Part 62

"I? Oh, I can't possibly. And your father----?"

"He must stay here. You must come. Run back and pack a bag; you won't want much. I shall go just as I am." With a gesture she indicated the plain black frock she wore. "Oh, I can't be bothered with packing! What does that matter? I'll call for you in the carriage at seven. We mustn't miss the train."

Mina gasped. This was Tristram indeed; the wild resolve was announced in tones calmer than any that Cecily had achieved during the interview. Mina began to think that all the family must have this way of being peculiar in ordinary things, but quite at home when there was an opportunity of doing anything unusual.

"I just feel I must go. If anything's done at all, it'll be done in London, not here."

"How long do you mean to stay?"

"I can't possibly tell. Till something's done. Go now, Mina, or you'll be late."

"Oh, I'm not coming. The whole thing's absurd. What can you do? And, anyhow, it's not my business."

"Very well. I shall go alone. Only I thought you were interested in Harry and--and I thought you were my friend." She threw herself into a chair; she was in Addie Tristram's attitude. "But I suppose I haven't got any friends," she concluded, not in a distressed fashion, but with a pensive submissive little smile.

"You're perfectly adorable," cried Mina, running across to her. "And I'll go with you to Jericho, if you like." She caught Cecily's hands in hers and kissed her cheek.

The scene was transformed in an instant; that also was the Tristram way. Cecily sprang up laughing gayly, even dancing a step or two, as she wrung Mina's hands.

"Hurrah! Marchons! En Avant!" she cried. "Oh, we'll do something, Mina! Don't you hate sitting still?"

"Cecily, are you--are you in love with Harry?"

"Oh, I hope not, I hope not," she laughed softly. "Because he must hate me so. And are you, Mina? Oh, I hope not that too! Come, to London! To seek our fortunes in London! Oh, you tiresome old Blent, how glad I am to leave you!"

"But your father----"

"We'll do things quite nicely, Mina dear. We won't distress father. We'll leave a note for him. Mina, I'm sure Addie Tristram used just to leave a note whenever she ran away! We'll sleep in London to-night!"

Suddenly Mina understood better why Harry had surrendered Blent, and understood too, as her mind flew back, why Addie Tristram had made men do what they had done. She was carried away by this sudden flood of enraptured resolution, of a resolve that seemed like an inspiration, of delight in the unreasonable, of gay defiance to the limits of the possible.

"Oh, yes, you tiresome old Blent!" cried Cecily, shaking her fair hair toward the open window. "How could a girl think she was going to live on river scenes and bric-a-brac?" She laughed in airy scorn. "You must grow more amusing if I'm to come back to you!" she threatened.

River scenes and bric-a-brac! Mina was surprised that Blent did not on the instant punish the blasphemy by a revengeful earthquake or an overwhelming flood. Cecily caught her by the arm, a burlesque apprehension screwing her face up into a fantastically ugly mask.

"It was the Gainsborough in me!" she whispered, "Gainsboroughs can live on curios! But I can't, Mina, I can't. I'm a Tristram, not a Gainsborough. No more could Harry in the end, no more could Harry!"

Mina was panting; she had danced and she had wondered; she was on the tip of the excitement with which Cecily had infected her.

"But what are we going to do?" she cried in a last protest of common-sense.

"Oh, I don't know, but something--something--something," was the not very common-sense answer she received.

It was not the moment for common-sense. Mina scorned the thing and flung it from her. She would have none of it--she who stood between beautiful Addie there on the wall and laughing Cecily here in the window, feeling by a strange and welcome illusion that though there were two visible shapes, there was but one heart, one spirit in the two. Almost it seemed as though Addie had risen to life again, once more to charm and to defy the world. An inexplicable impulse made her exclaim:

"Were you like this before you came to Blent?"

A sudden quiet fell on Cecily. She paused before she answered:

"No, not till I came to Blent." With a laugh she fell on her knees. "Please forgive me what I said about the river and the bric-a-brac, dear darling Blent!"

XVIII

CONSPIRATORS AND A CRUX