outhend to nod
thoughtfully: they discussed the probable attitude--a theme too exalted
to be more than mentioned here. "Anyhow the first thing is to sound
Disney," continued Southend.

"I'll think about it after I've seen the young man," Lady Evenswood
promised. "Have you any reason to suppose he likes his cousin?"

"None at all--except, of course, the way he's cleared out for her."

"Yielding gracefully to necessity, I suppose?"

"Really, I doubt the necessity; and, anyhow, the gracefulness needs some
explanation in a case like this. Still I always fancied he was going to
marry another girl, a daughter of a friend of mine--Iver--you know who I
mean?"

"Oh, yes. Bring Harry Tristram to see me," said she. "Good-by, George.
You're looking very well."

"And you're looking very young."

"Oh, I finished getting old before you were forty."

A thought struck Southend. "You might suggest the viscounty as
contingent on the marriage."

"I shan't suggest anything till I've seen the boy--and I won't promise
to then."

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. All our old
ladies are talking fifteen to the dozen about Harry Tristram, and Lady
Tristram, and me, and my family, and--well, I dare say you're in it by
now, Southend! There's an old cat named Swinkerton, who is positively
beyond human endurance; she waylays me in the street. And Mrs Trumbler,
the vicar's wife, comes and talks about Providence to my poor wife every
day. So I fled."

"Leaving your wife behind, I suppose?"

"Oh, she doesn't mind Mrs Trumbler. But I do."

"Well, there's a good deal of cackling up here too. But tell me about
the new girl." Lord Southend did not appear to consider his own question
"cackling" or as tending to produce the same.

"I've only seen her once. She's in absolute seclusion and lets nobody in
except Mina Zabriska--a funny little foreign woman--You don't know her."

"I know about her, I saw it in the paper. She had something to do with
it?"

"Yes." Iver passed away from that side of the subject immediately. "And
she's struck up a friendship with Cecily Gainsborough--Lady Tristram, I
ought to say. I had a few words with the father. The poor old chap
doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels; but as they're of
about equal