Part 88

"I'd sooner poison him," said Mina decisively. "What must Mr Disney think of me?"

"I shouldn't trouble about that. Do you suppose he thinks much at all, Mina?" (That is the sort of remark which relatives sometimes regard as consolatory.) "I think Harry Tristram as much of a fool as you do," Duplay added. "If he'd taken it, he could have made a good match anyhow, even if he didn't get Lady Tristram."

"Cecily's just as bad. She's retired into her shell. You don't know that way of hers--of theirs, I suppose it is, bother them! She's treating everybody and everything as if they didn't exist."

"She'll go back to Blent, I suppose?"

"Well, she must. Somebody must have it."

"If it's going begging, call on me," said the Major equably. He was in a better humor with the world than he had been for a long while; his connection with Iver promised well. But Mina sniffed scornfully; she was in no mood for idle jests.

Cecily had been told about the scheme and its lamentable end. Her attitude was one of entire unconcern. What was it to her if Harry were made a viscount, a duke, or the Pope? What was anything to her? She was going back to her father at Blent. The only animation she displayed was in resenting the reminder, and indeed denying the fact, that she had ever been other than absolutely happy and contented at Blent. Mina pressed the point, and Cecily then declared that now at any rate her conscience was at rest. She had tried to do what was right--at what sacrifice Mina knew; the reception of her offer Mina knew. Now perhaps Mina could sympathize with her, and could understand the sort of way in which Cousin Harry received attempts to help him. On this point they drew together again.

"You must come back to Merrion, dear," urged Cecily.

Mina, who never meant to do anything else, embraced her friend and affectionately consented. It is always pleasant to do on entreaty what we might be driven to do unasked.

Good-by had to be said to Lady Evenswood. That lady was very cheerful about Harry; she was, hardly with any disguise, an admirer of his conduct, and said that undoubtedly he had made a very favorable impression on Robert. She seemed to make little of the desperate condition of affairs as regarded Cecily. She was thinking of Harry's career, and that seemed to her very promising. "Whatever he tries I think he'll succeed in," she said. That was not enough for Mina; he must try Mina's things--those she had set her heart on--before she could be content. "But you never brought Cecily to see me," Lady Evenswood complained. "And I'm just going away now."

That was it, Mina decided. Lady Evenswood had not seen Cecily. She had approached the Tristram puzzle from one side only, and had perceived but one aspect of it. She did not understand that it was complex and double-headed; it was neither Harry nor Cecily, but Harry and Cecily. Mina had been in that state of mind before Cecily came on the scene; it was natural now in Lady Evenswood. But it rendered her really useless. It was a shock to find that, all along, in Lady Evenswood's mind Cecily had been a step toward the peerage rather than the peerage the first step toward Cecily. Mina wondered loftily (but silently) how woman could take so slighting a view of woman.

"And Flora Disney has quite taken him up," Lady Evenswood pursued. "George tells me he's been to lunch there twice. George is a terrible gossip."

"What does Lady Flora Disney want with him?"

"Well, my dear, are you going to turn round and say you don't understand why he interests women?"

"I don't see why he should interest Lady Flora." Mina had already made up her mind that she hated that sort of woman. It was bad enough to have captured Mr Disney; must the insatiate creature draw into her net Harry Tristram also?

"And of course he's flattered. Any young man would be."

"I don't think he's improved since he left Blent."

"Country folks always say that about their young men when they come to town," smiled Lady Evenswood. "He's learning his world, my dear. And he seems very sensible. He hasn't inherited poor Addie's wildness."

"Yes, he has. But it only comes out now and then. When it does----"

"It won't come out with Flora," Lady Evenswood interrupted reassuringly. "And at any rate, as you may suppose, I'm going to leave him to his own devices. Oh, I think he's quite right, but I don't want to be wrong myself again, that's all."

But another thing was to happen before Mina went back to the valley of the Blent; a fearful, delightful thing. An astonishing missive came--a card inviting her to dine with Mr and Lady Flora Disney. She gasped as she read it. Had Lady Flora ever indulged in the same expression of feeling, it would have been when she was asked to send it. Gasping still, Mina telegraphed for her best frock and all the jewelled tokens of affection which survived to testify to Adolf Zabriska's love. It was in itself an infinitely great occasion, destined always to loom large in memory; but it proved to have a bearing on the Tristram problem too.

For Harry was there. He sat on the hostess's left; on her other side was handsome Lord Hove, very resplendent in full dress, starred and ribanded. Several of the men were like that; there was some function later on, Mina learnt from an easy-mannered youth who sat by her and seemed bored with the party. Disney came in late, in his usual indifferently fitting morning clothes, snatching an hour from the House, in the strongest contrast to the fair sumptuousness of his wife. He took a vacant chair two places from Mina and nodded at her in a friendly way. They were at a round table, and there were only a dozen there. The easy-mannered youth told her all about them, including several things which it is to be hoped were not true; he seemed to view them from an altitude of good-humored contempt. Mina discovered afterward that he was a cousin of Lady Flora's, and occupied a position in Messrs Coutts's Bank. He chuckled once, remarking:

"Flora's talkin' to Tristram all the time, instead of bein' pleasant to Tommy Hove. Fact is, she hates Tommy, and she'd be glad if the Chief would give him the boot. But the Chief doesn't want to, because Tommy's well in at Court and the Chief isn't."

"Why does Lady Flora hate Lord Hove? He's very handsome."

"Think so? Well, I see so many fellows like that, that I'm beginnin' to hate 'em. Like the 'sweet girl,' don't you know? I hear the Chief thinks Tristram'll train on."

"Do what?" asked Mina absently, looking across at Harry. Harry was quite lively, and deep in conversation with his hostess.

"Well, they might put him in the House, and so on, you know. See that woman next but three? That's Gertrude Melrose; spends more on clothes than any woman in London, and she's only got nine hundred a year. Queer?" He smiled as he consumed an almond.

"She must get into debt," said Mina, gazing at the clothes of inexplicable origin.