Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

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 Cecily.

"Oh, poor girl, I quite forgot her! You're going back to Blent with her, I suppose? Do come and see us when you're in town again." Was there or was there not the slightest sigh as she turned away, a sigh that spoke of duty nobly done? Even toward Robert's caprices, even to the oddest people, Lady Flora prided herself on a becoming bearing. And in the end this little Madame Zabriska had rather amused her; she was funny with her airs of ownership about Harry Tristram.

Well poor Mina understood! All that the enemy thought was legible to her; all the misery that keen perceptions can sometimes bring was sure to be hers. She had spent the most notable evening of her life, and she got into her cab a miserable woman.

Theo was on the doorstep. "Escapin'," he confided to her while he handed her in. "Worst of these parties generally is that there's nobody amusin'," he observed as he did her this service. "Aren't you rather glad you haven't got to take on Flora's job, Madame Zabriska?"

No, at the moment at least Mina did not rejoice on that account.

When she reached home, there was nothing to change her mood. She found Cecily in a melancholy so sympathetic as to invite an immediate outpouring of the heart. Cecily was beautiful that evening, in her black frock, with her fair hair, her pale face, and her eyes full of tragedy. She had been writing, it appeared; ink and paper were on the table. She was very quiet, but, Mina thought, with the stillness that follows a storm. Unasked, the Imp sketched the dinner party, especially Harry's share in it. Her despair was laced with vitriol and she avoided a kind word about anybody. This was blank ingratitude to Mr Disney, and to Theo too; but our friends can seldom escape from paying for our misfortunes.

"Those people have got hold of him. We've lost him. That's the end of it," she cried.

Cecily had nothing to say; she leant back in a limp forlornness while Mina expatiated on this doleful text. There came a luxury into the Imp's woe as she realized for herself and her auditor the extreme sorrows of the situation; she forgot entirely that there was not and never had been any reason why Harry should be anything in particular to her at least. She observed that of course she was glad for his sake; this time-honored unselfishness won no assent from Cecily. Lacking the reinforcement of discussion, the stream of Mina's lamentation began to run dry.

"Oh, it's no use talking," she ended. "There it is!"

"I'm going back to Blent to-morrow," said Cecily suddenly.

It was no more than Mina had expected. "Yes, we may as well," she assented dismally.

Cecily rose and began to walk about. Her air caught Mina's attention again; on this, the evening before she returned to Blent, it had something of that suppressed passion which had marked her manner on the night when she determined to leave it. She came to a stand opposite Mina.

"I've made up my mind. From this moment, Mina, Blent is mine. Up to now I've held it for Harry. Now it's mine. I shall go back and begin everything there to-morrow."

Mina felt the tragedy; the inevitable was being accepted.

"You see I've been writing?"

"Yes, Cecily." After all it looked as though the Imp were not to be cheated of her sensation.

"I've written to Cousin Harry. I've told him what I mean to do. He must think it right; it's the only thing he's left me to do. But I've told him I can do it only on one condition. He'll have my letter to-morrow."

"On one condition? What?"

"I said to him that he gave me Blent because I was there, because he saw me there in the middle of it all. That's true. If I'd stayed here, would he ever have told his secret? Never! He wouldn't so much as have come to see me; he'd never have thought of me, he'd have forgotten all about me. It was seeing me there."

"Well, seeing you, anyhow."

"Seeing me there--there at Blent," she insisted, now almost angrily. "So he'll understand what I mean by the thing I've asked of him. And he must obey." Her voice became imperious. "I've told him that I'm going back, going to stay there, and live there, but that he must never, never come there."

Mina started, her eyes wide-open in surprise at this heroic measure.

"I must never see him--if I can help it. Anyhow I must never see him at Blent. That's the only way I can endure it."

"Never see him! Never have him at Blent!" Mina was trying to sort out the state of things which would result. It was pretty plain what had happened; Cecily had felt the need of doing something; here it was. Mina's sympathies, quick to move, darted out to Harry. "Think what it'll mean to him never to see Blent!" she cried.

