to despise Bob; it
is often better policy to despise people than to enter into competition
with them, and it is always rash to do both. These and other truths--as,
for example, that for some purposes it is better not to be
forty-four--the Major was learning. Was there any grain of comfort? It
lay in the fact that he was forty-four. A hypothetical, now impossible,
yet subtly soothing Major of thirty routed Bob Broadley and carried all
before him. In other words Duplay was driven back to the Last Ditch of
Consolation. What we could have done is the latest-tried plaster for the
wound of what we cannot do; it would be wise to try it sometimes a
little earlier.

From the orthodox sentimentalist he could claim no compassion. He had
lost not his heart's love but a very comfortable settlement; he was
wounded more in his vanity than in his affections; he had wasted not his
life, only one of his few remaining effective summers. But the more lax,
who base their views on what men generally are, may spare him one of
those less bitter tears which they appropriate to the misfortunes of
others. If the tear as it falls meets a smile,--why not? Such encounters
are hardly unexpected and may well prove agreeable.

There was another disconsolate person in the valley of the Blent--little
Mr Gainsborough, left alone in the big house with a note from his
daughter commanding him to stay there and to say nothing to anybody. He
was lonely, and nervous with the servants; the curios gave him small
pleasure since he had not bought them, and, if he had, they would not
have been cheap. For reasons before indicated, Blentmouth and the
curiosity-shop there had become too dangerous. Besides, he had no money;
Cecily had forgotten that detail in her hurried flight. A man cannot
spend more than a portion of his waking hours in a library or over
pedigrees. Gainsborough found himself regretting London and the little
house. If we divide humanity into those who do things and those who have
to get out of the way while they are being done (just as reasonable a
division as many adopted by statisticians) Gainsborough belonged to the
latter class; like most of us perhaps, but in a particularly
unmistakable degree. And he knew he did--not perhaps like most of us in
that. He never thought even of appealing to posterity.

Meanwhile Janie Iver was behaving as a pattern daughter, cherishing her
mother and father and making home sweet, exercising, in fact, that
prudent economy of wilfulness which preserves it for one great decisive
struggle, and scorns to fritter it away on the details of daily life.
Girls have adopted these tactics from the earliest days (so it is
recorded or may be presumed), and wary are the parents who are not
hoodwinked by them or, even if they perceive, are altogether unsoftened.
Janie was very saintly at Fairholme; the only sins which she could have
found to confess (not that Mr Trumbler favored confession--quite the
contrary) were certain suppressions of truth touching the direction in
which she drove her dog-cart--and even these were calculated to avoid
the giving of pain. As for the Tristrams--where were they? They seemed
to have dropped out of Janie's story.

Iver needed comfort. There is no disguising it, however much the
admission may damage him in the eyes of that same orthodox
sentimentalist. He had once expounded his views to Mr Jenkinson Neeld
(or rather one of his expositions of them has been recorded, there
having been more than one)--and the present situation did not satisfy
them. Among other rehabilitations and whitewashings, that of the cruel
father might well be undertaken by an ingenious writer; if Nero had had
a grown-up daughter there would have been the chance! Anyhow the attempt
would have met with some sympathy from Iver. Of course a man desires his
daughter's happiness (the remark is a platitude), but he may be allowed
to feel annoyance at the precise form in which it realizes--or thinks
it will realize--itself, a shape that may disappoint the aim of his
career. If he is provided with a son, he has the chance of a more
unselfish benevolence; but Iver was not. Let all be said that could be
said--Bob Broadley was a disappointment. Iver would, if put to it, have
preferred Duplay. There was at least a cosmopolitan polish about the
Major; drawing-rooms would not appal him nor the thought of going to
Court throw him into a perspiration. Iver had been keen to find out the
truth about Harry Tristram, as keen as Major Duplay. At this moment both
of them were wishing that the truth had never been discovered by them
nor flung in the face of the world by Harry himself.

"But darling Janie will be happy," Mrs Iver used to say. She had
surrendered very easily.

He was not really an unnatural parent because he growled once or twice,
"Darling Janie be hanged!" It was rather his wife's attitude of mind
that he meant to condemn.

Bob himself was hopeless from a parent's point of view. He was actually
a little touched by Mrs Trumbler's way of looking at the world; he did
think--and confessed it to Janie--that there was something very
remarkable in the way Harry Tristram had been cleared from his path. He
was in no sense an advanced thinker, and people in love are apt to
believe in what are called interpositions. Further, he was primitive in
his ideas; he had won the lady, and that seemed to him enough. It was
enough, if he could keep her; and in these days that really depends on
herself. Moreover he had no doubt of keeping her; his primitiveness
appears again; with the first kiss he seemed to pass from slave to
master. Many girls would have taught him better. Janie was not one. She
seemed rather to acquiesce, being, it must be presumed, also of a
somewhat primitive cast of mind. It was terribly clear to Iver that the
pair would stand to one another and settle down in inglorious
contentment together for their lives. Yes, it was worse than Duplay;
something might have been made of him. As for Harry--Iver used to end by
thinking how sensible a man old Mr Neeld was; for Mr Neeld had
determined to hold his tongue.

There was another vexation, of a different kind indeed, but also a check
in his success. Blinkhampton was not going quite right. Blinkhampton was
a predestined seaside resort on the South Coast, and Iver, with certain
associates, meant to develop it. They had bought it up, and laid it out
for building, and arranged for a big hotel with Birch & Company, the
famous furnishers. But all along in front of it--between where the
street now was and the esplanade was soon to be--ran a long narrow
strip, forming the estate of an elderly gentleman named Masters. Of
course Masters had to be bought out, the whole scheme hanging on that.
Iver, keen at a bargain, hard in business hours (had not Mina Zabriska
discovered that?), confident that nobody would care to incur his
enmity--he was powerful--by forestalling him, had refused Masters his
price; the old gentleman would have to come down. But some young men
stepped in, with the rashness of their youth, and acquired an option of
purchase from Masters. Iver smiled in a vexed fashion, but was not
dismayed. He let it be known that anybody who advanced money to the
young men--Sloyd, Sloyd, and Gurney was the firm--would be his enemies;
then he waited for the young men to approach him. They did not come. At
last, pride protesting, prudence insisting, he wrote and suggested that
they might probably be glad to make an arrangement with him. Mr
Sloyd--our Mr Sloyd--wrote back that they had found a capitalist--no
less than that--and proposed to develop their estate themselves, to put
up their own hotel, also a row of boarding-houses, a club, a winter
garden, and possibly an aquarium. Youth and a sense of elation caused
Sloyd to add that they would always be glad to cooperate with other
gentlemen interested in Blinkhampton.

Iver had many irons in the fire; he could no more devote himself
exclusively and personally to Blinkhampton than Napoleon could spend all
his time in the Peninsula. The transaction was important, yet hardly
vital; besides Iver himself could keep his ear to the telephone. It was
an opportunity for Bob to win his spurs; Iver proposed to him to go to
town and act as his representative.

"I'm afraid you'll lose the game if I play it for you, Mr Iver,"
responded Bob, with a shake of his head and a good-humored smile. "I'm
not accustomed to that sort of job, you know."

"It would be a good chance for you to begin to learn something of
business."

"Well, you see, farming's my business. And I don't think I'm a fool at
that. But building speculations and so on----" Bob shook his head again.

The progressive man gazed in wonder at the stationary. (We divide
humanity again.)

"You've no desire for--for a broader sphere?" he asked.

"Well, I like a quiet life, you see--with my horses, and my crops, and
so on. Don't believe I could stand the racket." So far as physique was
concerned, Bob could have stood penal servitude and a London Season
combined.

"But it's an opening," Iver persisted, by now actually more puzzled than
angry. "If you found yourself at home in the work, it might lead to
anything." He resisted the temptation to add, "Look at me!" Did not
Fairholme, its lawns and green-houses, say as much for him?

"But I don't know that I want anything," smiled Bob. "Of course I'll
have a shot if it'll oblige you," he added. "But---- Well, I'd rather
not risk it, you know."

Janie was there. Iver turned to her in despair. She was smiling at Bob
in an approving understanding way.

"It really isn't what would suit Bob, father," said she. "Besides, if he
went into your business, we should have to be so much in town and hardly
ever be at home at Mingham."

At home at Mingham! What a destiny! Certainly Blent was in the same
valley, but---- Well, a "seat" is one thing, and a farm's another; the
world is to blame again, no doubt. And with men who want nothing, for
whom the word "opening" has no magic, what is to be done? Abstractly
they are seen to be a necessary element in the community; but they do
not make good sons or sons-in-law for ambitious men. Janie, when she had
seen Bob, an unrepentant cheerful Bob, on his way, came back to find her
father sitting sorrowful.

"Dearest father, I'm so sorry," she said, putting her arms round his
neck.

He squared his shoulders to meet facts; he could always do that.
Moreover he looked ahead--that power was also among his gifts--and saw
how presently this thing, like other things, would become a matter of
course.

"That's settled, Janie," said he. "I've made my last suggestion."

She went off in distress to her mother, but was told to "let him alone."
The wisdom of woman and of years spoke. Presently Iver went out to play
golf. But his heart was still bitter within him; he could not resist
the sight of a possible sympathizer; he mentioned to the Major, who was
his antagonist in the game, that it was not often that a young fellow
refused such a chance as he had just offered in vain to Bob Broadley.
His prospective relationship to Bob had reached the stage of being
assumed between Duplay and him, although it had not yet been explicitly
mentioned.

"I wish somebody would try me!" laughed the Major. "I'm kicking my heels
all day down here."

Iver made no reply and played the round in silence. He lost, perhaps
because he was thinking of something else. He liked Duplay, he thought
him clever, and, looking back on the history of the Tristram affair, he
felt somehow that he would like to do the Major a good turn. Were they
not in a sense companions in misfortune?

Two days later Duplay sat in the offices of Sloyd, Sloyd, and Gurney, as
Iver's representative; his mission was to represent to the youthful firm
the exceeding folly of their conduct in regard to Blinkhampton. His
ready brain had assimilated all the facts, and they lost nothing by his
ready tongue. He even made an impression on the enemy.

"It doesn't do to look at one transaction only, Mr Sloyd," he reminded
the spruce but rather nervous young man. "It'll pay you to treat us
reasonably. Mr Iver's a good friend to have and a bad enemy."

"I'm quite alive to all that; but we have obtained a legitimate
advantage and----" Sloyd was evidently a little puzzled, and he glanced
at the clock.

"We recognize that; we offer you two thousand pounds. We take over your
option and give you two thousand." This was the figure that Iver and he
had decided would tempt the young firm; their fear of the great Mr Iver
would make them content with that.

Sloyd was half inclined to be content; the firm would make a thousand;
the balance would be good interest on the capitalist's ten thousand
pounds; and there would still be enough of a victory to soothe the
feelings of everybody concerned.

"I'm expecting the gentleman who is associated with us. If you'll excuse
me, I'll step out and see if he's arrived."

Duplay saw through the suggestion, but he had no objection to permitting
a consultation. He lit his cigar and waited while Sloyd was away. The
Major was in greater contentment with himself than he had been since he
recognized his defeat. Next to succeeding, it is perhaps the pleasantest
thing to make people regret that you have not succeeded. If he proved
his capacity Iver would regret what had happened more; possibly even
Janie would come to regret it. And he was glad to be using his brains
again. If they took the two thousand, if Iver got the Masters estate and
entire control of Blinkhampton for twenty-two thousand, Duplay would
have had a hand in a good bargain. He thought the Sloyds would yield.
"Be strong about it," Iver had said. "These young fellows have plenty of
enterprise, plenty of shrewdness, but they haven't got the grit to take
big chances. They'll catch at a certainty." Sloyd's manner had gone far
to bear out this opinion.

Sloyd returned, but, instead of coming in directly, he held the door and
allowed another to pass in front of him. Duplay jumped up with a
muttered exclamation. What the deuce was Harry Tristram doing there?
Harry advanced, holding out his hand.

"We neither of us thought we should meet in this way, Major Duplay? The
world's full of surprises. I've learnt that anyhow, and I dare say
you've known it a long while."

"You're in this business?" cried the Major, too astonished for any
preamble.

Harry nodded. "Let's get through it," he said. "Because it's very
simple. Sloyd and I have made up our minds exactly what we ought to
have."

It was the same manner that the Major remembered seeing by the
Pool--perhaps a trifle less aggressive, but making up for that by an
even increased self-confidence. Duplay had thought of his former
successful rival as a broken man. He was not that. He had never thought
of him as a speculator in building land. Seemingly that was what he had
become.

