Part 87

"The name? The difficulty about the name?" he asked.

"If it had been a barony--well, hers would take precedence, of course. With the higher degree yours will come first, and her barony be merged--Viscount Blentmouth, eh, Harry?" He chuckled with glee.

"Viscount Blentmouth be hanged!" cried Harry. He mastered himself with an effort. "I beg your pardon, Lady Evenswood; and I'm much obliged to you, and to you too, Lord Southend, for--for screwing Mr Disney up. It's not a thing I could or should have done or tried to do for myself." In spite of his attempted calmness his voice grew a little louder. "I want nothing but what's my own. If nothing's my own, well and good--I can wait till I make it something."

"But, my dear Harry----!" began the discomfited Southend. Harry cut him short, breaking again into impetuous speech.

"There's nothing between my cousin and me. There's no question of marriage and never can be. And if there were----" He seemed to gather himself up for a flight of scorn--"If there were, do you think I'm going to save my own pride by saddling the family with a beastly new viscounty?"

His tones rose in indignation on the last sentence, as he looked from one to the other. "Viscount Blentmouth indeed!" he growled.

Southend's hands were out before him in signal of bewildered distress. Lady Evenswood looked at Harry, then, with a quick forward inclination of her body, past him; and she began to laugh.

"Thank you very much, but I've been Tristram of Blent," ended Harry, now in a very fine fume, and feeling he had been much insulted.

Still looking past him, Lady Evenswood sat laughing quietly. Even on Southend's face came an uneasy smile, as he too looked toward the door. After a moment's furious staring at the two Harry faced round. The door had been softly and noiselessly opened to the extent of a couple of feet. A man stood in the doorway, tugging at a ragged beard and with eyes twinkling under rugged brows. Who was he, and how did he come there? Harry heard Lady Evenswood's laughter; he heard her murmur to herself with an accent of pleasure, "A beastly new viscounty!" Then the man in the doorway came a little farther in, saying:

"That's exactly what I think about it, Mr Tristram. I've heard what you said and I agree with you. There's an end, then, of the beastly new viscounty!" He looked mockingly at Southend. "I've been screwed up all for nothing, it seems," said he.

"Why, you're----?"

"Let me introduce myself, Mr Tristram. I came to look for my wife, and my name is Disney. I intend to keep mine, and I know better than to try to alter yours."

"I thought it would end like this!" cried Lady Evenswood.

"Shan't we say that it begins like this?" asked Mr Disney. His look at Harry was a compliment.

XXIII

A DECREE OF BANISHMENT

The Imp cried--absolutely cried for vexation--when a curt and sour note from Southend told her the issue. The blow struck down her excitement and her exultation. Away went all joy in her encounter with Mr Disney, all pride in the skill with which she had negotiated with the Prime Minister. The ending was pitiful--disgusting and pitiful. She poured out her heart's bitterness to Major Duplay, who had come to visit her.

"I'm tired of the whole thing, and I hate the Tristrams!" she declared.

"It always comes to that in time, Mina, when you mix yourself up in people's affairs."

"Wasn't it through you that I began to do it?"

The Major declined to argue the question--one of some complexity perhaps.

"Well, I've got plenty to do in London. Let's give up Merrion and take rooms here."

"Give up Merrion!" She was startled. But the reasons she assigned were prudential. "I've taken it till October, and I can't afford to. Besides, what's the use of being here in August?"

"You won't drop it yet, you see." The reasons did not deceive Duplay.

"I don't think I ought to desert Cecily. I suppose she'll go back to Blent. Oh, what an exasperating man he is!"

"Doesn't look as if the match would come off now, does it?"

"It's just desperate. The last chance is gone. I don't know what to do."

"Marry him yourself," advised the Major. Though it was an old idea of his, he was not very serious.