Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

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

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

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

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

Harry paused a moment, looking for a description.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV

SHE COULD AN' SHE WOULD

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

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

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

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

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

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

They walked on some way in silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She paused a minute, and then nodded significantly.

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

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

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

"Appreciated?" he suggested ironically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, it's very uncommon."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why should it matter what he was?"

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

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

The explanation checked the advance.

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

"Well, good-by."

"Good-by, Miss Janie."

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

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

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

"Will you really?"

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

"Any day you'll----"

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

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

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

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

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

"It looks like it, though."

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

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

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

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

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

"To Mingham? Or to Blent Hall?"

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

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

"But all the same----"

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs Iver sighed and kissed her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You promised to say Mina!"

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

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

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

"Not to me," observed Mina decisively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You think it's all nonsense?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What? Is this more nonsense?"

"No, it isn't nonsense."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those were her two main conclusions.

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

V

THE FIRST ROUND

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mr Tristram."

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

"Do I interrupt you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Since when have blackmailers grown so sensitive?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VI

THE ATTRACTION OF IT

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

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

"I'm afraid so."

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

A gentleman, two tables off, looked round.

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

"Whose brother?" demanded Southend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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