Part 122

"Yes, but you've sent away the fly," objected Harry. "Well, all that you said of me was true too."

"We should start on a clear understanding then?"

"I'm a liar--and you're a curmudgeon? Yes."

"What awful quarrels we shall have!"

"I don't care a hang for them," said Harry.

"And what about the Arbitration?"

"Absurd, if I'm going to live in a state of war!"

Suddenly came a sound of wheels rolling briskly along the road from behind them. Cecily sprang away with a start.

"Oh, the fly's not come back?" she cried.

"Perhaps there's still a chance for one of us."

She caught him by the arm. "Listen! Is it stopping? No! It must be past the house!"

"Do you want it to stop?" he asked.

She turned her eyes on him; he saw them gleam through the darkness. He saw her lips just move; he heard no more than the lingering fear, the passionate reproach, of her murmured exclamation, "Oh, Harry!"

The next instant a voice rang out in the night, loud, mellow, and buoyant. They listened as it sang, its notes dominating the sound of the wheels and seeming to fill the air around them, growing louder as the wheels came near, sinking again as they passed on the road to Mingham:

"Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine: Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine:--"

Gradually, melodiously, and happily the voice died away in the distance, and silence came. Harry drew his love to him.

"Dear old Bob Broadley!" said he softly. "He's driving back from Fairholme, and he seems most particularly jolly."

"Yes," she murmured. Then she broke into a low, merry, triumphant laugh. "I don't see why he should be so particularly jolly." She pressed his hand hard, laughing again. "He's only engaged," she whispered. "But we're married, aren't we, Harry?"

"My dear, my dear, my dear!" said he.

XXX

TILL THE NEXT GENERATION

Major Duplay had taken a flat in town, and Mina had come up to aid him in the task of furnishing it. The Major was busy and prosperous in these days. Blinkhampton was turning up trumps for all concerned, for Iver, for Harry, for Southend, and for him; the scheme even promised to be remunerative to the investing public. So he had told Mina that he must be on the spot, and that henceforward the country and the Continent would know him only in occasional days of recreation. He also murmured something about having met a very attractive woman, a widow of thirty-five. The general result seemed to be that he had forgotten his sorrows, was well content, and a good deal more independent of his niece's society and countenance than he had been before. All this Mina told to Lady Evenswood when she went to lunch in Green Street.

"Yes, I think I've launched uncle," said she complacently, "and now I shall devote myself to the Tristrams."

"You've been doing that for a long time, my dear."

"Yes, I suppose I have really," she laughed. "I've been a sort of Miss Swinkerton--I wish you knew her! Only I devoted myself to one family and she does it for all the neighborhood."

Lady Evenswood looked at her with a kindly smile.

"You were rather in love with Harry, you know," she said.

"Which was very absurd, but--yes, I was. Only then Cecily came and--well, it was altogether too artistic for me even to want to interfere. If I had wanted, it would have made no difference, of course. They've been pressing me to go on living at Merrion, and I shall."