oundings gave. "I
love it all so much," she murmured, half perhaps to herself, yet still
as a plea to him that he would not seek to hurry her from the place.

Harry turned away, again with that despair on him. She gave him
permission to go, but he could not leave her--neither her nor now the
room. Yet he was afraid that he could not answer for himself if he
stayed. It was too strange that every association, and every tradition,
and every emotion which had through all the years seemed to justify and
even to sanctify his own position and the means he was taking to
preserve it, should in two or three days begin to desert him, and should
now in this hour openly range themselves against him and on her side; so
that all he invoked to aid him pleaded for her, all that he had prayed
to bless him and his enterprise blessed her and cursed the work to which
he had put his hand.

Which of them could best face the world without Blent? Which of them
could best look the world in the face having Blent? These were the
questions that rose in his mind with tempestuous insistence.

"I could sit here forever," she murmured, a lazy enjoyment succeeding to
the agile movements of her body and the delighted agitation of her
nerves. "It just suits me to sit here, cousin Harry. Looking like a
great lady!" Her eyes challenged him to deny that she looked the part to
perfection. She glanced through the window. "I met that funny little
Madame Zabriska who lives up at Merrion Lodge to-day. She seems very
anxious to know all about us."

"Madame Zabriska has a healthy--or unhealthy--curiosity." The mention of
Mina was a fresh prick. Mina knew; suddenly he hated that she should
know.

"Is she in love with you?" asked Cecily, mockingly yet languidly, indeed
as a great lady might inquire about the less exalted, condescending to
be amused.

"Nobody's in love with me, not even the girl who's going to marry me."

"To marry you?" She sat up, looking at him. "Are you engaged?"

"Yes, to Janie Iver. You know who I mean?"

"Yes, I know. You're going to be married to her?"

"I asked her a week ago. To-day she wrote to say she'd have me." He was
on his feet even as he spoke. "To marry me and to marry all this, you
know."

She was too sympathetic to waste breath on civil pretences.

"To be mistress here? To own this? To be Lady Tristram of Blent?"

"Yes. To have what--what I'm supposed to have," said he.

Cecily regarded him intently for another mom