o Blent." With a laugh she fell on her knees.
"Please forgive me what I said about the river and the bric-a-brac, dear
darling Blent!"

XVIII

CONSPIRATORS AND A CRUX

Lord Southend was devoted to his wife--a state of feeling natural often,
creditable always. Yet the reason people gave for it--and gave with
something like an explicit sanction from him--was not a very exalted
one. Susanna made him so exceedingly comfortable. She was born to manage
a hotel and cause it to pay fifteen per cent. Being a person--not of
social importance, nothing could make her that--but of social rank, she
was forced to restrict her genius to a couple of private houses. The
result was like the light of the lamps in the heroine's boudoir, a soft
brilliancy: in whose glamour Susanna's plain face and limited
intellectual interests were lost to view. She was also a particularly
good woman; but her husband knew better than to talk about that.

Behold him after the most perfect of lunches, his arm-chair in exactly
the right spot, his papers by him, his cigars to his hand (even these
Susanna understood), a sense of peace in his heart, and in his head a
mild wonder that anybody was discontented with the world. In this
condition he intended to spend at least a couple of hours; after which
Susanna would drive him gently once round the Park, take him to the
House of Lords, wait twenty minutes, and then land him at the Imperium.
He lit a cigar and took up the _Economist_; it was not the moment for
anything exciting.

"A lady to see you, my Lord--on important business."

Excessive comfort is enervating. 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."

Southend discovered his _pince-nez_ and studied her thin mobile little
face.

"And what have you come up for?" he asked after a pause.

Mina shrugged her shoulders. "Just to see what's going on," she said. "I
dare say you wonder what I've got to do with it?" His manner seemed to
assent, and she indicated her position briefly.

"Oh, that's it, is it? You knew the late Lady Tristram. And you
knew----" Again he regarded her thoughtfully. "I ho