"To him? Nothing, nothing! Why, you yourself came home just now saying that we were nothing to him! Blent's nothing to him now. It's for my own sake that I've said he mustn't come."

"You've begged him not to come?"

"I've told him not to come," said Cecily haughtily. "If it's his, let him take it. If it's mine, I can choose who shall come there. Don't you see, don't you see? How can I ever cheat myself into thinking it's mine by right, if I see Harry there?" She paused a moment. "And if you'd thrown yourself at a man's head, and he'd refused you, would you want to have him about?"

"N--no," said Mina, but rather hesitatingly; uncomfortable situations are to some natures better than no situations at all. "No, of course not," she added more confidently, after she had spent a moment in bracing up her sense of what was seemly.

"So I've ended it, I've ended everything. I posted my letter just before you came in, and he'll get it to-morrow. And now, Mina, I'm going back to Blent." She threw herself into an arm-chair, leaning back in a sudden weariness after the excited emotion with which she had declared her resolve. Mina sat on the other side of the table looking at her, and after a moment's looking suddenly began to sob.

"It's too miserable," she declared in wrathful woe. "Why couldn't he have said nothing about it and just married you? Oh, I hate it all, because I love you both. I know people think I'm in love with him, but I'm not. It's both of you, it's the whole thing; and now it never, never can go straight. If he got Blent back now by a miracle, it would be just as bad."

"Worse," said Cecily, "if you mean that then he might----"

"Yes, worse," moaned Mina. "It's hopeless every way. And I believe he's fond of you."

A scornful smile was Cecily's only but sufficient answer.

"And you love him!" Mina's sorrow made her forget all fear. She said in this moment what she had never before dared to say. "Oh, of course you do, or you'd never have told him he mustn't come to Blent. But he won't understand that--and it would make no difference if he did, I suppose! Oh, you Tristrams!" Again her old despairing cry of revolt and bewilderment was wrung from her by the ways of the family with whose fate she had become so concerned. Southend had felt much the same thing over the matter of Harry and the viscounty. "So it all ends, it all ends--and we've got to go back to Blent!"

"Yes, I love him," said Cecily. "That evening in the Long Gallery--the evening when he gave me Blent--do you know what I thought?" She spoke low and quickly, lying back quite still in the attitude that Addie Tristram had once made her own. "I watched him, and I saw that he had something to say, and yet wouldn't say it. I saw he was struggling. And I watched, how I watched! He was engaged to Janie Iver--he had told me that. But he didn't love her--yes, he told me that too. But there was something else. I saw it. I had come to love him then already--oh, I think as soon as I saw him at Blent. And I waited for it. Did you ever do that, Mina--do you remember?"

Mina was silent; her memories gave her no such thing as that. Her sobs had ceased; she sat listening in tense excitement to the history of the scene that she had descried, dim and far off, from the terrace of Merrion on the hill.

"I waited, waited. I couldn't believe--Ah, yes, but I did believe. I thought he felt bound in honor and I hoped--yes, I hoped--he would break his word and throw away his honor. I saw it coming, and my heart seemed to burst as I waited for it. You'd know, if it had ever happened to you like that. And at last I saw he would speak--I saw he must speak. He came and stood by me. Suddenly he cried, 'I can't do it.' Then my heart leapt, because I thought he meant he couldn't marry Janie Iver. I looked up at him and I suppose I said something. He caught me by the arm. I thought he was going to kiss me, Mina. And then--then he told me that Blent was mine--not himself but Blent--that I was Lady Tristram, and he--Harry Nothing--he said, Harry Nothing-at-all."

"Oh, if you'd tell him that!" cried Mina.

"Tell him!" She smiled in superb scorn. "I'd die before I'd tell him. I could go and offer myself to him just because he didn't know. And he'll never know now. Only now you can understand that Blent is--Ah, that it's all bitterness to me! And you know now why he must never come. Yes, as you say, it all ends now."

Mina came and knelt down by her, caressing her hand. Cecily shivered a little and moved with a vague air of discomfort.

"But I believe he cares for you," Mina whispered.

