"You interested him," Southend a.s.sured her.

"Yes, if anything's been done, you've done it."

They seemed quite sincere. That feeling of being on her head instead of her heels came over Mina again.

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he sent for Harry."

"No, nor if he arranged to meet Cecily Gainsborough--Cecily Tristram, I mean."

"I thought he looked--well, as if he was. .h.i.t--when you mentioned Addie."

"Oh, there's really no telling with Robert. It went off very well indeed. What a lucky thing he came!"

Still bewildered, Mina began, all the same, to a.s.similate this atmosphere of contentment and congratulation.

"Do you really think I--I had anything to do with it?" she asked, a new pride swelling in her heart.

"Yes, yes, you attracted his attention."

"He was amused at you, my dear."

"Then I'm glad." She meant that her sufferings would perhaps not go unrecompensed.

"You must bring Lady Tristram to see me," said Lady Evenswood.

"Cecily? Oh--well, I'll try."

Lady Evenswood smiled and Southend laughed outright. It was not quite the way in which Lady Evenswood's invitations were generally received.

But neither of them liked Mina less.

It was something to go back to the tiny house between the King's and Fulham Road with the record of such adventures as these. Cecily was there, languid and weary; she had spent the whole day in that hammock in the strip of garden in which Sloyd had found her once. Despondency had succeeded to her excitement--this was all quite in the Tristram way--and she had expected no fruit from Mina's expedition. But Mina came home, not indeed with anything very definite, yet laden with a whole pack of possibilities. She put that point about the viscounty, which puzzled her, first of all. It alone was enough to fire Cecily to animation. Then she led up, through Lady Evenswood, to Mr Disney himself, confessing however that she took the encouragement which that great man had given on faith from those who knew him better than she did. Her own impression would have been that he meant to dismiss the whole thing as impossible nonsense.

"Still I can't help thinking we've done something," she ended in triumph.

"Mina, are you working for him or for me?"

This question faced Mina with a latent problem which she had hitherto avoided. And now she could not solve it. For some time back she had been familiarized with the fact that her life was dull when Harry Tristram pa.s.sed out of it. The accepted explanation of that state of feeling was simple enough. But then it would involve Cecily in her turn pa.s.sing out of view, or at least becoming entirely insignificant. And Mina was not prepared for that. She tried hard to read the answer, regarding Cecily earnestly the while.

"Mayn't I work for both of you?" she asked at last.

"Well, I can't see why you should do that," said Cecily, rolling out of the hammock and fretfully smoothing her hair.

"I'm a busy-body. That's it," said Mina.

"You know what'll happen if he finds it out? Harry, I mean. He'll be furious with both of us."

Mina reflected. "Yes, I suppose he will," she admitted. But the spirit of self-sacrifice was on her, perhaps also that of adventure. "I don't care," she said, "as long as I can help."

There was a loud knock at the door. Mina rushed into the front room and saw a man in uniform delivering a letter. The next moment the maid brought it to her--a long envelope with "First Lord of the Treasury"

stamped on the lower left-hand corner. She noticed that it was addressed to Lady Evenswood's house, and must have been sent on post haste. She tore it open. It was headed "Private and Confidential."

"MADAME--I am directed by Mr Disney to request you to state in writing, for his consideration, any facts which may be within your knowledge as to the circ.u.mstances attendant on the marriage of the late Lady Tristram of Blent, and the birth of her son Mr Henry Austen Fitzhubert Tristram. I am to add that your communication will be considered confidential.--I am, Madame, Yours faithfully,

BROADSTAIRS.

"MADAME ZABRISKA."

"Cecily, Cecily, Cecily!" Mina darted back and thrust this wonderful doc.u.ment into Cecily's hands. "He does mean something, you see, he will do something!" she cried. "Oh, who's Broadstairs, I wonder."

Cecily took the letter and read. The Imp reappeared with a red volume in her hand.

"Viscount Broadstairs--eldest son of the Earl of Ramsgate!" she read with wide-open eyes. "And he says he's directed to write, doesn't he?

Well, you are funny in England! But I don't wonder I was afraid of Mr Disney."

"Oh, Mr Disney's secretary, I suppose. But, Mina----" Cecily was alive again now, but her awakening did not seem to be a pleasant one. She turned suddenly from her friend and, walking as far off as the little room would let her, flung herself into a chair.

"What's the matter?" asked Mina, checked in her excited gayety.

"What will Harry care about anything they can give him without Blent?"

Mina flushed. The conspiracy was put before her--not by one of the conspirators but by her who was the object of it. She remembered Lady Evenswood's question and Southend's. She had answered that it might not much matter whether Harry liked his cousin or not. He had not loved Janie Iver. Where was the difference?

"He won't want anything if he can't have Blent. Mina, did they say anything about me to Mr Disney?"

"No," cried Mina eagerly.

"But they will, they mean to?" Cecily was leaning forward eagerly now.

Mina had no denial ready. She seemed rather to hang on Cecily's words than to feel any need of speaking herself. She was trying to follow Cecily's thoughts and to trace the cause of the apprehension, the terror almost, that had come on the girl's face.

"He'll see it--just as I see it!" Cecily went on. "And, Mina----"

She paused again. Still Mina had no words, and no comfort for her. This sight of the other side of the question was too sudden. It was Harry then, and Harry only, who had really been in her thoughts; and Cecily, her friend, was to be used as a tool. There might be little ground for blaming Southend who had never seen her, or Lady Evenswood who had been brought in purely in Harry's interest. But how stood Mina, who was Cecily's friend? Yet at last a thought flashed into her mind and gave her a weapon.

"Well, what did you come to London for?" she cried defiantly. "Why did you come, unless you meant that too?"

Cecily started a little and lay back in her chair.

"Oh, I don't know," she murmured despondently. "He hates me, but if he's offered Blent and me he'll--he'll take us both, Mina, you know he will."

An indignant rush of color came on her cheeks. "Oh, it's very easy for you!"

In a difficulty of that sort it did not seem that even Mr Disney could be of much avail.

"Oh, you Tristrams!" cried Mina in despair.

XIX