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A short chuckle escaped from Lord Southend's lips; he covered it by an exaggerated devotion to his broiled kidneys. Mr Neeld turned pink and murmured incoherent thanks; he felt like a traitor. "Yes, we see a good deal of young Harry," said Iver, with a smile "and of other young fellows about the place too. They don't come to see me, though. I expect Janie's the attraction.
"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.
"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.
Still looking past him, Lady Evenswood sat laughing quietly. Even on Southend's face came an uneasy smile, as he too looked toward the door. After a moment's furious staring at the two Harry faced round. The door had been softly and noiselessly opened to the extent of a couple of feet. A man stood in the doorway, tugging at a ragged beard and with eyes twinkling under rugged brows.
"Ah, I'd begin to listen if he'd told you," was Iver's cautious comment. "You give us the whole of old Joe Cholderton!" was Lord Southend's final injunction. "Imagine if I did!" thought Neeld, beginning to feel some of the joy of holding a secret. Presently Southend took his leave, saying he had an engagement.
"No hurry, give me time" "don't push it" "wait" "do nothing" "the status quo" all these various phrases expressed Lord Southend's earnest and re-iterated advice to the conspirators. A barony had, in his judgment, begun to be a thing which might be mentioned without a smile.
You remember my girl, Southend?" "Well, I suppose Blent's worth nine or ten thousand a year still?" The progress of Lord Southend's thoughts was obvious. "H'm. Seven or eight, I should think, as it's managed now. It's a nice place, though, and would go a good bit better in proper hands." "Paterfamilias considering?" "I don't quite make the young fellow out.
That was enough to make him glower and to bring back something of the old-time look of suspicion to his face. But the greater part of his attention was engrossed by the second half of Southend's ill-advised bit of jubilation. "The name? The difficulty about the name?" he asked. "If it had been a barony well, hers would take precedence, of course.
That wasn't done in the Bearsdale case, nor in any other that I ever heard of." "We shouldn't press that. A barony would do. But if Disney thought that under the very exceptional circumstances a viscounty " "I don't see why you want it," she persisted. The slight embarrassment in Southend's manner stirred the old lady's curiosity.
After a brief and futile resistance he found Mina Zabriska in the room, and himself regarding her with mingled consternation and amusement. Relics of excitement hung about the Imp, but they were converted to business purposes. She came as an agent. The name of her principal awoke Southend's immediate interest. "She's come up to London?" he exclaimed. "Yes, both of us. We're at their old home."
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