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Why, if you made your way into the library at Blent, you might happen on a find there! A lot of interesting stuff there, I'm told. And we shall be very grateful for a visit." Neeld was conscious of a strong desire to go to Blentmouth. But it would be a wrong thing to do; he felt that he could not fairly accept Iver's hospitality.
"Well yes, I am," answered Neeld, smiling. And they shook hands. Here was the beginning of a friendship; here, also, Neeld's entry on the scene where Harry Tristram's fortunes formed the subject of the play. It was now a foregone conclusion that Mr Neeld would fall before temptation and come to Blentmouth.
Harry wanted to marry Janie Iver! With a sudden revulsion of feeling Neeld wished himself far from Blentmouth. However it was his duty to talk to this sharp little foreign woman, and he meant to try. A few polite questions brought him to the point of inquiring her nationality. "Oh, we're Swiss, French Swiss. But I was born at Heidelberg. My mother lived there after my father died.
He sat in the landau with his back to the horses and pointed out the features of interest on the road; his couple of days' stay in the neighborhood seemed to have made him an old inhabitant. "Five hundred population five years ago," he observed, waving his hand over Blentmouth in patronizing encouragement.
"That's Fairholme," Sloyd went on, as they came to a large and rather new house situated on the skirts of Blentmouth. "Observe the glass those houses cost thousands of pounds grows peaches all the year, they tell me. At this point, Madame Zabriska, we turn and pursue the road by the river."
Later in the afternoon Southend dropped in at the Imperium, where to his surprise and pleasure he found Iver in the smoking-room. Asked how he came to be in town, Iver explained: "I really ran away from the cackling down at Blentmouth.
They were both struck with this strange coincidence as it seemed to them; though in fact that they should meet at Blentmouth was not properly a coincidence at all. There was nothing surprising about it; the same cause and similar impulses had brought them both there.
"Do you mind saying Mr. Tristram? Saying Mr. Tristram to me and to everybody for the present? It won't be for long; a week perhaps." "You mean, keep the change in the position a secret?" Edge seemed rather startled. "You've kept the secret for many years, Colonel. Shall we say a week more? And you too, Mr. Neeld? Nothing at all to the people at Blentmouth?
"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.
Neeld was left without any clear idea that his companion's concern with the Tristrams was more than that of a neighbor or beyond what an ancient family with odd episodes in its history might naturally inspire. "Oh, you must come to Blentmouth, Mr Neeld, you must indeed. For a few days, now? Choose your time, only let it be soon.