s another man might speak of being ready to meet
an improvement-rate or an application from an impecunious brother.

"Don't you think it would be a good precaution?" he asked. Whether he
meant the marriage, the check, or the lady, was immaterial; it came to
the same thing.

"It's all very troublesome," Lady Tristram complained. "It really half
spoils our lives, doesn't it, Harry? One always has to be worrying."

The smile whose movements had excited Mina Zabriska's interest made its
appearance on Harry's face. He had never been annoyed by his mother's
external attitude toward the result of her own doings, but he was often
amused at it.

"Why do you smile?" she asked innocently.

"Well, worrying's a mild term," he explained evasively. "It's my work in
the world, you know--or it seems as if it was going to be."

"You'd better think about it," Lady Tristram concluded, not wishing to
think about it any more herself. "You wouldn't tell Mr Iver anything
about the difficulty, would you?" "The difficulty" had become her usual
way of referring to their secret.

"Not a word. I'm not called upon to justify my position to Iver." No
shadow of doubt softened the clearness of Harry's conviction on this
point.

He rose, filled his pipe again, and began to walk up and down. He was at
his old game, counting chances, one by one, every chance, trying to
eliminate risks, one by one, every risk, so that at last he might take
his ease and say without fear of contradiction, "Here sits Tristram of
Blent." To be thus was--something; but to be safely thus was so much
more that it did not seem to him a great thing to carry out the plan
which he had suggested to Lady Tristram. To be sure, he was not in love
with anybody else, which makes a difference, though it is doubtful
whether it would have made any to him. Had the question arisen at that
moment he would have said that nothing could make any difference.

"Did you go up to the Lodge, Harry?" his mother called to him as one of
his turns brought him near her.

"Oh, yes; I forgot to tell you. I did, and I found Madame Zabriska
having a look at us from the terrace, so I had a little talk with her. I
didn't see the uncle."

"What's she like?" This was a favorite question of Lady Tristram's.

Harry paused a moment, looking for a description.

"Well, if you can imagine one needle with two very large eyes, you'd get
some idea of her. She's sharp, mother--mind and body. Pleasant enough
th