"He might have cared for me perhaps. But Blent's between."

Blent was between. The difficulty seemed insuperable--at least where you were dealing with Tristrams. Mina could not but acknowledge that. For Harry, having nothing to give, would take nothing. And Cecily, having much, was thereby debarred from giving anything. And if that miracle of which Mina had spoken came about, the parts would be exchanged but the position would be no more hopeful. The Tristrams not only brought about difficult situations--as Addie had done here--but by being what they were they insured that the difficulties should not be overcome. Yet at this moment Mina could not cry, "Oh, you Tristrams!" any more. Her sorrow was too great and Cecily too beautiful. She seemed again to see Addie, and neither she nor anybody else could have been hard to Addie. She covered Cecily's hands with kisses as she knelt by her side.

"Yes, this is the end," said Cecily. "Now, Mina, for Blent and her ladyship!" She gave a bitter little laugh. "And good-by to Cousin Harry!"

"Oh, Cecily----!"

"No, he shall never come to Blent."

How would Harry take this decree of banishment? Mina looked up into her friend's eyes, wondering. But did not the dinner-party at Mr Disney's answer that?

XXIV

AFTER THE END OF ALL

"MY DEAR COUSIN--I shall faithfully obey your commands--Yours very truly, H. A. F. TRISTRAM." And below--very formally--"THE LADY TRISTRAM OF BLENT."

To write it took him no more than a moment--even though he wrote first, "The commands of the Head of the House," and destroyed that, ashamed of the sting of malice in it. To send it to the post was the work of another moment. The third found him back at his Blinkhampton plans and elevations, Cecily's letter lying neglected on the table by him. After half an hour's work he stopped suddenly, reached for the letter, tore it into small fragments, and flung the scraps into his waste-paper basket. Just about the same time Cecily and Mina were getting into the train to return to Blent.

This returning to Blent was epidemic--not so strange perhaps, since mid-August was come, and only the people who had to stayed in town. Harry met Duplay over at Blinkhampton; Duplay was to join his niece at Merrion in about ten days. He ran against Iver in the street; Iver was off to Fairholme by the afternoon train; Mr Neeld, he mentioned, was coming to stay with him for a couple of weeks on Friday. Even Southend--whom Harry encountered in Whitehall, very hot and exhausted--cursed London and talked of a run down to Iver's. Blentmouth, Fairholme, Iver's, Merrion--they all meant Blent. Cecily had gone, and Mina; the rest were going there--everybody except the man who three months ago had looked to spend his life there as its master.

And business will grow slack when autumn arrives; it is increasingly difficult for a man to bury himself in deeds, or plans, or elevations, or calculations, when everybody writes that he is taking his vacation, and that the matter shall have immediate attention on his return. Harry grew terribly tired of this polite formula. He wanted to build Blinkhampton out of hand, in the months of August and September. The work would have done him good service. He was seeking a narcotic.

For he was in pain. It came on about a week after he had sent his curt acknowledgment of Cecily's letter, laying hold of him, he told himself, just because he had nothing to do, because everybody was taking his holiday, and Blinkhampton would not get itself bought, and sold, and contracted for, and planned, and laid out, and built. The politicians were at it still, for two more hot, weary, sultry weeks, but they were of little use. Lady Flora had fled to Scotland, Disney was smothered in arrears of work which must be made up before he got a rest. London was full of strange faces and outlandish folk. "I must take a holiday myself," said Harry in a moment of seeming inspiration. Where, where, where? He suffered under the sensation of having nowhere whither he would naturally go, no home, no place to which he could return as to his own. He found himself wishing that he had not torn up Cecily's letter; he remembered its general effect so well that he wanted to read the very words again, in the secret hope that they would modify and soften his memory. His own answer met and destroyed the hope; he knew that he would have responded to anything friendly, had it been there.