Harry sat down by the table, Sloyd standing by him and spreading out
before him a plan of Blinkhampton and the elevation of a row of
buildings.

"You ask us," Harry went on resentfully, almost accusingly, "to throw up
this thing just when we're ready to go ahead. Everything's in train; we
could begin work to-morrow."

"Come, come, where are you going to get the money?" interrupted Duplay.
He felt that he must assert himself.

"Never mind, we can get it; or we can wait till we do. We shut you out
just as badly whether we leave the old buildings or put up new. However,
we shall get it. I'm satisfied as to that."

"You've heard my offer?"

"Yes," smiled Harry. "The reward for getting ahead of Mr Iver is, it
seems, two thousand pounds. It must be done pretty often if it's as
cheap as that! I hope he's well?"

"Quite well, Mr Tristram, thank you. But when you talk of getting ahead
of him----"

"Well, I put it plainly; that's all. I'm new to this, and I dare say
Sloyd here would put it better. But my money's in it, so I like to have
my say."

Both the dislike and the reluctant respect of old days were present in
the Major's mind. He felt that the quality on whose absence Iver had
based his calculations had been supplied. Harry might be ignorant. Sloyd
could supply the knowledge. Harry had that grit which hitherto the firm
had lacked. Harry seemed to guess something of what was passing through
his adversary's mind.

"I don't want to be anything but friendly. Neither Sloyd nor I want
that--especially toward Mr Iver--or toward you, Major. We've been
neighbors." He smiled and went on, smiling still: "Oddly enough, I've
said what I'm going to say to you once before--on a different occasion.
You seem to have been trying to frighten us. I am not to be frightened,
that's all."

Sloyd whispered in his ear; Duplay guessed that he counselled more
urbanity; Harry turned from him with a rather contemptuous little laugh.
"Oh, I've got my living to earn now," Duplay heard him whisper--and
reflected that he had never wasted much time on politeness, even before
that necessity came upon him.

It was strange that Sloyd did not try to take any part in the
discussion. He wore an air of deference, partly due no doubt to Harry's
ability, yet having unmistakably a social flavor about it. Harry's
lordlinesses clung to him still, and had their effect on his business
partner. Duplay lodged an angry inward protest to the effect that they
had none whatever on him.

"Perhaps I'd better just say what we want," Harry pursued. "We've paid
Masters twenty thousand. We may be five hundred more out of pocket.
Never mind that." He pushed away the plans and elevations. "You're
empowered to treat, I suppose?" he asked. Sloyd had whispered to him
again.

"No," said Duplay. "But as a final offer, I think I can pledge Mr Iver
to go as far as five thousand (over and above the twenty thousand of
course)--to cover absolutely everything, you know."

"Multiply your twenty-five by two, and we're your men," said Harry.

"Multiply it by two? Fifty thousand? Oh, nonsense!"

"Twenty out of pocket--thirty profit. I call it very reasonable."

Major Duplay rose with a decisive air.

"I'm afraid I'm wasting your time," he said, "and my own too. I must say
good-afternoon."

"Pray, Major Duplay, don't be so abrupt, sir. We've----" It was Sloyd
who spoke, with an eager gesture as though he would detain the visitor.
Harry turned on him with his ugliest haughtiest scowl.

"I thought you'd left this to me, Sloyd?" he said.

Sloyd subsided, apologetic but evidently terrified. Alas, that the grit
had been supplied! But for that a triumph must have awaited the Major.
Harry turned to Duplay.

"I asked you before if you'd authority to treat. I ask you now if you've
authority to refuse to treat."

"I've authority to refuse to discuss absurdities."

"Doubtless. And to settle what are absurdities? Look here. I don't ask
you to accept that proposal without referring to Mr Iver. I merely say
that is the proposal, and that we give Mr Iver three days to consider
it. After that our offer is withdrawn."

Sloyd was biting his nails--aye, those nails that he got trimmed in
Regent Street twice a week; critical transactions must bring grist to
those skilled in manicure. Duplay glanced from his troubled face to
Harry's solid, composed, even amused mask.

"And you might add," Harry went on, "that it would be a very good thing
if Mr Iver saw his way to run up and have a talk with me. I think I
could make him see the thing from our point of view." Something seemed
to occur to him. "You must tell him that in ordinary circumstances I
should propose to call on him and to come wherever he was, but--well,
he'll understand that I don't want to go to Blentmouth just now."

The implied apology relieved what Duplay had begun to feel an
intolerable arrogance, but it was a concession of form only, and did not
touch the substance. The substance was and remained an ultimatum. The
Major felt aggrieved; he had been very anxious to carry his first
commission through triumphantly and with _éclat_. For the second time
Harry Tristram was in his path.

Harry rose. "That's all we can do to-day," he said. "We shall wait to
hear from Mr Iver."

"I really don't feel justified in putting such a proposition before
him."

"Oh, that's for you to consider," shrugged Harry. "I think I would
though, if I were you. At the worst, it will justify you in refusing to
do business with us. Do you happen to be walking down toward Pall Mall?"
Sloyd's offices were in Mount Street. "Good-day, Sloyd. I'll drop in
to-morrow."

With an idea that some concession might still be forthcoming, not from
any expectation of enjoying his walk, the Major consented to accompany
Harry.

"It was a great surprise to see you appear," he said as they started.
"So odd a coincidence!"

"Not at all," smiled Harry. "You guess why I went into it? No? Well, of
course, I know nothing about such things really. But Sloyd happened to
mention that Iver wanted to buy, so I thought the thing must be worth
buying, and I looked into it." He laughed a little. "That's one of the
penalties of a reputation like Iver's, isn't it?"

"But I didn't know you'd taken to business at all."

"Oh, one must do something. I can't sit down on four hundred a year, you
know. Besides, this is hardly business. By-the-bye, though, I ought to
be as much surprised to see you. We've both lost our situation, is that
it, Major?"

Insensibly the Major began to find him rather pleasanter, not a man he
would ever like really, but all the same more tolerable than he had been
at Blent; so Harry's somewhat audacious reference was received with a
grim smile.

"I knocked you out, you know," Harry pursued. "Left to himself, I don't
believe old Bob Broadley would ever have moved. But I put him up to it."

"What?" Duplay had not expected this.

"Well, you tried to put me out, you see. Besides, Janie Iver liked him,
and she didn't care about you--or me either, for that matter. So just
before I--well, disappeared--I told Bob that he'd win if he went ahead.
And I gather he has won, hasn't he?"

A brief nod from Duplay answered him; he was still revolving the news
about Bob Broadley.

"I'm afraid I haven't made you like me any better," said Harry with a
laugh. "And I don't go out of my way to get myself disliked. Do you see
why I mentioned that little fact about Bob Broadley just now?"

"I confess I don't, unless you wished to annoy me. Or--pardon--perhaps
you thought it fair that I should know?"

"Neither the one nor the other. I didn't do it from the personal point
of view at all. You see, Bob had a strong position--and didn't know it."

Duplay glanced at him. "Well," he said, "what you did didn't help you,
though it hurt me perhaps."

"I told him he had a strong position. Then he took it. Hullo, here we
are in Pall Mall. Now you see, don't you, Major?"

"No, I don't." Duplay was short in manner again.

"You don't see any parallel between Bob's position and our friend's up
there in Mount Street?" Harry laughed again as he held out his hand.
"Well, you tell the story to Iver and see if he does," he suggested.

"Oh, that's what you mean?" growled Duplay.

"Yes," assented Harry, almost gleefully. "That's what I mean; only this
time it won't hurt you, and I think it will help me. You've done all you
could, you know."

The touch of patronage came again. Duplay had hard work to keep his
temper under. Yet now it was rather annoyance that he felt than the
black dislike that he used to harbor. Harry's misfortune had lessened
that. If only Harry had been more chastened by his misfortune the
annoyance might have gone too. Unfortunately, the young man seemed
almost exultant.

"Well, good-by. Write to Sloyd--unless Iver decides to come up. And
don't forget that little story about Bob Broadley! Because you'll find
it useful, if you think of frightening Sloyd. He can't move without
me--and I don't move without my price."

"You moved from Blent," Duplay reminded him, stung to a sudden malice.

"Yes," said Harry thoughtfully. "Yes, so I did. Well, I suppose I had my
price. Good-by." He turned away and walked quickly down the street.

"What was his price?" asked the Major, puzzled. He was not aware that
Harry had got anything out of his surrender; and even Harry himself
seemed rather to conclude that, since he had moved, he must have got his
price than to say that he had got it or to be able to tell what it was.

But all that was not the question now. Duplay sought the telegraph
office and informed Iver of the uncompromising attitude of the enemy. He
added that Harry Tristram was in the business and that Harry suggested
an interview. It was perhaps the most significant tribute that Harry had
yet received when, after a few minutes of surprise and a few more of
consideration, Iver telegraphed back that he would come up to town, and
wished an appointment to be made for him with Mr Tristram. It was
something to force Napoleon to come to the Peninsula.

In fact, the only thing that could upset Iver's plans was blank
defiance. Reviewing his memories of Harry Tristram, he knew that
defiance was just what he had to fear. It was in the blood of the
Tristrams, and prudence made no better a resistance than propriety.




XX

THE TRISTRAM WAY--A SPECIMEN


Harry Tristram had led Lady Evenswood to believe that he would inform
himself of his cousin's state of mind, or even open direct communication
with her. He had done nothing to redeem this implied promise, although
the remembrance of it had not passed out of his mind. But he was
disinclined to fulfil it. In the first place, he was much occupied with
the pursuits and interests of his new life; secondly, he saw no way to
approach her in which he would not seem a disagreeable reminder; he
might even be taken for a beggar or at least regarded as a reproachful
suppliant. The splendor, the dramatic effect of his surrender and of the
scene which had led up to it, would be endangered and probably spoilt by
a resumption of intercourse between them. His disappearance had been
magnificent--no other conclusion could explain the satisfaction with
which he looked back on the episode. There was no material yet for a
reappearance equally striking. When he thought about her--which was not
very often just now--it was not to say that he would never meet her
again; he liked her too well, and she was too deeply bound up with the
associations of his life for that; but it was to decide to postpone the
meeting, and to dream perhaps of some progress or turn of events which
should present him with his opportunity, and invest their renewed
acquaintance with an atmosphere as unusual and as stimulating as that in
which their first days together had been spent. Thus thinking of her
only as she affected him, he remained at heart insensible to the aspect
of the case which Lady Evenswood had commended to his notice. Cecily's
possible unhappiness did not come home to him. After all, she had
everything and he nothing--and even he was not insupportably unhappy.
His idea, perhaps, was that Blent and a high position would console most
folk for somebody else's bad luck; men in bad luck themselves will
easily take such a view as that; their intimacy makes a second-hand
acquaintance with sorrow seem a trifling trouble.

Yet he had known his mother well. And he had made his surrender. Well,
only a very observant man can tell what his own moods may be; it is too
much to ask anybody to prophesy another's; and the last thing a man
appreciates is the family peculiarities--unless he happens not to share
them.

Southend was working quietly; aided by Jenkinson Neeld, he had prepared
an elaborate statement and fired it in at Mr Disney's door, himself
retreating as hastily as the urchin who has thrown a cracker. Lady
Evenswood was trying to induce her eminent cousin to come to tea. The
Imp, in response to that official missive which had made such an
impression on her, was compiling her reminiscences of Heidelberg and
Addie Tristram. Everybody was at work, and it was vaguely understood
that Mr Disney was considering the matter, at least that he had not
consigned all the documents to the waste-paper basket and the writers to
perdition--which was a great point gained with Mr Disney. "No hurry,
give me time"--"don't push it"--"wait"--"do nothing"--"the _status
quo_"--all these various phrases expressed Lord Southend's earnest and
re-iterated advice to the conspirators. A barony had, in his judgment,
begun to be a thing which might be mentioned without a smile. And the
viscounty--Well, said Lady Evenswood, if Robert were once convinced,
the want of precedents would not stop him; precedents must, after all,
be made, and why should not Robert make them?

This then, the moment when all the wise and experienced people were
agreed that nothing could, should, or ought to be done, was the chance
for a Tristram. Addie would have seized it without an instant's
hesitation; Cecily, her blood unavoidably diluted with a strain of
Gainsborough, took two whole days to make the plunge--two days and a
struggle, neither of which would have happened had she been Addie. But
she did at last reach the conclusion that immediate action was
necessary, that she was the person to act, that she could endure no more
delay, that she must herself go to Harry and do the one terrible thing
which alone suited, met, and could save the situation. It was very
horrible to her. Here was its last and irresistible fascination. Mina
supplied Harry's address--ostensibly for the purpose of a letter;
nothing else was necessary but a hansom cab.

