h he were delivering a little set speech.

"It's perhaps hardly to be expected," he said, "that any degree of
intimacy should exist between your family and mine, Lord Tristram, but I
venture to hope that the part which it has been my privilege to play
to-day may do something to obliterate the memories of the past. We don't
perhaps know all the rights of it. I am loyal to my brother, but I knew
the late Lady Tristram, and I can appreciate all that her friends valued
and prized in her."

"Very good, Edge, very good," murmured emotional old Mr Neeld. "Very
proper, most proper."

"And I hope that old quarrels need not be eternal?"

"I'm very much in your debt, and I'm sincerely grateful, Colonel Edge.
As for the past--There are graves; let it lie in them."

"Thank you, Lord Tristram, thank you," and the Colonel gave Harry his
hand.

"Excellent, excellent!" muttered Mr Neeld as he folded up the leaves of
Josiah Cholderton's diary.

"You can call on me for proofs whenever you wish to proceed. After what
has occurred, I presume they will be necessary."

"Yes, yes--for his seat," assented Neeld.

"And to satisfy public opinion," added Edge.

There was a pause. Neeld broke it by saying timidly:

"And--er--there is, of course, the--the lady. The lady who now holds the
title and estates."

"Of course!" agreed Edge, with a nod that apologized for forgetfulness.

Of course there was! Harry smiled. He had been wondering how long they
would take to think of the lady who now held the title and estates.
Well, they had come to her at last--after providing for the requirements
of the House of Lords and the demands of public opinion--after
satisfying the girl in the restaurant, in fact. Yes, of course, there
was the lady too.

Though he smiled, he was vexed and suffered a vague disappointment. It
is to be wished that things would happen in a manner harmonious with
their true nature--the tragic tragically, the comic so that laughter
roars out, the melodramatic with the proper limelight effects. To do the
Tristrams justice, this was generally achieved where they were
concerned; Harry could have relied on his mother and on Cecily; he could
rely on himself if he were given a suitable environment, one that
appealed to him and afforded responsive feelings. The family was not in
the habit of wasting its opportunities for emotion. But who could be
emotional now--in face of these two elderly gentlemen? Neeld's example
made such a