Yet what did the letter mean? He interpreted it as Cecily had declared he would. When he held Blent, he held it in peace of mind, though in violation of law, till one came who reproached him in a living body and with speaking eyes; faced with that, he could find no comfort in Blent. Cecily violated no law, but she violated nature, the natural right in him. To her then his presence would be intolerable, and she could not find the desperate refuge that he had chosen. Her only remedy was to forbid him the place. Her instinct drove her to that, and the instinct, so well understood by him, so well known, was to him reason enough. She could not feel mistress of Blent while he was there.

Indeed he had not meant to go. He had told Iver that in perfect good faith. It would have been in bad taste for him to think of going--of going anything like so soon as this. Whence then came his new feeling of desolation and of hurt? It was partly that he was forbidden to go. It was hard to realize that he could see Blent now only by another's will or sufferance. It was even more that now it was no question of refraining from going at once, in order to go hereafter with a better grace. He awoke to the idea that he was never to go, and in the same moment to the truth that he had always imagined himself going again, that Blent had always held a place in his picture of the future, that whatever he was doing or achieving or winning, there it was in the background. Now it was there no more. He could almost say with Mina and with Cecily herself, "This is the end of it."

What then of the impressions Mina had gathered from Mr Disney's dinner-party? It can only be said that when people of impressionable natures study others of like temperament they should not generalize from their conduct at parties. In society dinners are eaten in disguise, sometimes intentional, sometimes unconscious, but as a rule quite impenetrable. If Harry's had been unconscious, if the mood had played the man, the deception was the more complete.

He went to see Lady Evenswood one day; she had sent to express her desire for a talk before she fled to the country. She had much that was pleasant to say, much of the prospects of his success, of his "training-on," as easy-mannered Theo had put it to Mina Zabriska.

"And if you do, you'll be able to think now that you've done it all off your own bat," she ended.

"You've found out my weaknesses, I see," he laughed.

"Oh, I doubt if there's any such thing as an absolute strength or an absolute weakness. They're relative. What's an advantage in one thing is a disadvantage in another."

"I understand," he smiled. "My confounded conceit may help me on in the world, but it doesn't make me a grateful friend or a pleasant companion?"

"I believe George Southend agrees as far as the grateful friend part of it is concerned. And I'm told Lord Hove does as to the rest. But then it was only Flora Disney herself who said so."

"And what do you say?"

"Oh, pride's tolerable in anybody except a lover," she declared.

"Well, I've known lovers too humble. I told one so once; he believed me, went in, and won."

"You gave him courage, not pride, Mr Tristram."

"Perhaps that's true. He's very likely got the pride by now." He smiled at his thoughts of Bob Broadley.

"And you've settled down in the new groove?" she asked.

He hesitated a moment. "Oh, nearly. Possibly there's still a touch of the 'Desdichado,' about me. His would be the only shield I could carry, you see."

"Stop! Well, I forgive you. You're not often bitter about that. But you're very bitter about something, Mr Tristram."

"I want to work, and nobody will in August. You can't get the better of your enemies if they're with their families at Margate or in the Engadine."

"Oh, go down and stay at Blent. No, I'm serious. You say you're proud. There's a good way of showing good pride. Go and stay in the very house. If you do that, I shall think well of you--and even better than I think now of the prospects."

"I've not been invited."

"Poor girl, she's afraid to invite you! Write and say you're coming."

"She'd go away. Yes, she would. She consents to live there only on condition that I never come. She's told me so."

"I'm too old a woman to know your family! You upset the wisdom of ages, and I haven't time to learn anything new."

"I'm not the least surprised. If I were in her place, I should hate to have her there."

"Nonsense. In a month or two----"

"If anything's certain, it's that I shall never go to Blent as long as my cousin owns it."

"I call it downright wicked."

"We share the crime, she and I. She lays down the law, I willingly obey."

"Willingly?"

"My reason is convinced. Maybe I'm a little homesick. But your month or two will serve the purpose there."

"There's a great deal more in this than you're telling me, Mr Tristram."

"Put everything you can imagine into it, and the result's the same."

She sighed and sat for a moment in pensive silence. Harry seemed to ponder too.

"I'm going to think of nothing but my work," he announced.

"So many young men in their early twenties succeed in that!" she murmured mockingly.

"Don't those who succeed in anything succeed in that?"