In his quiet room in Duke Street, Harry was working out some details of
the proposed buildings at Blinkhampton. Iver was to come to town next
day, and Harry thought that the more entirely ready they seemed to go
on, the more eager Iver would be to stop them; so he was at it with his
elevations, plans, and estimates. It was just six o'clock, and a couple
of quiet hours stretched before him. Nothing was in his mind except
Blinkhampton; he had forgotten himself and his past fortunes, Blent and
the rest of it; he had even forgotten the peculiarities of his own
family. He heard with most genuine vexation that a lady must see him on
urgent business; but he had not experience enough to embolden him to
send word that he was out.

Such a message would probably have availed nothing. Cecily was already
at the door; she was in the room before he had done giving directions
that she should be admitted. Again the likeness which had already worked
on him so powerfully struck him with unlessened force; for its sake he
sprang forward to greet her and met her outstretched hands with his.
There was no appearance of embarrassment about her, rather a great
gladness and a triumph in her own courage in coming. She seemed quite
sure that she had done the right thing.

"You didn't come to me, so I came to you," she explained, as though the
explanation were quite sufficient.

She brought everything back to him very strongly--and in a moment
banished Blinkhampton.

"Does anybody know you've come?"

"No," she smiled. That was a part of the fun. "Mina didn't know I was
going out. You see everybody's been doing something except me and----"

"Everybody doing something? Doing what?"

"Oh, never mind now. Nothing of any real use."

"There's nothing to do," said Harry with a smile and a shrug.

She was a little disappointed to find him looking so well, so cheerful,
so busy. But the new impression was not strong enough to upset the
preconceptions with which she had come. "I've come to tell you I can't
bear it," she said. "Oh, why did you ever do it, Harry?"

"On my honor I don't know," he admitted after a moment's thought. "Won't
you sit down?" He watched her seat herself, actually hoping for the
famous attitude. But she was too excited for it. She sat upright, her
hands clasped on her knees. Her air was one of gravity, of tremulous
importance. She realized what she was going to do; if she had failed to
understand its very unusual character she would probably never have done
it at all.

"I can't bear this state of things," she began. "I can't endure it any
longer."

"Oh, I can, I'm all right. I hope you haven't been worrying?"

"Worrying! I've robbed you, robbed you of everything. Oh, I know you did
it yourself! That makes it worse. How did I come to make you do it?"

"I don't know," he said again. "Well, you seemed so in your place at
Blent. Somehow you made me feel an interloper. And----" He paused a
moment. "Yes, I'm glad," he ended.

"No, no, you mustn't be glad," she cried quickly. "Because it's
unendurable, unendurable!"

"To you? It's not to me. I thought it might be. It isn't."

"Yes, to me, to me! Oh, end it for me, Harry, end it for me!"

She was imploring, she was the suppliant. The reversal of parts, strange
in itself, hardly seemed strange to Harry Tristram. And it made him
quite his old self again. He felt that he had something to give. But her
next words shattered that delusion.

"You must take it back. Let me give it back to you," she prayed.

He was silent a full minute before he answered slowly and coldly:

"From anybody else I should treat that as an insult; with you I'm
willing to think it merely ignorance. In either case the absurdity's the
same." He turned away from her with a look of distaste, almost of
disgust. "How in the world could you do it?" he added by way of climax.

"I could do it. In one way I could." She rose as he turned back to her.
"I want you to have Blent. You're the proper master of Blent. Do you
think I want to have it by accident?"

"You have it by law, not by accident," he answered curtly. He was
growing angry. "Why do you come here and unsettle me?" he demanded. "I
wasn't thinking of it. And then you come here!"

She was apologetic no longer. She faced him boldly.

"You ought to think of it," she insisted. "And, yes, I've come here
because it was right for me to come, because I couldn't respect myself
unless I came. I want you to take back Blent."

"What infernal nonsense!" he exclaimed. "You know it's impossible."

"No," she said; she was calm but her breath came quick. "There's one way
in which it's possible."

In an instant he understood her; there was no need of more words. She
knew herself to be understood as she looked at him; and for a while she
looked steadily. But his gaze too was long, and it became very
searching, so that presently, in spite of her efforts, she felt herself
flushing red, and her eyes fell. The room had become uncomfortably quiet
too. At last he spoke.

"I suppose you remember what I told you about Janie Iver," he said, "and
that's how you came to think I might do this. You must see that that was
different. I gave as much as I got there. She was rich, I was----" He
smiled sourly. "I was Tristram of Blent. You are Tristram of Blent, I
am----" He shrugged his shoulders.

He made no reference to the personal side of the case. She was not hurt,
she was enormously relieved.

"I'm not inclined to be a pensioner on my wife," he said.

She opened her lips to speak; she was within an ace of telling him that,
if this and that went well, he would have so assured and recognized a
position that none could throw stones at him. Her words died away in
face of the peremptory finality of his words and the bitter anger on
his face. She sat silent and forlorn, wondering what had become of her
resolve and her inspiration.

"In my place you would feel as I do," he said a moment later. His tone
was milder. "You can't deny it," he insisted. "Look me in the face and
deny it if you can. I know you too well."

For some minutes longer she sat still. Then she got up with a desolate
air. Everything seemed over; the great offer, with its great scene, had
come to very little. Anticlimax, foe to emotion! She remembered how the
scene in the Long Gallery had gone. So much better, so much better! But
Harry dominated her--and he had stopped the scene. Without attempting to
bid him any farewell she moved toward the door slowly and drearily.

She was arrested by his voice--a new voice, very good-natured, rather
chaffing.

"Are you doing anything particular to-night?" he asked.

She turned round; he was smiling at her in an open but friendly
amusement.

"No," she murmured. "I'm going back home, I suppose."

"To Blent?" he asked quickly.

"No, to our house. Mina's there and----" Her face was puzzled; she left
her sentence unfinished.

"Well, I've got nothing to do. Let's have dinner and go somewhere
together?"

Their eyes met. Gradually Cecily's lightened into a sparkle as her lips
bent and her white teeth showed a little. She was almost laughing
outright as she answered readily, without so much as a show of
hesitation or a hint of surprise, "Yes."

Nothing else can be so ample as a monosyllable is sometimes. If it had
been Harry's object to escape from a tragic or sensational situation he
had achieved it triumphantly. The question was no longer who should have
Blent, but where they should have dinner. Nothing in his manner showed
that he had risked and succeeded in a hazardous experiment; he had
brought her down to the level of common-sense--that is, to his own view
of things; incidentally he had secured what he hoped would prove a very
pleasant evening. Finally he meant to have one more word with her on the
matter of her visit before they parted. His plan was very clear in his
head. By the end of the evening she would have forgotten the exalted
mood which had led her into absurdity; she would listen to a few wise
and weighty words--such as he would have at command. Then the ludicrous
episode would be over and done with forever; to its likeness,
superficially at least rather strong, to that other scene in which he
had been chief actor his mind did not advert.

A very pleasant evening it proved; so that it prolonged itself,
naturally as it were and without express arrangement, beyond dinner and
the play, and embraced in its many hours a little supper and a long
drive in a cab to those distant regions where Cecily's house was
situated. There was no more talk of Blent; there was some of Harry's new
life, its features and its plans; there was a good deal about nothing in
particular; and there was not much of any sort as they drove along in
the cab at one o'clock in the morning.

But Harry's purpose was not forgotten. He bade the cabman wait and
followed Cecily into the house. He looked round it with lively interest
and curiosity.

"So this is where you came from!" he exclaimed with a compassionate
smile. "You do want something to make up for this!"

She laughed as she took off her hat and sank into a chair. "Yes, this
is--home," she said.

"Have you had a pleasant evening?" he demanded.

"You know I have."

"Are you feeling friendly to me?"

Now came the attitude; she threw herself into it and smiled.

"That's what I wanted," he went on. "Now I can say what I have to say."

She sat still, waiting to hear him. There was now no sign of uneasiness
about her. She smiled luxuriously, and her eyes were resting on his face
with evident pleasure. They were together again as they had been in the
Long Gallery; the same contentment possessed her. The inner feeling had
its outward effect. There came on him the same admiration, the same
sense that she commanded his loyalty. When she had come to his rooms
that afternoon he had found it easy to rebuke and to rule her. His
intent for the evening had been the same; he had sought to bring her to
a more friendly mind chiefly that she might accept with greater
readiness the chastening of cool common-sense, and a rebuke from the
decent pride which her proposal had outraged. Harry was amazed to find
himself suddenly at a loss, looking at the girl, hardly knowing how to
speak to her.

"Well?" she said. Where now was the tremulous excitement? She was
magnificently at her ease and commanded him to speak, if he had anything
to say. If not, let him hold his peace.

But he was proud and obstinate too. They came to a conflict there in the
little room--the forgotten cab waiting outside, the forgotten Mina
beginning to stir in her bed as voices dimly reached her ears and she
awoke to the question--where was Cecily?

"If we're to be friends," Harry began, "I must hear no more of what you
said this afternoon. You asked me to be a pensioner, you proposed
yourself to be----"

He did not finish. The word was not handy, or he wished to spare her.

She showed no signs of receiving mercy.

"Very well," she said, smiling. "If you knew everything, you wouldn't
talk like that. I suppose you've no idea what it cost me?"

"What it cost you?"

She broke into a scornful laugh. "You know what it really meant. Still
you've only a scolding for me! How funny that you see one half and not
the other! But you've given me a very pleasant evening, Cousin Harry."

"You must leave my life alone," he insisted brusquely.

"Oh, yes, for the future. I've nothing left to offer, have I? I have
been--refused!" She seemed to exult in the abandonment of her candor.

He looked at her angrily, almost dangerously. For a passing moment she
had a sensation of that physical fear from which no moral courage can
wholly redeem the weak in body. But she showed none of it; her pose was
unchanged; only the hand on which her head rested shook a little. And
she began to laugh. "You look as if you were going to hit me," she said.

"Oh, you do talk nonsense!" he groaned. But she was too much for him; he
laughed too. She had spoken with such a grand security. "If you tell me
to walk out of the door I shall go."

"Well, in five minutes. It's very late."

"Oh, we weren't bred in Bayswater," he reminded her.

"I was--in Chelsea."

"So you say. I think in heaven--no, Olympus--really."

"Have you said what you wanted to say, Cousin Harry?"

"I suppose you hadn't the least idea what you were doing?"

"I was as cool as you were when you gave me Blent."

"You're cool enough now, anyhow," he admitted, in admiration of her
parry.

"Quite, thanks." The hand behind her head trembled sorely. His eyes were
on her, and a confusion threatened to overwhelm the composure of which
she boasted.

"I gave you Blent because it was yours."

"What I offered you is mine."

"By God, no. Never yours to give till you've lost it!"

With an effort she kept her pose. His words hummed through her head.

"Did you say that to Janie Iver?" she mustered coolness to ask him
mockingly.

He thrust away the taunt with a motion of his hand; one of
Gainsborough's gimcracks fell smashed on the floor. Cecily laughed, glad
of the excuse to seem at her ease.

"Hang the thing! If you'd loved me, you'd have been ashamed to do it."

"I was ashamed without loving you, Cousin Harry."

"Oh, do drop 'Cousin' Harry!"

"Well, I proposed to. But you wouldn't." Her only refuge now was in
quips and verbal victories. They served her well, for Harry, less master
of himself than usual, was hindered and tripped up by them. "Still, if
we ever meet again, I'll say 'Harry' if you like."

"Of course we shall meet again." She surprised that out of him.

"It'll be so awkward for me now," she laughed lightly. But her mirth
broke off suddenly as he came closer and stood over her.

"I could hate you for coming to me with that offer," he said.

Almost hating herself now, yet sorely wounded that he should think of
hating her, she answered him in a fury.

"Well then, shouldn't I hate you for giving me Blent? That was worse.
You could refuse, I couldn't. I have it, I have to keep it." In her
excitement she rose and faced him. "And because of you I can't be
happy!" she cried resentfully.

"I see! I ought to have drowned myself, instead of merely going away?
Oh, I know I owe the world at large apologies for my existence, and you
in particular, of course! Unfortunately, though, I intend to go on
existing; I even intend to live a life of my own--not the life of a
hanger-on--if you'll kindly allow me."

"Would any other man in the world talk like this after----?"

"Any man who had the sense to see what you'd done. I'm bound to be a
nuisance to you anyhow. I should be least of a nuisance as your husband!
That was it. Oh, I'm past astonishment at you."

His words sounded savage, but it was not their fierceness that banished
her mirth. It was the new light they threw on that impulse of hers. She
could only fall back on her old recrimination.

