Part 8

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.