"Not all, happily--and none would if they were your mother's sons. My dear boy, just open a window in you anywhere--I know you keep them shut when you can--but just open even a chink, and Addie peeps out directly! Which means great success or great failure, Harry--and other things on the same scale, I fancy. Thank goodness--oh, yes, saving your presence, really thank goodness--I'm not like that myself!"

"Shall I prove you wrong?"

"I'm safe. I can't live to see it. And you couldn't prove me wrong without opening all the windows."

"And that I shouldn't do, even to you?"

"Do you ever do it to yourself?"

"Perhaps not," he laughed. "But once a storm blew them all in, Lady Evenswood, and left me without any screen, and without defences."

"Have another storm then," she counselled. She laid a hand on his arm. "Go to Blent."

"As things stand, I can never go to Blent, I can go only to--Blinkhampton."

"What does little Mina Zabriska say to that?"

"Oh, everything that comes into her head, I suppose, and very volubly."

"I like her," said the old lady with emphasis.

"Is there such a thing as an absolute liking, Lady Evenswood? What's pleasant at one time is abominable at another. And I've known Madame Zabriska at the other time."

"You were probably at the other time yourself."

"I thought we should agree about the relativity!"

"There may always be a substratum of friendship," she argued. "You'll say it's sometimes very _sub_! Ah, well, you're human in the end. You're absolutely forgetting Blent--and you spend your time with an old woman because she can talk to you about it! Go away and arrange your life, and come back and tell me all about it. And if you're discontented with life, remember that you too will reach the stage of being just told about it some day."

Things will come home to a man at last, strive he never so desperately against them--if the things are true and the man ever honest with himself. It was one night, a little while after this conversation, that the truth came to Harry Tristram and found acceptance or at least surrender. His mind had wandered back to that scene in the Long Gallery, and he had fallen to questioning about his own action. There was a new light on it, and the new light showed him truth. "I must face it; it's not Blent," he said aloud. If it were Blent, it was now Blent only as a scene, a frame, a background. When he pictured Blent, Cecily was there; if he thought of her elsewhere, the picture of Blent vanished. He was in love with her then; and what was the quality that Lady Evenswood had praised in a lover? Let him cultivate it how he would--and the culture would be difficult--yet it would not serve here. If he went to Blent against Cecily's commands and his own promise, he could meet with nothing but a rebuff. Yes, he was in love; and he recognized the _impasse_ as fully as Mina herself, although with more self-restraint. But he was glad to know the truth; it strengthened him, and it freed him from a scorn of himself with which he had become afflicted. It was intolerable that a man should be love-sick for a house; it was some solace to find that the house, in order to hold his affections, must hold a woman too.

"Now I know where I am," said Harry. He knew what he had to meet now; he thought he knew how he could treat himself. He went down to Blinkhampton the next morning, harried his builder out of a holiday expedition, and got a useful bit of work in hand. It was, he supposed, inevitable that Cecily should journey with him in the spirit to Blinkhampton; he flattered himself that she got very little chance while he was there. She was the enemy, he declared, with a half-peevish half-humorous smile. It was not altogether without amusement to invent all manner of devices and all sorts of occupations to evade and elude her. He ventured to declare--following the precedents--that she had treated him shamefully. That broke down. Candor insisted once again on his admitting that he himself would have done exactly the same thing. It never occurred to him to regret, even for a moment, that he had not taken her at her word, and had not accepted her offer. That would have been to spoil his dream, not to realize it. He asked perfection or nothing, being still unhealed of that presumptuous way of his, which bade the world go hang if it would not give him exactly what he chose. The Tristram motto was still, "No compromise!"

An unexpected ally came to his assistance. He received a sudden summons from Mr Disney. He found him at work, rather weary and dishevelled. He let Harry in at once, but kept him waiting while he transacted some other business. Here was the place to see him, not in a drawing-room; his brusque words and quick decisions enabled him to do two men's work. He turned to Harry and said without preface:

"We're going to arbitrate this Barililand question, on behalf of the Company, you know, as well as ourselves. Another instance of my weakness! Lord Murchison's going over for us. He starts in a fortnight. He asked me to recommend him a secretary. Will you go?"

