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 s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g 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

Lord Southend was devoted to his wife--a state of feeling natural often, creditable always. Yet the reason people gave for it--and gave with something like an explicit sanction from him--was not a very exalted one. Susanna made him so exceedingly comfortable. She was born to manage a hotel and cause it to pay fifteen per cent. Being a person--not of social importance, nothing could make her that--but of social rank, she was forced to restrict her genius to a couple of private houses. The result was like the light of the lamps in the heroine's boudoir, a soft brilliancy: in whose glamour Susanna's plain face and limited intellectual interests were lost to view. She was also a particularly good woman; but her husband knew better than to talk about that.

Behold him after the most perfect of lunches, his arm-chair in exactly the right spot, his papers by him, his cigars to his hand (even these Susanna understood), a sense of peace in his heart, and in his head a mild wonder that anybody was discontented with the world. In this condition he intended to spend at least a couple of hours; after which Susanna would drive him gently once round the Park, take him to the House of Lords, wait twenty minutes, and then land him at the Imperium.

He lit a cigar and took up the _Economist_; it was not the moment for anything exciting.

"A lady to see you, my Lord--on important business."

Excessive comfort is enervating. After a brief and futile resistance he found Mina Zabriska in the room, and himself regarding her with mingled consternation and amus.e.m.e.nt. Relics of excitement hung about the Imp, but they were converted to business purposes. She came as an agent. The name of her princ.i.p.al awoke Southend's immediate interest.

"She's come up to London?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, both of us. We're at their old home."

Southend discovered his _pince-nez_ and studied her thin mobile little face.

"And what have you come up for?" he asked after a pause.

Mina shrugged her shoulders. "Just to see what's going on," she said. "I dare say you wonder what I've got to do with it?" His manner seemed to a.s.sent, and she indicated her position briefly.

"Oh, that's it, is it? You knew the late Lady Tristram. And you knew----" Again he regarded her thoughtfully. "I hope Lady Tristram--the new one--is well?"

There was the sound of a whispered consultation outside the door; it drew Mina's eyes in that direction.

"That's all right," he smiled. "It's only my wife scolding the butler for having let you in. This is my time for rest."

"Rest!" exclaimed Mina rather scornfully. "You wrote to Cecily as if you could do something."

"That was rash of me. What do you want done? I've heard about you from Iver, you know."

"Oh, the Ivers have nothing to do with this. It's just between Cecily and Mr. Tristram."

"And you and me, apparently."

"What was your idea when you wrote? I made Cecily let me come and see you because it sounded as if you had an idea." If he had no idea, it was clear that contempt awaited him.

"I wanted to be friendly. But as for doing anything--well, that hardly depends on me."

"But things can't go on as they are, you know," she said brusquely.

"Unhappily, as I understand the law----"

"Oh, I understand the law too--and very silly it is. I suppose it can't be changed?"

"Good gracious, my dear Madame Zabriska! Changed!" And on this point too! _Nolumus leges Angliae_---- He just stopped himself from the quotation.

"What are Acts of Parliament for?" Mina demanded.

"Absolutely out of the question," he laughed. "Even if everybody consented, absolutely."

"And Harry Tristram wouldn't consent, you mean?"

"Well, could any man?"

Mina looked round the room with a discontented air; there is such a lamentable gulf between feeling that something must be done and discovering what it is.

"I don't say positively that nothing can be done," he resumed after a moment, dangling his gla.s.s and looking at her covertly. "Are you at leisure this afternoon?"

"If you've got anything to suggest." Mina had grown distrustful of his intelligence, and her tone showed it.

"I thought you might like to come and see a friend of mine, who is kind enough to be interested in Harry Tristram." He added, with the consciousness of naming an important person, "I mean Lady Evenswood."

"Who's she?" asked the Imp curtly.

To do them justice, Englishmen seldom forget that allowances must be made for foreigners. Lord Southend explained gravely and patiently.

"Well, let's go," said Mina indifferently. "Not that it seems much use,"

her manner added.

"Excuse me a moment," said he, and he went out to soothe his wife's alarm and a.s.sure her that he was not tired.

As they drove, Mina heard more of Lady Evenswood--among other things, that she had known Addie Tristram as a child; this fact impressed the Imp beyond all the rest. But Lady Evenswood herself made a greater impression still. An unusual timidity a.s.saulted and conquered Mina when she found herself with the white-haired old lady who never seemed to do more than gently suggest and yet exercised command. Southend watched them together with keen amus.e.m.e.nt, while Lady Evenswood drew out of Mina some account of Cecily's feelings and of the scene at Blent.