Tristram of Blent Part 50

"I suppose so. I've told you what he said."

"He could take Blentmouth, you know. It's all very simple."

"Well, I'm not sure that our friend Iver isn't keeping that for himself," smiled Southend.

"Oh, he can be Lord Bricks and Putty," she suggested, laughing. But there seemed in her words a deplorable hint of scorn for that process by which the vitality (not to say the solvency) of the British aristocracy is notoriously maintained. "Blentmouth would do very well for Harry Tristram."

"Well then, what's to be done?" asked Southend.

"We must give him a hint, George."

"Have we enough to go upon? Suppose Disney turned round and----"

"Robert won't do that. Besides, we needn't pledge anything. We can just put the case." She smiled thoughtfully. "I'm still not quite sure how Mr Tristram will take it, you know."

"How he'll take it? He'll jump at it, of course."

"The girl or the t.i.tle, George?"

"Well, both together. Won't he, Madame Zabriska?"

Mina thought great things of the girl, and even greater, if vaguer, of the t.i.tle.

"I should just think so," she replied complacently. There was a limit to the perversity even of the Tristrams.

"We mustn't put it too baldly," observed Southend, dangling his eyegla.s.s.

"Oh, he'll think more of the thing itself than of how we put it," Lady Evenswood declared.

From her knowledge of Harry, the Imp was exactly of that opinion. But Southend was for diplomacy; indeed what pleasure is there in manuvring schemes if they are not to be conducted with delicacy? A policy that can be defined on a postage stamp has no attraction for ingenious minds, although it is usually the most effective with a nation.

Harry Tristram returned from Blinkhampton in a state of intellectual satisfaction marred by a sense of emotional emptiness. He had been very active, very energetic, very successful. He had new and cogent evidence of his power, not merely to start but to go ahead on his own account.

This was the good side. But he discovered and tried to rebuke in himself a feeling that he had so far wasted the time in that he had seen n.o.body and nothing beautiful. Men of affairs had no concern with a feeling like that. Would Iver have it, or would Mr Disney? Surely not! It would be a positive inconvenience to them, or at best a worthless a.s.set. He traced it back to Blent, to that influence which he had almost brought himself to call malign because it seemed in some subtle way enervating, a thing that sought to clog his steps and hung about those feet which had need to be so alert and nimble. Yet the old life at Blent would not have served by itself now. Was he to turn out so exacting that he must have both lives before he, or what was in him, could cry "Content"? A man will sometimes be alarmed when he realizes what he wants--a woman often.

So he came, in obedience to Lady Evenswood's summons, very confident but rather sombre. When he arrived, a woman was there whom he did not know.

She exhaled fashion and the air of being exactly the right thing. She was young--several years short of forty--and very handsome. Her manner was quiet and well-dowered with repressed humor. He was introduced to Lady Flora Disney, and found himself regarded with unmistakable interest and lurking amus.e.m.e.nt. It was no effort to remember that Mr Disney had married a daughter of Lord Bewdley's. That was enough; just as he knew all about her, she would know all about him; they were both of the pale in a sense that their hostess was, but Lord Southend--well, hardly was--and (absurdly enough) Mr Disney himself not at all. This again was in patent incongruity with Blinkhampton and smelt wofully strong of Blent. Lady Evenswood encouraged Harry to converse with the visitor.

"We're a little quieter," she was saying. "The crisis is dormant, and the bishop's made, and Lord Hove has gone to consult the Duke of Dexminster--which means a fortnight's delay anyhow, and probably being told to do nothing in the end. So I sometimes see Robert at dinner."

"And he tells you things, and you're indiscreet about them!" said Lady Evenswood rebukingly.

"I believe Robert considers me a sort of ante-room to publicity. And it's so much easier to disown a wife than a journalist, isn't it, Mr Tristram?"

"Naturally. The Press have to pretend to believe one another," he said, smiling.

"That's the corner-stone," Southend agreed.

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" pursued Lady Flora. "But Diana was never a wife, if I remember."

"Though how they do it, my dear," marvelled Lady Evenswood, "is what I don't understand."

"I know nothing about them," Lady Flora declared. "And they know nothing about me. They stop at my gowns, you know, and even then they always confuse me with Gertrude Melrose."

"I hope that stops at the gown too?" observed Southend.

"The hair does it, I think. She buys hers at the same shop as I--Now what do I do, Mr Tristram?"

"You, Lady Flora? You know the shop. Is that enough?"

"Yes, or--well, no. I supplement there. I declare I won't wait any longer for Robert."

"He won't come now," said Lady Evenswood. "Is the bishop nice, my dear?"

"Oh, yes, quite plump and gaitery! Good-by, dear Cousin Sylvia. I wish you'd come and see me, Mr Tristram."

Harry, making his little bow, declared that he would be delighted.

"I like to see young men sometimes," observed the lady, retreating.

"The new style," Lady Evenswood summed up, as the door closed.

"And--well, I suppose Robert likes it."

"_Dissimilia dissimilibus_," shrugged Southend, fixing his gla.s.ses.

"It's the only concession to appearances he ever made," sighed Lady Evenswood.

"She's a lady, though."

"Oh, yes. That's what makes it so funny. If she weren't----"

"Yes, it would all be natural enough."

"But we've been wasting your time, Mr Tristram."

"Never less wasted since I was born," protested Harry, who had both enjoyed and learnt.

"No, really I think not," she agreed, smiling. "Flora has her power."

The remark grated on him; he wanted nothing of Flora and her power; it was indeed rather an unfortunate introduction to the business of the afternoon; it pointed Harry's quills a little. Lady Evenswood, with a quick perception, tried to retrieve the observation.

"But she likes people who are independent best," she went on. "So does Robert, if it comes to that. Indeed he never does a job for anyone."

"Carries that too far in my opinion," commented Southend. The moment for diplomacy approached.

But when it came to the point, Lady Evenswood suavely took the task out of his hands. Her instinct told her that she could do it best; he soon came to agree. She had that delicacy which he desired but lacked; she could claim silence when he must have suffered interruption; she could excuse her interference on the ground of old friendship; she could plead an interest which might seem impertinent in him. Above all, she could be elusively lucid and make herself understood without any bluntness of statement.

"If it could be so managed that the whole miserable accident should be blotted out and forgotten!" she exclaimed, as though she implored a personal favor.

"How can that be?" asked Harry. "I was in, and I am out, Lady Evenswood."