Here was help in avoiding Cecily. But what about Blinkhampton? Harry hesitated a moment.

"I should like it, but I've contracted certain obligations of a business kind at home," he said.

"Well, if you're bound, keep your word and do the work. If you find you're not, I should advise you to take this. It's a good beginning. This is Tuesday. Tell me on Saturday. Good-by." He rang a hand-bell on the table, and, as his secretary entered, said, "The Canadian papers, please."

"I'm very grateful to you, anyhow."

"That's all right, Tristram. Good-by."

There was no doubt what would be the practical way of showing gratitude. Harry went out.

He left Mr Disney's presence determined to accept the offer if Iver could spare his services for the time. The determining cause was still Blent, or his cousin at Blent. Blinkhampton was not far enough away; it rather threw him with people who belonged to the old life than parted him from them. He was weak himself too; while the people were at hand, he would seek them, as he had sought Lady Evenswood. At the Arbitration he would be far off, beyond the narrow seas and among folk who, recognizing the peculiarity of his position, would make a point of not mentioning Blent or speaking of anybody connected with it. It was from this point of view that he was inclined toward the offer, and he did not disguise it from himself; but for it he would rather have gone on with Blinkhampton, perhaps because he had a free hand there, while he could go to the Arbitration only as a subordinate. Blent apart, the offer was valuable to him as a sign of Disney's appreciation rather than on its own account.

He went home and wrote to Iver. The letter weighed all considerations save the one which really weighed with him; he put himself fairly in Iver's hands but did not conceal his own wish; he knew that if Iver were against the idea on solid business grounds, he would not be affected by Harry's personal preference. But the business reasons, when examined, did not seem very serious, and Harry thought that he would get leave to go. He rose from his writing with a long sigh. If he received the answer he expected, he was at the parting of the ways; and he had chosen the path that led directly and finally away from Blent.

An evening paper was brought to him. A tremendous headline caught his notice. "Resignation of Lord Hove! He will not arbitrate about Barililand. Will the Government break up?" Probably not, thought Harry; and it was odd to reflect that, if Lord Hove had got his way, he would have lost his heroic remedy. So great things and small touch and intersect one another. Perhaps Theo (who could now settle that question about the kicking with his friends) would maintain that Flora Disney had talked too much to Harry at dinner, instead of taking all pains to soothe Lord Hove!

It was his last struggle; he had no doubt that he could win, but the fight was very fierce. Impatient of his quiet rooms, he went out into the crowded streets. At first he found himself envying everybody he passed--the cabman on his box, the rough young fellows escaped from the factory, the man who sold matches and had no cares beyond food and a bed. But presently he forgot them all and walked among shadows. He was at Blent in spirit, sometimes with Addie Tristram, sometimes with Cecily. His imagination undid what his hand had done; he was smiling again at the efforts of Duplay to frighten or to displace him. Thus he would be happy for a moment, till reality came back and a dead dulness settled on his soul. Half afraid of himself, he turned round and made for home again; he could not be sure of his self-control. But again he mastered that, and again paced the streets, now in a grim resolution to tire mind and body, so that these visions should have nothing to work on and, finding blank unresponsive weariness, should go their ways and leave him in an insensible fatigue. Ever since he disclaimed his inheritance he had been living in a stress of excitement that had given him a fortitude half unnatural; now this support seemed to fail, and with it went the power to bear.

The remedy worked well; at eight o'clock he found himself very tired, very hungry, unexpectedly composed. He turned into a little restaurant to dine. The place was crowded, and rather shamefacedly (as is the national way) he sat down at a small table opposite a girl in a light-blue blouse and a very big hat, who was eating risotto and drinking lager beer. She assumed an air of exaggerated primness and gentility, keeping her eyes down toward her plate, and putting very small quantities into her mouth at a time. Glad of distraction, Harry watched her with amusement. At last she glanced up stealthily.

"A fine evening," he said, as he started on his chop.