"When you gave me Blent----"

"Hold your tongue about Blent," he commanded imperiously. "If it were
mine again, and I came to you and said, 'You're on my conscience, you
fret me, you worry me. Marry me, and I shall be more comfortable!' What
then?"

"Why, it would be just like you to do it!" she cried in malicious
triumph.

"The sort of thing runs in the family, then." She started at the
plainness of his sneer. "Oh, yes, that was it. Well, what would your
answer be? Shall I tell you? You'd ask the first man who came by to kick
me out of the room. And you'd be right."

The truth of his words pierced her. She flushed red, but she was
resolved to admit nothing. Before him, at any rate, she would cling to
her case, to the view of her own action to which she stood committed. He
at least should never know that now at last he had made her bitterly and
horribly ashamed, with a shame not for what she had proposed to do
herself, but for what she had dared to ask him to do. She saw the thing
now as he saw it. Had his manner softened, had he made any appeal, had
he not lashed her with the bitterest words he could find, she would have
been in tears at his feet. But now she faced him so boldly that he took
her flush to mean anger. He turned away from her and picked up his hat
from the chair on which he had thrown it.

"Well, that's all, isn't it?" he asked.

Before she had time to answer, there was a cry from the doorway, full of
astonishment, consternation, and (it must be added) outraged propriety.
For it was past two o'clock and Mina Zabriska, for all her freakishness,
had been bred on strict lines of decorum. "Cecily!" she cried. "And
you!" she added a moment later. They turned and saw her standing there
in her dressing-gown, holding a candle. The sudden turn of events, the
introduction of this new figure, the intrusion that seemed so absurd,
overcame Cecily. She sank back in her chair, and laid her head on her
hands on the table, laughing hysterically. Harry's frown grew heavier.

"Oh, you're there?" he said to Mina. "You're in it too, I suppose? I've
always had the misfortune to interest you, haven't I? You wanted to turn
me out first. Now you're trying to put me in again, are you? Oh, you
women, can't you leave a man alone?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. And what are you doing here? Do
you know it's half-past two?"

"It would be all the same to me if it was half-past twenty-two," said
Harry contemptuously.

"You've been with her all the time?"

"Oh, lord, yes. Are you the chaperon?" He laughed, as he unceremoniously
clapped his hat on his head. "We've had an evening out, my cousin and I,
and I saw her home. And now I'm going home. Nothing wrong, I hope,
Madame Zabriska?"

Cecily raised her head; she was laughing still, with tears in her eyes.

Mina looked at her. Considerations of propriety fell into the
background.

"But what's it all about?" she cried.

"I'll leave Cecily to tell you." He was quiet now, but with a vicious
quietness. "I've been explaining that I have a preference for being left
alone. Perhaps it may not be superfluous to mention the fact to you too,
Madame Zabriska. My cab's waiting. Good-night." He looked a moment at
Cecily, and his eyes seemed to dwell a little longer than he had meant.
In a tone rather softer and more gentle he repeated, "Good-night."

Cecily sprang to her feet. "I shall remember!" she cried. "I shall
remember! If ever--if ever the time comes, I shall remember!" Her voice
was full of bitterness, her manner proudly defiant.

Harry hesitated a moment, then smiled grimly. "I shouldn't be able to
complain of that," he said, as he turned and went out to his cab.

Cecily threw herself into her chair again. The bewildered Imp stood
staring at her.

"I didn't know where you were," Mina complained.

"Oh, it doesn't matter."

"Fancy being here with him at this time of night!"

Cecily gave no signs of hearing this superficial criticism on her
conduct.

"You must tell me what it's all about," Mina insisted.

Cecily raised her eyes with a weary air, as though she spoke of a
distasteful subject unwillingly and to no good purpose.

"I went to tell him he could get Blent back by marrying me."

"Cecily!" Many emotions were packed into the cry. "What did he say?"

Cecily seemed to consider for a moment, then she answered slowly:

"Well, he very nearly beat me--and I rather wish he had," she said.

The net result of the day had distinctly not been to further certain
schemes. All that had been achieved--and both of them had contributed to
it--was an admirable example of the Tristram way.




XXI

THE PERSISTENCE OF BLENT


Harry Tristram awoke the next morning with visions in his head--no
unusual thing with young men, yet strange and almost unknown to him.
They had not been wont to come at Blent, nor had his affair with Janie
Iver created them. Possibly a constant, although unconscious, reference
of all attractions to the standard, or the tradition, of Addie
Tristram's had hitherto kept him free; or perhaps it was merely that
there were no striking attractions in the valley of the Blent. Anyhow
the visions were here now, a series of them covering all the hours of
the evening before, and embodying for him the manifold changes of
feeling which had marked the time. He saw himself as well as Cecily, and
the approval of his eyes was still for himself, their irritation for
her. But he could not dismiss her from the pictures; he realized this
with a new annoyance. He lay later than his custom was, looking at her,
recalling what she had said as he found the need of words to write
beneath each mental apparition. Under the irritation, and greater than
it, was the same sort of satisfaction that his activities had given
him--a feeling of more life and broader; this thing, though rising out
of the old life, fitted in well with the new. Above all, that sentence
of hers rang in his head, its extravagance perhaps gaining pre-eminence
for it: "If ever the time comes, I shall remember!" The time did not
seem likely to come--so far as he could interpret the vague and rather
threadbare phrase--but her resolution stirred his interest, and ended by
exacting his applause. He was glad that she had resisted, and had not
allowed herself to be trampled on. Though the threat was very empty, its
utterance showed a high spirit, such a spirit as he still wished to
preside over Blent. It was just what his mother might have said, with an
equal intensity of determination and an equal absence of definite
purpose. But then the whole proceedings had been just what he could
imagine his mother bringing about. Consequently he was rather blind to
the extraordinary character of the step Cecily had taken; so far he was
of the same clay as his cousin. He was, however, none the less outraged
by it, and none the less sure that he had met it in the right way. Yet
he did not consider that there was any quarrel between them, and he
meant to see more of her; he was accustomed to "scenes" occurring and
leaving no permanent estrangement or bitterness; the storms blew over
the sand, but they did not in the end make much difference in the sand.

There was work to be done--the first grave critical bit of work he had
ever had to do, the first real measuring of himself against an opponent
of proved ability. So he would think no more about the girl. This
resolve did not work. She, or rather her apparition, seemed to insist
that she had something to do with the work, was concerned in it, or at
least meant to look on at it. Harry found that he had small objection,
or even a sort of welcome for her presence. Side by side with the man's
pleasure in doing the thing, there was still some of the boy's delight
in showing he could do it. What had passed yesterday, particularly that
idea of doing things for him which he had detected and raged at, made it
additionally pleasant that he should be seen to be capable of doing
things for himself. All this was vague, but it was in his mind as he
walked to Sloyd's offices.

Grave and critical! Sloyd's nervous excitement and uneasy deference
toward Iver were the only indications of any such thing. Duplay was
there in the background, cool and easy. Iver himself was inclined to
gossip with Harry and to chaff him on the fresh departure he had made,
rather than to settle down to a discussion of Blinkhampton. That was
after all a small matter--so his manner seemed to assert; he had been in
town anyhow, so he dropped in; Duplay had made a point of it in his
scrupulous modesty as to his own experience. Harry found that he could
resist the impression he was meant to receive only by saying to himself
as he faced his old friend and present antagonist: "But you're
here--you're here--you're here!" Iver could neither gossip nor argue
that fact away.

"Well now," said Iver with a glance at his watch, "we must really get to
business. You don't want to live in Blinkhampton, you gentlemen, I
suppose? You want to leave a little better for your visit, eh? Quite so.
That's the proper thing with the sea-side. But you can't expect to find
fortunes growing on the beach. Surely Major Duplay mistook your
figures?"

"Unless he mentioned fifty thousand, he did," said Harry firmly.

"H'm, I did you injustice, Major--with some excuse, though. Surely, Mr
Sloyd----?" He turned away from Harry as he spoke.

"I beg pardon," interrupted Harry. "Am I to talk to Major Duplay?"

Iver looked at him curiously. "Well, I'd rather talk to you, Harry," he
said. "And I'll tell you plainly what I think. Mr Sloyd's a young
business man--so are you."

"I'm a baby," Harry agreed.

"And blackmailing big people isn't a good way to start." He watched
Harry, but he did not forget to watch Sloyd too. "Of course I use the
word in a figurative sense. The estate's not worth half that money to
you; we happen to want it--Oh, I'm always open!--So----" He gave a
shrug.

"Sorry to introduce new and immoral methods into business, Mr Iver. It
must be painful to you after all these years." Harry laughed
good-humoredly. "I shall corrupt the Major too!" he added.

"We'll give you five thousand for your bargain--twenty-five in all."

"I suggested to Major Duplay that being ahead of you was so rare an
achievement that it ought to be properly recognized."

Duplay whispered to Iver. Sloyd whispered to Harry. Iver listened
attentively, Harry with evident impatience. "Let it go for thirty, don't
make an enemy of him," had been Sloyd's secret counsel.

"My dear Harry, the simple fact is that the business won't stand more
than a certain amount. If we put money into Blinkhampton, it's because
we want it to come out again. Now the crop will be limited." He paused.
"I'll make you an absolutely final offer--thirty."

"My price is fifty," said Harry immovably.

"Out of the question."

"All right." Harry lit a cigarette with an air of having finished the
business.

"It simply cannot be done on the figures," Iver declared with genuine
vexation. "We've worked it out, Harry, and it can't be done. If I showed
our calculations to Mr Sloyd, who is, I'm sure, willing to be
reasonable----"

"Yes, Mr Iver, I am. I am, I hope, always desirous of--er--meeting
gentlemen half-way; and nothing could give me greater pleasure than to
do business with you, Mr Iver."

"Unfortunately you seem to have--a partner," Iver observed. "No, I've
told you the most we can give." He leant back in his chair. This time it
was he who had finished business.

"And I've told you the least we can take."

"It's hopeless. Fifty! Oh, we should be out of pocket. It's really
unreasonable." He was looking at Sloyd. "It's treating me as an
enemy,--and I shall have no alternative but to accept the situation.
Blinkhampton is not essential to me; and your hotel and so on won't
flourish much if I leave my tumble-down cottages and pigsties just
behind them. Will you put these papers together, Duplay?"

The Major obeyed leisurely. Sloyd was licking his lips and looking
acutely unhappy.

"You're absolutely resolved, Harry?"

"Absolutely, Mr Iver."

"Well, I give it up. It's bad for me, and it's worse for you. In all my
experience I never was so treated. You won't even discuss! If you'd said
thirty-five, well, I'd have listened. If you'd even said forty, I'd
have----"

"I say, done for forty!" said Harry quietly. "I'd a sort of idea all the
time that that might be your limit. I expect the thing really wouldn't
stand fifty, you know. Oh, that's just my notion."

Iver's face was a study. He was surprised, he was annoyed, but he was
also somewhat amused. Harry's acting had been good. That obstinate,
uncompromising immutable fifty!--Iver had really believed in it. And
forty had been his limit--his extreme limit. He just saw his way to
square his accounts satisfactorily if he were driven to pay that as the
penalty of one of his rare mistakes. He glanced at Sloyd; radiant joy
and relief illumined that young man's face, as he gave his mustache an
upward twirl. Duplay was smiling--yes, smiling. At last Iver smiled too.
Harry was grave--not solemn--but merely not smiling because he did not
perceive anything to smile at. No doubt he was gratified by the success
of his tactics, and pleased that his formidable opponent had been
deceived by them. But he thought nothing of what impressed Iver most.
The tactics had been, no doubt, well conceived and carried out, but they
were ordinary enough in their nature; Iver himself, and dozens of men he
had met, could have executed them as well. What struck him was that
Harry knew how far he could go, that he stopped on the verge, but not
beyond the boundary where a deal was possible. Mere guesswork could not
account for that, nor had he commanded the sources of information which
would have made the conclusion a matter of ordinary intelligent
calculation. No, he had intuitions; he must have an eye. Now eyes were
rare; and when they were found they were to be used. Iver was much
surprised at finding one in Harry. Yet it must be in Harry; Iver was
certain that Sloyd had known nothing of the plan of campaign or of the
decisive figure on which his associate had pitched.

"I'll give you forty," he said at last. "For the whole thing, lock,
stock, and barrel--forty."

"It's a bargain," said Harry, and Iver, with a sigh (for forty was the
extreme figure), pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

"We've got a good many plans, sir," suggested Sloyd, very anxious to
establish pleasant relations. "I'm sure we should be very glad if you
found them of any service."

