Part 6

"Not overwhelmed," he added, as though wishing to correct a wrong impression which yet might reasonably have arisen.

"I didn't mean that. I've met Mr Iver, and he wasn't at all overwhelmed. Mrs Iver was--out--when I called, and I was--out--when she called." Lady Tristram was visibly, although not ostentatiously, allowing for the prejudices of a moral middle-class.

"Young Bob Broadley was there--you know who I mean? At Mingham Farm, up above the Pool."

"I know--a handsome young man."

"I forgot he was handsome. Of course you know him then! What a pity I'm not handsome, mother!"

"Oh, you've the air, though," she observed contentedly. "Is he after Janie Iver?"

"So I imagine. I'm not sure that I'm not too. Have I any chance against Bob Broadley?"

She did not seem to take him seriously.

"They wouldn't look at Mr Broadley." (She was pleasantly punctilious about all titles and courteous methods of reference or address.) "Janie Iver's a great heiress."

"And what about me?" he insisted, as he lit his pipe and sat down opposite her.

"You mean it, Harry?"

"There's no reason why I shouldn't marry, is there?"

"Why, you must marry, of course. But----"

"We can do the blue blood business enough for both."

"Yes, I didn't mean that."

"You mean--am I at all in love with her?"

"No, not quite. Oh, my dear Harry, I mean wouldn't you like to be in love a little with somebody? You could do it after you marry, of course, and you certainly will if you marry now, but it's not so--so comfortable." She looked at him with a sort of pity: her feeling was that he gave himself no holidays.

He sat silent a moment seeming to consider some picture which her suggestion conjured up.

"No good waiting for that," was his conclusion. "Somehow if I married and had children, it would seem to make everything more settled." His great pre-occupation was on him again. "We could do with some more money too," he added, "and, as I say, I'm inclined to like the girl."

"What's she like?"

"What you call a fine girl--tall--well made----"

"She'll be fat some day, I expect."

"Straight features, broadish face, dark, rather heavy brows--you know the sort of thing."

"Oh, Harry, I hate all that!"

"I don't; I rather like it." He was smoking meditatively, and jerked out what he had to say between the puffs. "I shouldn't like to mortgage Blent," he went on a moment later.

"Mortgage Blent? What for?"

He raised a hand to ask to be heard out. "But I should like to feel that I could at any moment lay my hand on a big lump of ready money--say fifty, or even a hundred, thousand pounds. I should like to be able to pull it out of my breeches' pocket and say, 'Take that and hold your tongue!'" He looked at her to see if she followed what was in his mind. "I think they'd take it," he ended. "I mean if things got as far as that, you know."

"You mean the Gainsboroughs?"