Part 117

"No, I had a chance and I--funked it," said Harry, slow in speech and slow in smile. "She asked me into her room. Well, I wouldn't go."

He laughed as he spoke, laughed rather scornfully.

"It's rather absurd. I shall be all right after dinner," he added, laughing still. "Or would you like to do the job for me, Mina?"

The Imp shook her head with immense determination. "I'll throw myself into the Blent if you like," she said.

"What about you, Mr Neeld?"

"My dear friend, oh, my dear friend!" Undisguised panic took possession of Mr Neeld. He tried to cover it by saying sternly, "This--er--preposterous position is entirely your own fault, you know. You have acted----"

"Yes, I know," nodded Harry, not impatiently but with a sombre assent. He roused himself the next moment, saying, "Well, somebody's got to bell the cat, you know."

"Really it's not my business," protested Neeld and Mina in one breath, both laughing nervously.

"You like the fun, but you don't want any of the work," remarked Harry.

That was true, true to their disgrace. They both felt the reproach. How were they better than the rest of the neighborhood, who were content to gossip and gape and take the fortunes of the Tristrams as mere matter for their own entertainment?

"I've made you look ashamed of yourselves now," he laughed. "Well, I must do the thing myself, I suppose. What a pity Miss Swinkerton isn't here!"

Cecily came down. She passed Harry with a rather distant air and took Neeld's arm.

"They say dinner's ready," said she. "Mina, will you come with Harry?"

Harry sank into the chair opposite Cecily--and opposite the picture of Addie Tristram on the wall. "Well, somehow I've managed to get back here," said he.

The shadow had passed from Cecily's face. She looked at him, blushing and laughing.

"At a terrible price, poor Harry?" she said.

"At a big price," he answered.

She looked round at the three. Harry was composed, but there was no mistaking the perturbation of the Imp and Mr Neeld.

"A big price?" she asked wonderingly. "Isn't that a queer compliment, Harry?" Then a light seemed to break in on her, and she cried: "You mean the cost of your pride? I should never let that stand between you and me!"

"Will you make a note of that admission, Mina?" said Harry with a smile. "Because you didn't say so always, Cecily. Do you recollect what you once said? 'If ever the time comes, I shall remember!' That was what you said."

She looked at him with a glance that was suddenly troubled. There seemed a meaning in his words. She pushed back her chair and rose from the table.

"I don't want dinner. I'm going into the garden," she said.

They sat still as she went out. Harry refolded his napkin and slowly rose to his feet. "I should have liked it better after dinner," he observed.

Mina and Mr Neeld sat on.

"Are we to dine?" whispered Neeld. There is the body, after all.

"Oh, yes, sir," came in Mason's soothing tones over his shoulder. "We never waited for her late Ladyship." And he handed soup.

"Really Mason is rather a comfort," thought Mr Neeld. The Imp drank a glass of champagne.

XXIX