Tristram. I've heard what you
said and I agree with you. There's an end, then, of the beastly new
viscounty!" He looked mockingly at Southend. "I've been screwed up all
for nothing, it seems," said he.

"Why, you're----?"

"Let me introduce myself, Mr Tristram. I came to look for my wife, and
my name is Disney. I intend to keep mine, and I know better than to try
to alter yours."

"I thought it would end like this!" cried Lady Evenswood.

"Shan't we say that it begins like this?" asked Mr Disney. His look at
Harry was a compliment.

XXIII

A DECREE OF BANISHMENT

The Imp cried--absolutely cried for vexation--when a curt and sour note
from Southend told her the issue. The blow struck down her excitement
and her exultation. Away went all joy in her encounter with Mr Disney,
all pride in the skill with which she had negotiated with the Prime
Minister. The ending was pitiful--disgusting and pitiful. She poured out
her heart's bitterness to Major Duplay, who had come to visit her.

"I'm tired of the whole thing, and I hate the Tristrams!" she declared.

"It always comes to that in time, Mina, when you mix yourself up in
people's affairs."

"Wasn't it through you that I began to do it?"

The Major declined to argue the question--one of some complexity
perhaps.

"Well, I've got plenty to do in London. Let's give up Merrion and take
rooms here."

"Give up Merrion!" She was startled. But the reasons she assigned were
prudential. "I've taken it till October, and I can't afford to. Besides,
what's the use of being here in August?"

"You won't drop it yet, you see." The reasons did not deceive Duplay.

"I don't think I ought to desert Cecily. I suppose she'll go back to
Blent. Oh, what an exasperating man he is!"

"Doesn't look as if the match would come off now, does it?"

"It's just desperate. The last chance is gone. I don't know what to do."

"Marry him yourself," advised the Major. Though it was an old idea of
his, he was not very serious.

"I'd sooner poison him," said Mina decisively. "What must Mr Disney
think of me?"

"I shouldn't trouble about that. Do you suppose he thinks much at all,
Mina?" (That is the sort of remark which relatives sometimes regard as
consolatory.) "I think Harry Tristram as much of a fool as you do,"
Duplay added. "If he'd taken it, he could have made a good match anyhow,
even if he didn't get Lady Tristram."

"Cecily's just as bad. She's retired into her shell.