"You're very good, Mr Sloyd, but----"

"You may as well have a look at them," interrupted Harry. "There are one
or two good ideas. You'll explain them, won't you, Sloyd?"

Sloyd had already placed one in Iver's hand, who glanced at it, took
another, compared them, and after a minute's pause held both out to the
Major.

"Well, Duplay, suppose you look at them and hear anything that Mr Sloyd
is good enough to say, and report to me? You're at leisure?"

"Certainly," said Duplay. He was in good humor, better perhaps than if
his chief had proved more signally successful. Harry turned to him,
smiling.

"I saw Madame Zabriska last night, at Lady Tristram's house. She's
forsaken you, Major?"

"Mina's very busy about something," smiled the Major.

"Yes, she generally is," said Harry, frowning a little. "If she tells
you anything about me----"

"I'm not to believe it?"

"You may believe it, but not the way she puts it," laughed Harry.

"Now there's an end of business! Walk down to the Imperium with me,
Harry, and have a bit of lunch. You've earned it, eh? How do you like
the feeling of making money?"

"Well, I think it might grow on a man. What's your experience?"

"Sometimes better than this morning, or I should hardly have been your
neighbor at Fairholme."

The two walked off together, leaving Duplay and Sloyd very amicable.
Iver was thoughtful.

"You did that well," he said as they turned the corner into Berkeley
Square.

"I suppose I learnt to bluff a bit when I was at Blent."

"That was all right, but--well, how did you put your finger on the
figure?"

"I don't know. It looked like being about that, you know."

"It was very exactly that," admitted Iver.

"Rather a surprise to find our friend the Major going into business with
you."

"He'll be useful, I think, and--well, I'm short of help." He was eying
Harry now, but he said no more about the morning's transaction till they
reached the club.

"Perhaps we shall find Neeld here," he remarked, as they went in.

They did find Neeld, and also Lord Southend, the latter gentleman in a
state of disturbance about his curry. It was not what any man would
seriously call a curry; it was no more than a fortuitous concurrence of
mutton and rice.

"It's an extraordinary thing," he observed to Iver, "that whenever
Wilmot Edge is away, the curries in this club go to the devil--to the
devil. And he's always going off somewhere, confound him!"

"He can't be expected to stay at home just to look after your curry,"
Iver suggested.

"I suppose he's in South America, or South Africa, or South somewhere or
other out of reach. Waiter!" The embarrassed servant came. "When is
Colonel Edge expected back?"

"In a few weeks, I believe, my Lord."

"Who's Chairman of the Committee while he's away?"

"Mr Gore-Marston, my Lord."

"There--what can you expect?" He pushed away his plate. "Bring me some
cold beef," he commanded, and the waiter brought it with an air that
said "Ichabod" for the Imperium. "As soon as ever Edge comes back, I
shall draw his attention to the curry."

Everybody else had rather lost their interest in the subject. Neeld and
Harry were in conversation. Iver sat down by Southend, and, while lunch
was preparing, endeavored to distract his mind by giving him a history
of the morning. Southend too was concerned in Blinkhampton. Gradually
the curry was forgotten as he listened to the story of Harry's victory.

"Sort of young fellow who might be useful?" he suggested presently.

"That's what I was thinking. He's quite ready to work too, I fancy."

Southend regarded his friend. He was thinking that if this and that
happened--and they were things now within the bounds of
possibility--Iver might live to be sorry that Harry was not to be his
son-in-law. Hastily and in ignorance he included Janie in the scope of
this supposed regret. But at this moment the guilty and incompetent Mr
Gore-Marston had the misfortune to come in. Southend, all his grievance
revived, fell on him tooth and nail. His defence was feeble; he admitted
that he knew next to nothing of curries, and--yes, the cook did get
careless when Wilmot Edge's vigilant eye was removed.

"He'll be home soon," Gore-Marston pleaded. "I've had a letter from him;
he's just got back to civilization after being out in the wilderness,
shooting, for six weeks. He'll be here in a month now, I think."

"We shall have to salary him to stay," growled Southend.

Harry was amused at this little episode, and listened smiling.
Possessing a knowledge of curries seemed an odd way to acquire
importance for a fellow-creature, a strange reason for a man's return
being desired. He knew who Wilmot Edge was, and it was funny to hear of
him again in connection with curries. And curries seemed the only reason
why anybody should be interested in Colonel Edge's return. Not till they
met again in the smoking-room were the curries finally forgotten.

In later days Harry came to look back on that afternoon as the beginning
of many new things for him. Iver and Southend talked; old Mr Neeld sat
by, listening with the interest of a man who feels he has missed
something in life and would fain learn, even though he is too old to
turn the knowledge to account. Harry found himself listening too, but in
a different way.

They were not talking idly; they talked for him. That much he soon
discerned. And they were not offering to help him. His vigilant pride,
still sore from the blow that Cecily had dealt it, was on the look-out
for that. But the triumph of the morning, no less than the manner of the
men, reassured him. It is in its way an exciting moment for a young man
when he first receives proof that his seniors, the men of actual
achievement and admitted ability, think that there is something in him,
that he can be of service to them, that it is in his power, if it be in
his will, to emerge from the ruck and take a leading place. Harry was
glad for himself; he would have been touched had he spared time to
observe how delighted old Neeld was on his account. They made him no
gift; they asked work from him, and Iver, true to his traditions and
ingrained ideas, asked money as a guarantee for the work. "You give me
back what I'm going to pay you," he said, "and since you've taken such
an interest in Blinkhampton, turn to and see what you can make of it. It
looked as if there was a notion or two worth considering in those plans
of yours."

Southend agreed to every suggestion with an emphatic nod. But there was
something more in his mind. With every evidence of capability that
Harry showed, even with every increase in the chances of his attaining
position and wealth for himself, the prospect of success in the other
scheme--the scheme still secret--grew brighter. The thought of that
queer little woman Madame Zabriska, Harry's champion, came into his
mind. He would have something to tell her, if ever they met again at
Lady Evenswood's. He would have something to tell Lady Evenswood herself
too. He quite forgot his curry--and Colonel Wilmot Edge, who derived his
importance from it.

Nothing was settled; there were only suggestions for Harry to think
over. But he was left quite clear that everything depended on himself
alone, that he had only to will and to work, and a career of prosperous
activity was before him. The day had more than fulfilled its promise;
what had seemed its great triumph appeared now to be valuable only as an
introduction and a prelude to something larger and more real. Already he
was looking back with some surprise on the extreme gravity which he had
attached to his little Blinkhampton speculation. He grew very readily
where he was given room to grow; and all the while there was the impulse
to show himself--and others too--that he did not depend on Blent or on
having Blent. Blent or no Blent, he was a man who could make himself
felt. He was on his trial still of course; but he did not doubt of the
verdict. When a thing depended for success or failure on Harry alone,
Harry had never been in the habit of doubting the result. The Major had
noticed that trait in days which seemed now quite long ago; the Major
had not liked it, but in the affairs of life it probably had some value.

Except for one thing he seemed to be well settled into his new
existence. People had stopped staring at him. They had almost ceased to
talk of him. He was rapidly becoming a bygone story. Even to himself it
seemed months since he had been Tristram of Blent; he had no idea that
any plans were afoot concerning him which found their basis and
justification in his having filled that position. Except for one thing
he was quit of it all. But that remained, and in such strength as to
color all the new existence. The business of the day had not driven out
the visions of the morning. Real things should drive out fancies; it is
serious, perhaps deplorable, when the real things seem to derive at
least half their importance from the relation that they bear to the
fancies. Perhaps the proper conclusion would be that in such a case the
fancies too have their share of reality.

"Neeld and I go down to Fairholme to-morrow, Harry," said Iver as they
parted. "No chance of seeing you down there, I suppose?"

Neeld thought the question rather brutal; Iver's feelings were not
perhaps of the finest. But Harry was apparently unconscious of anything
that grated.

"Really, I don't suppose I shall ever go there again," he answered with
a laugh. "Off with the old love, you know, Mr Neeld!"

"Oh, don't say that," protested Southend.

There was a hint of some meaning in his speech which made Harry turn to
him with quick attention.

"Blent's a mere memory to me," he declared.

The three elder men were silent, but they seemed to receive what he said
with scepticism.

"Well, that's the only way, isn't it?" he asked.

"Just at present, I suppose," Southend said to him in a low voice, as he
shook hands.

These few words, with the subdued hint they carried, reinforced the
strength of the visions. Harry was rather full of his own will and proud
of his own powers just now--perhaps with some little excuse. But he
began, thanks to the bearing of these men and to the obstinate thoughts
of his own mind, to feel, still dimly, that it was a difficult thing to
forget and to get rid of the whole of a life, to make an entirely fresh
start, to be quite a different man. Unsuspected chains revealed
themselves with each new motion toward liberty. Absolute detachment had
been his ideal. He awoke with a start to the fact that he was still, in
the main, living with and moving among people who smacked strong of
Blent, who had known him as Tristram of Blent, whose lives had crossed
his because he was Addie Tristram's son. That was true of even his new
acquaintance Lady Evenswood--truer still of Neeld, of Southend, aye, of
Sloyd and the Major--most true of his cousin Cecily. This
interdependence of its periods is what welds life into a whole; even
able and wilful young men have, for good and evil, to reckon with it.
Otherwise morality would be in a bad case, and even logic rather at sea.
The disadvantage is that the difficulties in the way of heroic or
dramatic conduct are materially increased.

Yes, he was not to escape, not to forget. That day one scene more
awaited him which rose out of Blent and belonged to Blent. The Imp made
an appointment by telegram, and the Imp came. Harry could no longer
regard his bachelor-chambers as any barrier against the incursions of
excited young women. Anything that concerned the Tristrams seemed
naturally antipathetic to conventions. He surrendered and let Mina in;
that he wanted to see her--her for want of a better--was not recognized
by him. She was in a great temper, and he was soon inclined to regret
his accessibility. Still he endured; for it was an absolutely final
interview, she said. She had just come to tell him what she thought of
him--and there was an end of it. Then she was going back to Merrion and
she hoped Cecily was coming with her. He--Harry--would not be there
anyhow!

"Certainly not," he agreed. "But what's the matter, Madame Zabriska? You
don't complain that I didn't accept--that I couldn't fall in with my
cousin's peculiar ideas?"

"Oh, you can't get out of it like that! You know that isn't the point."

"What in the world is then?" cried Harry. "There's nothing else the
matter, is there?"

Mina could hardly sit still for rage; she was on pins.

"Nothing else?" She gathered herself together for the attack. "What did
you take her to dinner and to the theatre for? What did you bring her
home for?"

"I wanted to be friendly. I wanted to soften what I had to say."

"To soften it! Not you! Shall I tell you what you wanted, Mr Tristram?
Sometimes men seem to know so little about themselves!"

"If you'll philosophize on the subject of men--about which you know a
lot, of course--I'll listen with pleasure."

"It's the horrible selfishness of the thing. Why didn't you send her
away directly? Oh, no, you kept her, you made yourself pleasant, you
made her think you liked her----"

"What?"

"You never thought of anything but yourself all the way through. You
were lecturing her? Oh, no! You were posing and posturing. Being very
fine and very heroic! And then at the end you turned round and--and as
good as struck her in the face. Oh, I hope she'll never speak to you
again!"

"Did she send you to say this?"

"Of course not."

"Yes, of course not! You're right there. If it had happened to be in any
way your business----"

"Ah!" cried the Imp triumphantly. "You've no answer, so you turn round
and abuse me! But I don't care. I meant to tell you what I thought of
you, and I've done it."

"A post-card would have done it as well," Harry suggested.

"But you've gone too far, oh yes, you have. If you ever change your
mind----"

"What about? Oh, don't talk nonsense, Madame Zabriska."

"It's not nonsense. You behaved even worse than I think if you're not at
least half in love with her."

Harry threw a quick glance at her.

"That would be very unlucky for me," he remarked.

"Very--now," said the Imp with every appearance of delight.

"London will be dull without you, Madame Zabriska."

"I'm not going to take any more trouble about you, anyhow."

He rose and walked over to her.

"In the end," he said more seriously, "what's your complaint against
me?"

"You've made Cecily terribly unhappy."

"I couldn't help it. She--she did an impossible thing."

"After which you made her spend the evening with you! Even a Tristram
must have had a reason for that."

"I've told you. I felt friendly and I wanted her to be friendly. And I
like her. The whole thing's a ludicrous trifle." He paused a moment and
added: "I'm sorry if she's distressed."

"You've made everything impossible--that's all."

"I don't understand. It so happens that to-day all sorts of things have
begun to seem possible to me. Perhaps you've seen your uncle?"

