Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

"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.