anding without
extraneous support.

There it was again! She'd be calling him her "master" next--as the
heroine does in the Third Act, to unfailing applause. What was all this
to ears that listened for a whisper of Harry Tristram?

"The most delightful thing is," Janie pursued, "that our marriage is to
make no change at all in his way of life. We're going to live at Mingham
just as he has lived all his life--a real country life on a farm!" There
was no hint that other ideals of existence had ever possessed an
alluring charm; the high life with Harry, the broad and cosmopolitan
life with the Major--where were they? "I've insisted on it, the one
thing I've had my own way in."

Bob was being transmogrified into a Man of Iron, if not of Blood. Vainly
Mr Neeld consulted his memories.

"And Mingham's so bound up with it all. I used to go there with Mina
Zabriska." She smiled in retrospect; it would have been pardonable if
Neeld had smiled too. "I haven't seen her for ever so long," Janie
added, "but she'll be at Blent to-night."

Ah, if he might give just the barest hint to Mina now!

"Bob isn't particularly fond of her, you see, so we don't meet much now.
He thinks she's rather spiteful."

"Not at all," said Neeld, almost sharply. "She's a very intelligent
woman."

"Oh yes, intelligent!" She said no more. If people did not agree with
Bob--well, there it was.

Bob bore his idealization very well. It was easy to foresee a happy and
a remarkably equable married life. But the whole thing had no flavor for
Mr Neeld's palate, spoilt by the spices of Tristram vagaries. A decent
show of friendliness was all he could muster. It was all that Iver
himself seemed to expect; he was resigned but by no means exultant.

"The girl's very happy, and that's the thing. For myself--well, I've got
most of the things I started to get, and if this isn't quite what I
looked forward to--Well, you remember how things fell out?"

Neeld nodded. He remembered that very well.

"And, as I say, it's all very satisfactory." He shrugged his shoulders
and relighted his cigar. He was decidedly a reasonable man, thought
Neeld.

The evening came--Neeld had been impatient for it--and they drove over
to Blent, where Bob was to meet them.

"It's a fine place for a girl to have," said Iver, stirred to a sudden
sense of the beauty of the old house as it came into view.

They were all silent for a moment. Such a place to have, such a place to
lose! N