"Yes, I have,--and--and it would have been splendid if you hadn't
treated her as you did."

"You hint at something I know nothing about." He was growing angry
again. "I really believe I could manage my own affairs." He returned to
his pet grievance.

"You don't understand? Well, you will soon." She grew cooler as her
mischievous pleasure in puzzling him overcame her wrath. "You'll know
what you've done soon."

"Shall I? How shall I find it out?"

"You'll be sorry when--when a certain thing happens."

He threw himself into a chair with a peevish laugh.

"I confess your riddles rather bore me. Is there any answer to this
one?"

"Yes, very soon. I've been to see Lady Evenswood."

"She knows the answer, does she?"

"Perhaps." Her animation suddenly left her. "But I suppose it's all no
use now," she said dolefully.

They sat silent for a minute or two, Harry seeming to fall into a fit of
abstraction.

"What did you mean by saying I oughtn't to have taken her to dinner and
so on?" he asked, as Mina rose to go.

She shook her head. "I've nothing more to say," she declared.

"And you say I'm half in love with her?"

"Yes, I do," she snapped viciously as she turned toward the door. But
she looked back at him before she went out.

"As far as that goes," he said slowly, "I'm not sure you're wrong,
Madame Zabriska. But I could never marry her."

The Imp launched a prophecy, confidently, triumphantly, maliciously.

"Before very long she'll be the one to say that, and you've got yourself
to thank for it too! Good-by!"

She was gone. Harry sat down and slowly filled and lit his pipe. It was
probably all nonsense; but again he recollected Cecily's words: "If ever
the time comes, I shall remember!"

Whatever might be the state of his feelings toward her, or of hers
toward him, a satisfactory outcome seemed impossible. And somehow this
notion had the effect of spoiling the success of the day for Harry
Tristram; so that among the Imp's whirling words there was perhaps a
grain or two of wisdom. At least his talk with her did not make Harry's
visions less constant or less intense.




XXII

AN INSULT TO THE BLOOD


It could not be denied that Blinkhampton was among the things which
arose out of Blent. To acknowledge even so much Harry felt to be a slur
on his independence, on the new sense of being able to do things for
himself in which his pride, robbed of its old opportunities, was taking
refuge and finding consolation. It was thanks to himself anyhow that it
had so arisen, for Iver was not the man to mingle business and
sentiment. Harry snatched this comfort, and threw his energies into the
work, both as a trial of his powers and as a safeguard against his
thoughts. He went down to the place and stayed a week. The result of his
visit was a report which Iver showed to Southend with a very significant
nod; even the mistakes in it, themselves inevitable from want of
experience, were the errors of a large mind. The touch of dogmatism did
not displease a man who valued self-confidence above all other
qualities.

"The lad will do; he'll make his way," said Iver.

Southend smiled. Lads who are equal to making their own way may go very
far if they are given such a start as he had in contemplation for Harry.
But would things go right? Southend had received an incoherent but
decidedly despairing letter from Mina Zabriska. He put it in the fire,
saying nothing to Lady Evenswood, and nothing, of course, to Mr Disney.
In the end there was perhaps no absolutely necessary connection between
the two parts of the scheme--that which concerned the lady, and that
which depended on the Minister. Yet the first would make the second so
much more easy!

Mr Disney had given no sign yet. There was a crisis somewhere abroad,
and a colleague understood to be self-opinionated; there was a crisis in
the Church, and a bishopric vacant. Lady Evenswood was of opinion that
the least attempt to hurry Robert would be fatal. There were, after all,
limits to the importance of Harry Tristram's case, and Robert was
likely, if worried, to state the fact with his own merciless vigor, and
with that to say good-by to the whole affair. The only person seriously
angry at the Prime Minister's "dawdling," was Mina Zabriska; and she had
enjoyed no chance of telling him so. To make such an opportunity for her
was too hazardous an experiment; it might have turned out well--one
could never tell with Robert--but on the whole it was not to be risked.

What Lady Evenswood would not venture, fortune dared. Mina had been
seeing sights--it was August now, a suitable month for the task--and one
evening, about half-past six, she landed her weary bones on a seat in St
James's Park for a few moments' rest before she faced the Underground.
The place was very empty, the few people there lay for the most part
asleep--workmen with the day's labor done. Presently she saw two men
walking slowly toward her from the direction of Westminster. One was
tall and slight, handsome and distinguished in appearance; in the other
she recognized the rugged awkward man whom she had met at Lady
Evenswood's. He was talking hard, hitting his fist into the palm of his
other hand sometimes. The handsome man listened with deference, but
frowned and seemed troubled. Suddenly the pair stopped.

"I must get back to the House," she heard the handsome man say.

"Well, think it over. Try to see it in that light," said Disney, holding
out his hand. The other took it, and then turned away. The episode would
have been worth a good paragraph and a dozen conjectures to a reporter;
the handsome man was the self-opinionated colleague, and the words Mina
had heard, were they not clear proof of dissensions in the Cabinet?

Disney stood stock-still on the path, not looking after his recalcitrant
colleague, but down on the ground; his thoughts made him unconscious of
things external. Mina glowed with excitement. He was not an awkward man
to her; he was a great and surprising fact, a wonderful institution, the
more wonderful because (to look at him) he might have been a superior
mechanic who had dropped sixpence and was scanning the ground for it.
She was really appalled, but her old instinct and habit of interference,
of not letting things go by her without laying at least a finger on
them, worked in her too. How long would he stand there motionless? As if
the ground could tell him anything! Yet she was not impatient of his
stillness. It was good to sit and watch him.

An artisan swung by, his tools over his back. Mina saw the suddenly
awakened attention with which his head turned to Disney. He slackened
pace a moment, and then, after an apparent hesitation, lifted his cap.
There was no sign that Disney saw him, save that he touched his hat in
almost unconscious acknowledgment. The artisan went by, but stopped,
turned to look again, and exchanged an amused smile with Mina. He
glanced round twice again before he was out of sight. Mina sighed in
enjoyment.

With a quick jerk of his head Disney began to walk on slowly. For an
instant Mina did not know what she would do; the fear and the attraction
struggled. Then she jumped up and walked toward him. Her manner tried
to assert that she had not noticed him. She was almost by him. She gave
a cough. He looked up. Would he know her? Would he remember asking--no,
directing--my lord his secretary to write to her, and had he read what
she wrote? He was looking at her. She dared a hurried little bow. He
came to a stand-still again.

"Yes, yes?" he said questioningly.

"Madame Zabriska, Mr Disney."

"Oh, yes." His voice sounded a little disappointed. "I met you at----?"

"At Lady Evenswood's, Mr Disney." Taking courage she added, "I sent what
you wanted?"

"What I wanted?"

"Yes. What you wanted me to write, about--about the Tristrams."

"Yes." The voice sounded now as if he had placed her. He smiled a
little. "I remember it all now. I read it the other morning." He nodded
at her, as if that finished the matter. But Mina did not move. "I'm busy
just now," he added, "but--Well, how's your side of the affair going on,
Madame Zabriska? I've heard nothing from my cousin about that."

"It's just wonderful to see you like this!" the Imp blurted out.

That amused him; she saw the twinkle in his eye.

"Never mind me. Tell me about the Tristram cousins."

"Oh, you are thinking of it then?"

"I never tell what I'm thinking about. That's the only reason people
think me clever. The cousins?"

"Oh, that's all dreadful. At least I believe they are--they would be--in
love; but--but--Mr Tristram's so difficult, so obstinate, so proud. I
don't suppose you understand----"

"You're the second person who's told me I can't understand, in the last
half-hour." He was smiling now, as he coupled Mina and the handsome
recalcitrant colleague in his protest. "I'm not sure of it."

"And she's been silly, and he's been horrid, and just now--well, it's
all as bad as can be, Mr Disney."

"Is it? You must get it better than that, you know, before I can do
anything. Good-night."

"Oh, stop, do stop! Do say what you mean!"

"I shan't do anything of the kind. You may tell Lady Evenswood what I've
said and she'll tell you what I mean."

"Oh, but please----"

"If you stop me any longer, I shall send you to the Tower. Tell Lady
Evenswood and Southend. If I didn't do my business better than you do
yours----!" He shrugged his shoulders with a good-natured rudeness.
"Good-night," he said again, and this time Mina dared not stop him.
Twenty yards further on he halted once more of his own accord and fell
into thought. Mina watched him till he moved on again, slowly making his
way across the Mall and toward St James's Street. A great thing had
happened to her--she felt that; and she had news too that she was to
tell to Southend and Lady Evenswood. There was considerable unsettlement
in the Imp's mind that night.

The next day found her at Lady Evenswood's. The old lady and Southend
(who had been summoned on Mina's command--certainly Mina was getting up
in the world) understood perfectly. They nodded wise heads.

"I was always inclined to think that Robert would take that view."

"He fears that the Bearsdale case won't carry him all the way. Depend
upon it, that's what he feels."

"Well, there was the doubt there, you see."

Mina was rather tired of the doubt in the Bearsdale case. It was always
cropping up and being mentioned as though it were something exceedingly
meritorious.

"And in poor Addie's case of course there--well, there wasn't,"
proceeded Lady Evenswood with a sigh. "So Robert feels that it might be
thought----"

"The people with consciences would be at him, I suppose," said Southend
scornfully.

"But if the marriage came off----"

"Oh, I see!" cried the Imp.

"Then he would feel able to act. It would look merely like putting
things back as they were, you see, Mina."

"Do you think he means the viscounty?" asked Southend.

"It would be so much more convenient. And they could have had an earldom
once before if they'd liked."

"Oh, twice," corrected Southend confidently.

"I know it's said, but I don't believe it. You mean in 1816?"

"Yes. Everybody knows that they could have had it from Mr Pitt."

"Well, George, I don't believe about 1816. At least my father heard Lord
Liverpool say----"

"Oh, dear me!" murmured the Imp. This historical inquiry was neither
comprehensible nor interesting. But they discussed it eagerly for some
minutes before agreeing that, wherever the truth lay, a viscounty could
not be considered out of the way for the Tristrams--legitimate and
proper Tristrams, be it understood.

"And that's where the match would be of decisive value," Lady Evenswood
concluded.

"Disney said as much evidently. So you understood, Madame Zabriska?"

"I suppose so. I've told you what he said."

"He could take Blentmouth, you know. It's all very simple."

"Well, I'm not sure that our friend Iver isn't keeping that for
himself," smiled Southend.

"Oh, he can be Lord Bricks and Putty," she suggested, laughing. But
there seemed in her words a deplorable hint of scorn for that process by
which the vitality (not to say the solvency) of the British aristocracy
is notoriously maintained. "Blentmouth would do very well for Harry
Tristram."

"Well then, what's to be done?" asked Southend.

"We must give him a hint, George."

"Have we enough to go upon? Suppose Disney turned round and----"

"Robert won't do that. Besides, we needn't pledge anything. We can just
put the case." She smiled thoughtfully. "I'm still not quite sure how Mr
Tristram will take it, you know."

"How he'll take it? He'll jump at it, of course."

"The girl or the title, George?"

"Well, both together. Won't he, Madame Zabriska?"

Mina thought great things of the girl, and even greater, if vaguer, of
the title.

"I should just think so," she replied complacently. There was a limit to
the perversity even of the Tristrams.

"We mustn't put it too baldly," observed Southend, dangling his
eyeglass.

"Oh, he'll think more of the thing itself than of how we put it," Lady
Evenswood declared.

From her knowledge of Harry, the Imp was exactly of that opinion. But
Southend was for diplomacy; indeed what pleasure is there in manœuvring
schemes if they are not to be conducted with delicacy? A policy that can
be defined on a postage stamp has no attraction for ingenious minds,
although it is usually the most effective with a nation.

Harry Tristram returned from Blinkhampton in a state of intellectual
satisfaction marred by a sense of emotional emptiness. He had been very
active, very energetic, very successful. He had new and cogent evidence
of his power, not merely to start but to go ahead on his own account.
This was the good side. But he discovered and tried to rebuke in himself
a feeling that he had so far wasted the time in that he had seen nobody
and nothing beautiful. Men of affairs had no concern with a feeling like
that. Would Iver have it, or would Mr Disney? Surely not! It would be a
positive inconvenience to them, or at best a worthless asset. He traced
it back to Blent, to that influence which he had almost brought himself
to call malign because it seemed in some subtle way enervating, a thing
that sought to clog his steps and hung about those feet which had need
to be so alert and nimble. Yet the old life at Blent would not have
served by itself now. Was he to turn out so exacting that he must have
both lives before he, or what was in him, could cry "Content"? A man
will sometimes be alarmed when he realizes what he wants--a woman often.