"Very seasonable," she began in a mincing tone; but suddenly she broke off to exclaim in a voice and accent more natural and spontaneous, "Good gracious, I've seen you before, haven't I?"

"I'm not aware that I ever had the honor," said Harry.

"Well, I know your face, anyhow." She was looking at him and searching her memory. "You're not at the halls, are you?"

"No, I'm not at the halls."

"Well, I do know your face--Why, yes, I've seen your face in the papers. I shall get it in a minute now--don't you tell me." She studied him with determination. Harry ate away in contented amusement. "Yes, you're the man who--why, yes, you're Tristram?"

"That's right. I'm Tristram."

"Well, to think of that! Meeting you! Well, I shall have something to tell the girls. Why, a friend of mine wrote down to the country, special, for your photo."

"That must have proved a disappointment, I'm afraid. The romance was better than the hero."

"You may say romance!" she conceded heartily. "To be a lord and----!" She leant forward. "I say, how do you get your living now?"

"Gone into the building-trade," he answered.

"You surprise me!" The observation was evidently meant to be extremely civil. "But there, it isn't so much what your job is as having some job. That's what I say."

"I wish I always said--and thought--things as sensible;" and he took courage to offer her another glass of lager. She accepted with a slight recrudescence of primness; but her eyes did not leave him now. "I never did!" he heard her murmur as she raised her glass. "Well, here's luck to you, sir! (He had been a lord even if he were now a builder). You did the straight thing in the end."

"What?" asked Harry, a little startled.

"Well, some did say as you'd known it all along. Oh, I don't say so; some did."

Harry began to laugh. "It doesn't matter, does it, if I did the straight thing in the end?"

"I'm sure as I shouldn't blame you if you had been a bit tempted. I know what that is! Well, sir, I'll say good-evening."

"Good-evening, miss, and thank you very much," said Harry, rising as she rose. His manner had its old touch of lordliness. His friends criticised that sometimes; this young lady evidently approved.

"You've no cause to thank me," said she, with an admiring look.

"Yes, I have. As it happened, I believe I wanted somebody to remind me that I had done the straight thing in the end, and I'm much obliged to you for doing it."

"Well, I shall have something to tell the girls!" she said again in wondering tones, as she nodded to him and turned slowly away.

Harry was comforted. The stress of his pain was past. He sat on over his simple meal in a leisurely comfortable fashion. He was happy in the fact that his enemy had at least nothing with which she could reproach him, that he had no reason for not holding his head erect before her. And the girl's philosophy had been good. He had a job, and that was the great thing in this world. He felt confident that the struggle was won now, and that it would never have to be fought again in so severe a fashion. His self-respect was intact; if he had been beaten, he would never have forgiven himself.

He regained his rooms. A letter lay waiting for him on the table. He opened it and found that it was from Mina Zabriska.

"We are back here," she wrote. "I am staying at Blent till my uncle
comes down. I must write and say good-by to you. I dare say we
shall never meet again, or merely by chance. I am very unhappy
about it all, but with two people like Cecily and you nothing else
could have happened. I see that now, and I'm not going to try to
interfere any more. I shan't ask you to forgive me for interfering,
because you've made the result quite enough punishment for anything
I did wrong. And now Cecily goes about looking just like you--hard
and proud and grim; and she's begun to move things about and alter
arrangements at Blent. That's what brings it home to me most of
all. ('And to me,' interposed Harry as he read.) If I was the sort
of woman you think me, I should go on writing to you. But I shan't
write again. I am going to stay at Merrion through the winter, and
since you won't come here, this is the last of me for a long time
anyhow. Oh, you Tristrams! Good-by,

MINA ZABRISKA."

"Poor little Imp!" said Harry. "She's a very good sort; and she seems about right. It's the end of everything." He paused and looked round. "Except of these rooms--and my work--and, well, life at large, you know!" He laughed in the sudden realization of how much was left after there was an end of all--life to be lived, work to be done, enjoyments to be won. He could know this, although he could hardly yet feel it in any very genuine fashion. He could project his mind forward to a future appreciation of what he could not at the moment relish; and he saw that life would be full and rich with him, even although there were an end of all. "But I don't believe," he said to himself, slowly smiling, "that I should ever have come to understand that or to--to fulfil it unless I had--what did the girl say?--done the straight thing in the end, and come out of Blent. Well, old Blent, good-by!" He crumpled up Mina's letter, and flung it into the grate.

