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But to Bob, with the selfishness of man, Mrs Iver's sudden appearance wore rather an amusing aspect. It certainly could not spoil his triumph or impair his happiness. "My mother told it me just as a bit of gossip. She didn't believe it, no more did I." "But you repeated it." It was Iver who was pressing her. He was not now the kind host Mina knew so well.
Mina glanced from her uncle's face to Iver's. Both men were stern and gloomy. Her sense of heroism barely supported her; things were so very uncomfortable. If Harry could know what she suffered for him, it would be something. But Mina had an idea that Harry was thinking very little about her.
Bob Broadley was listening to Iver's views on local affairs; he was not in the fight at all, but he was covertly watching it. Perhaps Iver watched too, but it was not easy to penetrate the thoughts of that astute man of business. The fortune of battle seemed to incline to Harry's side; the Major was left out of the talk for minutes together.
And he had less excuse for his crime than she. He was even more in Iver's debt; he had eaten his bread these weeks past; even now he was pretending to be his adviser and his witness; his deception was deeper than hers.
In spite of Mrs Iver's secret opinion that people with strange names were likely to be strange themselves, and that, for all she saw, foreigners were not fools, as Dr Johnson's friend thought but generally knaves, an acquaintance was soon made between Fairholme and Merrion Lodge. Her family was against Mrs Iver; her husband was boundlessly hospitable, Janie was very sociable.
Mina, remembering how he had terrorized the secret out of her before, and resenting the humiliation of the memory, stiffened her neck once more. "I've nothing to say. You must do as you think best," she said. "You must be made to speak." Iver's threats alarmed where Duplay's only annoyed. He spoke calmly and with weight. "Who can make me speak?" she cried, more angry from her fear. "The law.
I know the facts; I could get, but have not yet got, the proof of them." "Then don't waste your money, Major Duplay." He waited an instant before he gave a deeper thrust. "Or Iver's because I don't think your purse is long enough to furnish the resources of war. You'd get the money from him? I'm beginning to wonder more and more at the views people contrive to take of their own actions."
"So I did, but my tongue's out of practice with young ladies' Christian names. Why, I call my wife 'Mother' only Janie says I mustn't. Yes, come and cheer us up. I shall make the uncle a crack player before long. Mustn't let him get lazy and spend half the day over five o'clock tea, though." This was hardly a hint, but it was an indication of the trend of Mr Iver's thoughts.
The relief in Duplay's mind was so great that he could not explain it, until he realized that his niece's way of treating him had so stuck in his memory that he had been prepared to be turned from Iver's doors with contumely. Such an idea seemed absurd now, and the Major laughed. Mina was strange, Duplay never ceased to think that.
"He released her, and she accepted the release." "What, on the ground that ?" "Really I don't know any more. But it's finally over; you may depend upon that." Southend lit a cigar with a satisfied air. On the whole he was glad to hear the news. "Staying much longer in town?" he asked. "No, I'm going down to Iver's again in August." "You want to see the end of it? Come, I know that's it!"
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