So he came, in obedience to Lady Evenswood's summons, very confident but
rather sombre. When he arrived, a woman was there whom he did not know.
She exhaled fashion and the air of being exactly the right thing. She
was young--several years short of forty--and very handsome. Her manner
was quiet and well-dowered with repressed humor. He was introduced to
Lady Flora Disney, and found himself regarded with unmistakable interest
and lurking amusement. It was no effort to remember that Mr Disney had
married a daughter of Lord Bewdley's. That was enough; just as he knew
all about her, she would know all about him; they were both of the pale
in a sense that their hostess was, but Lord Southend--well, hardly
was--and (absurdly enough) Mr Disney himself not at all. This again was
in patent incongruity with Blinkhampton and smelt wofully strong of
Blent. Lady Evenswood encouraged Harry to converse with the visitor.

"We're a little quieter," she was saying. "The crisis is dormant, and
the bishop's made, and Lord Hove has gone to consult the Duke of
Dexminster--which means a fortnight's delay anyhow, and probably being
told to do nothing in the end. So I sometimes see Robert at dinner."

"And he tells you things, and you're indiscreet about them!" said Lady
Evenswood rebukingly.

"I believe Robert considers me a sort of ante-room to publicity. And
it's so much easier to disown a wife than a journalist, isn't it, Mr
Tristram?"

"Naturally. The Press have to pretend to believe one another," he said,
smiling.

"That's the corner-stone," Southend agreed.

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" pursued Lady Flora. "But Diana was
never a wife, if I remember."

"Though how they do it, my dear," marvelled Lady Evenswood, "is what I
don't understand."

"I know nothing about them," Lady Flora declared. "And they know nothing
about me. They stop at my gowns, you know, and even then they always
confuse me with Gertrude Melrose."

"I hope that stops at the gown too?" observed Southend.

"The hair does it, I think. She buys hers at the same shop as I--Now
what do I do, Mr Tristram?"

"You, Lady Flora? You know the shop. Is that enough?"

"Yes, or--well, no. I supplement there. I declare I won't wait any
longer for Robert."

"He won't come now," said Lady Evenswood. "Is the bishop nice, my dear?"

"Oh, yes, quite plump and gaitery! Good-by, dear Cousin Sylvia. I wish
you'd come and see me, Mr Tristram."

Harry, making his little bow, declared that he would be delighted.

"I like to see young men sometimes," observed the lady, retreating.

"The new style," Lady Evenswood summed up, as the door closed.
"And--well, I suppose Robert likes it."

"_Dissimilia dissimilibus_," shrugged Southend, fixing his glasses.

"It's the only concession to appearances he ever made," sighed Lady
Evenswood.

"She's a lady, though."

"Oh, yes. That's what makes it so funny. If she weren't----"

"Yes, it would all be natural enough."

"But we've been wasting your time, Mr Tristram."

"Never less wasted since I was born," protested Harry, who had both
enjoyed and learnt.

"No, really I think not," she agreed, smiling. "Flora has her power."

The remark grated on him; he wanted nothing of Flora and her power; it
was indeed rather an unfortunate introduction to the business of the
afternoon; it pointed Harry's quills a little. Lady Evenswood, with a
quick perception, tried to retrieve the observation.

"But she likes people who are independent best," she went on. "So does
Robert, if it comes to that. Indeed he never does a job for anyone."

"Carries that too far in my opinion," commented Southend. The moment for
diplomacy approached.

But when it came to the point, Lady Evenswood suavely took the task out
of his hands. Her instinct told her that she could do it best; he soon
came to agree. She had that delicacy which he desired but lacked; she
could claim silence when he must have suffered interruption; she could
excuse her interference on the ground of old friendship; she could plead
an interest which might seem impertinent in him. Above all, she could be
elusively lucid and make herself understood without any bluntness of
statement.

"If it could be so managed that the whole miserable accident should be
blotted out and forgotten!" she exclaimed, as though she implored a
personal favor.

"How can that be?" asked Harry. "I was in, and I am out, Lady
Evenswood."

"You're out, and your cousin's in, yes." Harry's eyes noted the words
and dwelt on her face. "She can't be happy in that state of affairs
either."

"Perhaps not," he admitted. "Facts are facts, though."

"There are ways--ways of preventing that," Southend interposed,
murmuring vaguely.

"I don't know how you'll feel about it, but we all think you ought to
consider other things besides your personal preferences. Might I tell Mr
Disney--no, one moment, please! Our idea, I mean, was that there might
be a family arrangement. A moment, please, Mr Tristram! I don't mean, by
which she would lose what she has----"

"But that I should get it?"

"Well, yes. Oh, I know your feelings. But they would cease to exist if
you came to her on an equality, with what is really and truly your
proper position recognized and--and----"

"Regularized," Southend supplied with a sharp glance at Harry.

"I don't understand," Harry declared. "You must tell me what you mean.
Is it something that concerns Cecily as well as me?"

"Oh, about that we haven't the right even to ask your feelings. That
would be simply for you to consider. But if anything were to happen----"

"Nothing could." Harry restrained himself no longer. "There can be no
question of it."

"I knew you'd feel like that. Just because you feel like that, I want to
make the other suggestion to you. I'm not speaking idly. I have my
warrant, Mr Tristram. If----" She was at a loss for a moment. "If you
ever went back to Blent," she continued, not satisfied, but driven to
some form of words, "it isn't inevitable that you should go as Mr
Tristram. There are means of righting such injustices as yours. Wait,
please! It would be felt--and felt in a quarter you can guess--that the
master of Blent, which you'd be in fact anyhow, should have that
position recognized. Perhaps there would not be the same feeling unless
you were still associated with Blent."

"I don't understand at all."

She exchanged a despairing glance with Southend; she could not tell
whether or not he was sincere in saying that he did not understand.
Southend grew weary of the diplomacy which he had advocated; after all
it had turned out to be Lady Evenswood's, not his, which may have had
something to do with his change of mood toward it. He took up the task
with a brisk directness.

"It's like this, Harry. You remember that the unsuccessful claimant in
the Bearsdale case got a barony? That's our precedent. But it's felt not
to go quite all the way--because there was a doubt there. (Luckily for
Mina she was not by to hear.) But it is felt that in the event of the
two branches of your family being united it would be proper to--to
obliterate past--er--incidents. And that could be done by raising you to
the peerage, under a new and, as we hope, a superior title. We believe
Mr Disney would, under the circumstances I have suggested, be prepared
to recommend a viscounty, and that there would prove to be no
difficulties in the way." The last words had, presumably, reference to
the same quarter that Lady Evenswood had once described by the words,
"Somebody Else."

They watched him as he digested the proposal, at last made to him in a
tolerably plain form. "You must give me a moment to follow that out," he
said, with a smile. But he had it all clear enough before he would allow
them to perceive that he understood. For although his brain made easy
work of it, his feelings demanded a pause. He was greatly surprised. He
had thought of no such a thing. What differences would it make?

Southend was well satisfied with the way in which his overture was
received. Lady Evenswood was watching intently.

"The idea is----" said Harry slowly--"I mean--I don't quite gather what
it is. You talk of my cousin, and then of a viscounty. The two go
together, do they?"

It was rather an awkward question put as bluntly as that.

"Well, that did seem to be Mr Disney's view," said Southend.

"He was thinking of the family--of the family as a whole. I'm sure you
think of that too," urged Lady Evenswood. There would never be a
Tristram who did not, she was thinking. Well, except Addie perhaps, who
really thought of nothing. "Of course as a thing purely personal to you
it might be just a little difficult." She meant, and intended Harry to
understand, that without the marriage the thing could not be done at
all. Mina had reported Mr Disney faithfully, and Lady Evenswood's
knowledge of her cousin Robert was not at fault. "Apart from anything
else, there would be the sordid question," she ended, with a smile that
became propitiatory against her will; she had meant it to be merely
confidential.

There was ground for hope; Harry hesitated--truth will out, even where
it impairs the grandeur of men. The suggestion had its attractions; it
touched the spring of the picturesque in him which Blinkhampton had left
rusting in idleness. It suggested something in regard to Cecily
too--what it was, he did not reason out very clearly at the moment.
Anyhow what was proposed would create a new situation and put him in a
different position toward her. In brief, he would have something more on
his side.

"Once he was sure the proposal was agreeable to you----" murmured Lady
Evenswood gently. She was still very tentative about the matter, and
still watchful of Harry.

But Southend was not cautious or did not read his man so well. To him
the battle seemed to be won. He was assured in his manner and decidedly
triumphant as he said:

"It's a great thing to have screwed Disney up to the viscounty. It does
away with all difficulty about the name, you see."

Harry looked up sharply. Had Mr Disney been "screwed up?" Who had
screwed him up?--by what warrant?--on whose commission? That was enough
to make him glower and to bring back something of the old-time look of
suspicion to his face. But the greater part of his attention was
engrossed by the second half of Southend's ill-advised bit of
jubilation.

"The name? The difficulty about the name?" he asked.

"If it had been a barony--well, hers would take precedence, of course.
With the higher degree yours will come first, and her barony be
merged--Viscount Blentmouth, eh, Harry?" He chuckled with glee.

"Viscount Blentmouth be hanged!" cried Harry. He mastered himself with
an effort. "I beg your pardon, Lady Evenswood; and I'm much obliged to
you, and to you too, Lord Southend, for--for screwing Mr Disney up. It's
not a thing I could or should have done or tried to do for myself." In
spite of his attempted calmness his voice grew a little louder. "I want
nothing but what's my own. If nothing's my own, well and good--I can
wait till I make it something."

"But, my dear Harry----!" began the discomfited Southend. Harry cut him
short, breaking again into impetuous speech.

"There's nothing between my cousin and me. There's no question of
marriage and never can be. And if there were----" He seemed to gather
himself up for a flight of scorn--"If there were, do you think I'm going
to save my own pride by saddling the family with a beastly new
viscounty?"

His tones rose in indignation on the last sentence, as he looked from
one to the other. "Viscount Blentmouth indeed!" he growled.

Southend's hands were out before him in signal of bewildered distress.
Lady Evenswood looked at Harry, then, with a quick forward inclination
of her body, past him; and she began to laugh.

"Thank you very much, but I've been Tristram of Blent," ended Harry,
now in a very fine fume, and feeling he had been much insulted.

Still looking past him, Lady Evenswood sat laughing quietly. Even on
Southend's face came an uneasy smile, as he too looked toward the door.
After a moment's furious staring at the two Harry faced round. The door
had been softly and noiselessly opened to the extent of a couple of
feet. A man stood in the doorway, tugging at a ragged beard and with
eyes twinkling under rugged brows. Who was he, and how did he come
there? Harry heard Lady Evenswood's laughter; he heard her murmur to
herself with an accent of pleasure, "A beastly new viscounty!" Then the
man in the doorway came a little farther in, saying:

"That's exactly what I think about it, Mr Tristram. I've heard what you
said and I agree with you. There's an end, then, of the beastly new
viscounty!" He looked mockingly at Southend. "I've been screwed up all
for nothing, it seems," said he.

"Why, you're----?"

"Let me introduce myself, Mr Tristram. I came to look for my wife, and
my name is Disney. I intend to keep mine, and I know better than to try
to alter yours."

"I thought it would end like this!" cried Lady Evenswood.

"Shan't we say that it begins like this?" asked Mr Disney. His look at
Harry was a compliment.




XXIII

A DECREE OF BANISHMENT


The Imp cried--absolutely cried for vexation--when a curt and sour note
from Southend told her the issue. The blow struck down her excitement
and her exultation. Away went all joy in her encounter with Mr Disney,
all pride in the skill with which she had negotiated with the Prime
Minister. The ending was pitiful--disgusting and pitiful. She poured out
her heart's bitterness to Major Duplay, who had come to visit her.

"I'm tired of the whole thing, and I hate the Tristrams!" she declared.

"It always comes to that in time, Mina, when you mix yourself up in
people's affairs."

"Wasn't it through you that I began to do it?"

The Major declined to argue the question--one of some complexity
perhaps.

"Well, I've got plenty to do in London. Let's give up Merrion and take
rooms here."

"Give up Merrion!" She was startled. But the reasons she assigned were
prudential. "I've taken it till October, and I can't afford to. Besides,
what's the use of being here in August?"

"You won't drop it yet, you see." The reasons did not deceive Duplay.

"I don't think I ought to desert Cecily. I suppose she'll go back to
Blent. Oh, what an exasperating man he is!"

"Doesn't look as if the match would come off now, does it?"