The maid-servant opened the door. "Two gentlemen to see you, sir," she said.

"Oh, say I'm busy----" he began.

"We must see you, please," insisted Mr Jenkinson Neeld, with unusual firmness. He turned to the man with him, saying: "Here is Mr Tristram, Colonel Edge."

XXV

THERE'S THE LADY TOO!

There was nothing very remarkable about Colonel Wilmot Edge. He was a slightly built, trim man, but his trimness was not distinctively military. He might have been anything, save that just now the tan on his face witnessed to an out-of-door life. His manner was cold, his method of speech leisurely and methodical. At first sight Harry saw nothing in him to modify the belief in which he had grown up--that the Edges were an unattractive race, unable to appreciate Tristrams, much less worthy to mate with them. He gave the Colonel a chair rather grudgingly, and turned to old Mr Neeld for an explanation of the visit.

Neeld had fussed himself into a seat already, and had drawn some sheets of paper covered with type-writing from his pocket. He spread them out, smoothed them down, cleared his throat, and answered Harry's look by a glance at Edge. Mr Neeld was in a fidget, a fidget of importance and expectancy.

"You will know," said Edge gravely, "that no ordinary matter has led me to call on you, Mr Tristram. However little we may be responsible for the past, we have to recognize it. I should not, under ordinary circumstances, have sought your acquaintance. You must consider this interview purely as one of a business kind. I have just returned to England. For two months I have been out of the way of receiving letters or newspapers. I went to the Imperium Club to-night--I arrived only this morning--and dined in Neeld's company. As it chanced, we spoke of you, and I learnt what has happened since I left England. I have lost no time in calling on you."

Neeld was listening and fidgeting with his sheets of paper. The Colonel's preamble excited little interest in Harry. The reaction of his struggle was on him; he was courteously but not keenly attentive.

"It is not agreeable to me to speak of my brother to you, Mr Tristram. Doubtless we should differ if we discussed his character and conduct. It is not necessary."

"Is Sir Randolph Edge concerned in what you have to say to me?" asked Harry.

"Yes, I am sorry to say he is. Another person is concerned also."

"One moment. You are, of course, aware that I no longer represent my family? Legally I'm not even a member of it. It is possible that you ought to address yourself to Lady Tristram--my cousin--or to her lawyers."

"I have to speak to you. Is the name of the Comtesse d'Albreville known to you, Mr Tristram?"

"Yes, I've heard my mother speak of meeting her in Paris."

"That would be when Lady Tristram was residing with my brother?"

"My mother was never in Paris after that, I believe. It would be at that time, Colonel Edge."

"You are aware that later--after he parted from Lady Tristram--my brother went to Russia, where he had business interests?"

"I have very good reason to know that." Harry smiled at Mr Neeld, who had apparently got all he could out of his papers, and was sitting quiet and upright in an eager attention.

"What I am about to say is known, I believe, to myself alone--and to Neeld here, to whom I told it to-night. While my brother was in Russia, he was joined by the Comtesse. She paid him a visit--secretly, I need hardly add. She passed under the name of Madame Valfier, and she resided in the house adjoining Randolph's. Lady Tristram was not, of course, aware of the relations between her and my brother. I will come now to the time of my brother's death. When he fell ill, he had just completed the sale of one of his Russian properties. Lady Tristram did not, I dare say, speak of the Comtesse's character to you?"

"I never remember hearing my mother speak of anybody's character," said Harry with a smile.

"She was a brilliant woman--she died, by the way, two or three years ago--but extravagant and fond of money. She prevailed on my brother to promise her the price of this property as a gift. The sum was considerable--about seven thousand pounds."

Harry nodded. Here seemed to be some possible light on the reasons for the interview.