"It's just desperate. The last chance is gone. I don't know what to do."

"Marry him yourself," advised the Major. Though it was an old idea of
his, he was not very serious.

"I'd sooner poison him," said Mina decisively. "What must Mr Disney
think of me?"

"I shouldn't trouble about that. Do you suppose he thinks much at all,
Mina?" (That is the sort of remark which relatives sometimes regard as
consolatory.) "I think Harry Tristram as much of a fool as you do,"
Duplay added. "If he'd taken it, he could have made a good match anyhow,
even if he didn't get Lady Tristram."

"Cecily's just as bad. She's retired into her shell. You don't know that
way of hers--of theirs, I suppose it is, bother them! She's treating
everybody and everything as if they didn't exist."

"She'll go back to Blent, I suppose?"

"Well, she must. Somebody must have it."

"If it's going begging, call on me," said the Major equably. He was in a
better humor with the world than he had been for a long while; his
connection with Iver promised well. But Mina sniffed scornfully; she was
in no mood for idle jests.

Cecily had been told about the scheme and its lamentable end. Her
attitude was one of entire unconcern. What was it to her if Harry were
made a viscount, a duke, or the Pope? What was anything to her? She was
going back to her father at Blent. The only animation she displayed was
in resenting the reminder, and indeed denying the fact, that she had
ever been other than absolutely happy and contented at Blent. Mina
pressed the point, and Cecily then declared that now at any rate her
conscience was at rest. She had tried to do what was right--at what
sacrifice Mina knew; the reception of her offer Mina knew. Now perhaps
Mina could sympathize with her, and could understand the sort of way in
which Cousin Harry received attempts to help him. On this point they
drew together again.

"You must come back to Merrion, dear," urged Cecily.

Mina, who never meant to do anything else, embraced her friend and
affectionately consented. It is always pleasant to do on entreaty what
we might be driven to do unasked.

Good-by had to be said to Lady Evenswood. That lady was very cheerful
about Harry; she was, hardly with any disguise, an admirer of his
conduct, and said that undoubtedly he had made a very favorable
impression on Robert. She seemed to make little of the desperate
condition of affairs as regarded Cecily. She was thinking of Harry's
career, and that seemed to her very promising. "Whatever he tries I
think he'll succeed in," she said. That was not enough for Mina; he must
try Mina's things--those she had set her heart on--before she could be
content. "But you never brought Cecily to see me," Lady Evenswood
complained. "And I'm just going away now."

That was it, Mina decided. Lady Evenswood had not seen Cecily. She had
approached the Tristram puzzle from one side only, and had perceived but
one aspect of it. She did not understand that it was complex and
double-headed; it was neither Harry nor Cecily, but Harry and Cecily.
Mina had been in that state of mind before Cecily came on the scene; it
was natural now in Lady Evenswood. But it rendered her really useless.
It was a shock to find that, all along, in Lady Evenswood's mind Cecily
had been a step toward the peerage rather than the peerage the first
step toward Cecily. Mina wondered loftily (but silently) how woman could
take so slighting a view of woman.

"And Flora Disney has quite taken him up," Lady Evenswood pursued.
"George tells me he's been to lunch there twice. George is a terrible
gossip."

"What does Lady Flora Disney want with him?"

"Well, my dear, are you going to turn round and say you don't understand
why he interests women?"

"I don't see why he should interest Lady Flora." Mina had already made
up her mind that she hated that sort of woman. It was bad enough to have
captured Mr Disney; must the insatiate creature draw into her net Harry
Tristram also?

"And of course he's flattered. Any young man would be."

"I don't think he's improved since he left Blent."

"Country folks always say that about their young men when they come to
town," smiled Lady Evenswood. "He's learning his world, my dear. And he
seems very sensible. He hasn't inherited poor Addie's wildness."

"Yes, he has. But it only comes out now and then. When it does----"

"It won't come out with Flora," Lady Evenswood interrupted reassuringly.
"And at any rate, as you may suppose, I'm going to leave him to his own
devices. Oh, I think he's quite right, but I don't want to be wrong
myself again, that's all."

But another thing was to happen before Mina went back to the valley of
the Blent; a fearful, delightful thing. An astonishing missive came--a
card inviting her to dine with Mr and Lady Flora Disney. She gasped as
she read it. Had Lady Flora ever indulged in the same expression of
feeling, it would have been when she was asked to send it. Gasping
still, Mina telegraphed for her best frock and all the jewelled tokens
of affection which survived to testify to Adolf Zabriska's love. It was
in itself an infinitely great occasion, destined always to loom large
in memory; but it proved to have a bearing on the Tristram problem too.

For Harry was there. He sat on the hostess's left; on her other side was
handsome Lord Hove, very resplendent in full dress, starred and
ribanded. Several of the men were like that; there was some function
later on, Mina learnt from an easy-mannered youth who sat by her and
seemed bored with the party. Disney came in late, in his usual
indifferently fitting morning clothes, snatching an hour from the House,
in the strongest contrast to the fair sumptuousness of his wife. He took
a vacant chair two places from Mina and nodded at her in a friendly way.
They were at a round table, and there were only a dozen there. The
easy-mannered youth told her all about them, including several things
which it is to be hoped were not true; he seemed to view them from an
altitude of good-humored contempt. Mina discovered afterward that he was
a cousin of Lady Flora's, and occupied a position in Messrs Coutts's
Bank. He chuckled once, remarking:

"Flora's talkin' to Tristram all the time, instead of bein' pleasant to
Tommy Hove. Fact is, she hates Tommy, and she'd be glad if the Chief
would give him the boot. But the Chief doesn't want to, because Tommy's
well in at Court and the Chief isn't."

"Why does Lady Flora hate Lord Hove? He's very handsome."

"Think so? Well, I see so many fellows like that, that I'm beginnin' to
hate 'em. Like the 'sweet girl,' don't you know? I hear the Chief thinks
Tristram'll train on."

"Do what?" asked Mina absently, looking across at Harry. Harry was quite
lively, and deep in conversation with his hostess.

"Well, they might put him in the House, and so on, you know. See that
woman next but three? That's Gertrude Melrose; spends more on clothes
than any woman in London, and she's only got nine hundred a year.
Queer?" He smiled as he consumed an almond.

"She must get into debt," said Mina, gazing at the clothes of
inexplicable origin.

"Gettin' in isn't the mystery," remarked the youth. "It's the gettin'
out, Madame--er--Zabriska." He had taken a swift glance at Mina's card.

Mina looked round. "Is it in this room they have the Councils?" she
asked.

"Cabinets? Don't know. Downstairs somewhere, I believe, anyhow." He
smothered a yawn. "Queer thing, that about Tristram, you know. If
everything was known, you know, I shouldn't wonder if a lot of other
fellows found themselves----"

He was interrupted, fortunately perhaps, in these speculations by a
question from his other neighbor. Mina was left alone for some minutes,
and set to work to observe the scene. She was tolerably at ease now; a
man was on each side of her, and in the end it was the women of whom she
was afraid. There would be a terrible time in the drawing-room, but she
determined not to think of that. Harry saw her sitting silent and smiled
across at her while he listened to Lady Flora. The smile seemed to come
from a great way off. The longer she sat there the more that impression
grew; he seemed so much and so naturally a part of the scene and one of
the company. She was so emphatically not one of them, save by the merest
accident and for an evening's span. The sense of difference and distance
troubled her. She thought of Cecily alone at home, and grew more
troubled still. She felt absurd too, because she had been trying to help
Harry. If that had to be done, she supposed Lady Flora would do it now.
The idea was bitter. Where difference of class comes in, women seem more
hostile to one another than men are to men; perhaps this should be
considered in relation to the franchise question.

Through the talk of the rest she listened to Harry and Lady Flora. That
Harry should hold his own did not surprise her; it was rather unexpected
that he should do it so lightly and so urbanely. Lord Hove tried to
intervene once or twice, with no success; capricious waves of sympathy
undulated across to him from Mina. She turned her head by chance, and
found Mr Disney silent too, and looking at her. The next moment he spoke
to the easy-mannered youth.

"Well, Theo, what's the world saying and doing?"

"Same as last year, Cousin Robert," answered Theo cheerfully.
"Government's a year older, of course."

In an instant Mina was pleased; she detected an unexpected but pleasant
friendship between Mr Disney and the youth. She credited Disney with
more humanity--the humor necessary she knew he had--and liked him even
better.

"The drawing-rooms have kicked us out already, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, rather. But the Bank's not sure."

"Good! That's something. Banks against drawing-rooms for me, Madame
Zabriska." He brought her into the conversation almost with tact; he
must have had a strong wish to make her comfortable.

"That's right," announced Theo. "I should say you're all right in the
country too. Crops pretty good, you know, and the rain's comin' down
just nicely."

"Well, I ordered it," said Mr Disney.

"Takin' all the credit you can get," observed Theo. "Like the man who
carved his name on the knife before he stabbed his mother-in-law."

"What did he do that for?" cried Mina. A guffaw from Disney quite amazed
her.

Harry looked across with a surprised air; he seemed to wonder that she
should be enjoying herself. Mina was annoyed, and set herself to be
merry; a glance from Lady Flora converted vexation into rage. She turned
back to Theo; somehow Mr Disney had taught her how to like him--often a
valuable lesson, if people would keep their eyes open for it.

"Everybody else I've met has been horribly afraid of Mr Disney," she
said in a half-whisper.

"Oh, you aren't in a funk of a man who's smacked your head!"

That seemed a better paradox than most. Mina nodded approvingly.

"What does the Bank say about Barililand, Theo?" called Disney. Lord
Hove paused in the act of drinking a glass of wine.

"Well, they're just wonderin' who's goin' to do the kickin'," said Theo.

"And who's going to take it?" Disney seemed much amused. Lord Hove had
turned a little pink. Mina had a vague sense that serious things were
being joked about. Harry had turned from his hostess and was listening.

"That's what it comes to," concluded Theo.

Disney glanced round, smiling grimly. Everybody had become silent.
Barililand had produced the question on which Lord Hove was supposed to
be restive. Disney laughed and looked at his wife. She rose from the
table. Mr Disney had either learnt what he wanted or had finished
amusing himself. Mina did not know which; no more, oddly enough, did
Lord Hove.

Mr Disney was by the door, saying good-by to the ladies; he would not be
coming to the drawing-room. He stopped Mina, who went out last, just
before his wife.

"We've done all we could, Madame Zabriska," he said. "We must leave him
alone, eh?"

"I'm afraid so. You've been very kind, Mr Disney."

"Better as it is, I fancy. Now then, Flora!" At this peremptory summons
Lady Flora left Theo, by whom she had halted, and followed Mina through
the door.

The dreadful moment had come. It justified Mina's fears, but not in the
way she had expected. Two of the women left directly; the other two went
off into a corner; her hostess sat down and talked to her. Lady Flora
was not distant and did not make Mina feel an outsider. The fault was
the other way; she was confidential--and about Harry. She assumed an
intimacy with him equal or more than equal to Mina's own; she even told
Mina things about him; she said "we" thought him an enormous
acquisition, and hoped to see a great deal of him. It was all very kind,
and Mina, as a true friend, should have been delighted. As it was, dolor
grew upon her.

"And I suppose the cousin is quite----?" A gentle motion of Lady Flora's
fan was left to define Cecily more exactly, and proved fully up to the
task.

"She's the most fascinating creature I ever saw," cried Mina.

"Rescued out of Chelsea, wasn't she?" smiled Lady Flora. "Poor thing!
One's sorry for her. When her mourning's over we must get her out. I do
hope she's something like Mr Tristram?"

"I think she's ever so much nicer than Mr Tristram." Mina would have
shrunk from stating this upon oath.

"He interests me enormously, and it's so seldom I like Robert's young
men."

So he was to be Robert's young man too! The thing grew worse and worse.
Almost she hated her idol Mr Disney. Personal jealousy, and jealousy for
Cecily, blinded her to his merits, much more to the gracious cordiality
which his wife was now showing.

"Yes, I'm sure we shall make something of Harry Tristram."

"He doesn't like things done for him," Mina declared. She meant to show
how very well she knew him, and spoke with an air of authority.

"Oh, of course it won't look like that, Madame Zabriska."

Now the Imp's efforts had looked like that--just like it. She chafed
under conscious inferiority; Lady Flora had smiled at being thought to
need such a reminder.

"Men never see it unless it's absolutely crammed down their throats,"
Lady Flora pursued. "They always think it's all themselves, you know. It
would be very clumsy to be found out."

In perfect innocence she sprinkled pepper on Mina's wound. Able to
endure no more, the Imp declared that she must go back to Cecil