Tristram of Blent | Page 8

in spite of the failure of male heirs from time to time, the Tristrams of Blent should always be Tristrams, you know, and not Fitzhuberts, or Leighs, or Merrions----"
"Merrion?"
"My great-great--I forget how many greats--grandfather was a Merrion and----"
"Built this house?"
"Oh, no--a house where this stands. The old house was burnt down in '95."
"As recently as that?" she exclaimed in surprise.
"1795," he explained, "and this house was run up then."
Mina felt that there was here a touch of pride; with a more complete mastery of idiomatic English she might have called it "swagger." Nothing counted that was less than a century old, it seemed, and he spoke of a house of a hundred years' standing as she might of a wooden shanty. Decidedly he was conscious of his position--over-conscious.
"I'm glad it was run up in time for us to take it," she said, thinking she would try the effect of a little chaff.
The effect was nothing; Harry Tristram took no notice of the remark.
"I see," he observed, "from your calling me Fitzhubert that you've been looking up our recent history."
"Oh, just what there is in the 'Peerage.'" Her look was mischievous now, but she restrained herself from any hint of special knowledge. "I'll tell you as much of ours some day."
She broke into a laugh, and then, carried away by the beauty of the scene, the river and the stately peaceful old house by it, she stretched out her hands toward Blent Hall, exclaiming:
"But we haven't anything like that in our history!"
He turned to look with her, and stood in silence for a minute or two. Then he spoke softly.
"Yes, I love it," he said.
She glanced at him; his eyes were tender. Turning, he saw her glance. In a moment he seemed to veil his eyes and to try to excuse the sentimental tone of his remark by a matter-of-fact comment:
"But of course a man comes to like a place when he's been accustomed to think of it as his home for all his life past and to come."
"What would you do if you lost it?" she asked.
"I've no intention of losing it," he answered, laughing, but looking again from her and toward his home. "We've had it six hundred years; we shan't lose it now, I think."
"No, I suppose not." He was holding out his hand. "Good-by, Mr Tristram. May I come and thank your mother?"
"Oh, but she'll come here, if she's well enough."
"I'll save her the journey up the hill."
He bowed in courteous acceptance of her offer as he shook hands.
"You see the foot-bridge over the river there? There's a gate at each end, but the gates are never locked, so you can reach us from the road that way if you're walking. If you want to drive, you must go a quarter of a mile higher up, just below the Pool. Good-by, Madame Zabriska."
Mina watched him all the way down the hill. He had made an impression on her--an intellectual impression, not a sentimental one. There was nothing of the boy about him, unless it were in that little flourish over the antiquity of his house and its surroundings; even that might be the usual thing--she had not seen enough of his class to judge. There was too that love of the place which he had shown. Lastly, there was the odd air of wariness and watching; such it seemed to her, and it consented to seem nothing else.
"I wonder," she thought, "if he knows anything about Mrs Fitzhubert--and I wonder if it would make any difference to him!" Memory carried her back in an instant to the moment when she, Mr Cholderton's Imp, heard that beautiful woman cry, "Think of the difference it makes, the enormous difference!" She drew in her breath in a sudden gasp. An idea had flashed into her mind, showing her for the first time the chance of a situation which had never yet crossed her thoughts.
"Good gracious, is it possible that he couldn't keep it, or that his mother couldn't give it to him, all the same?"

III
ON GUARD
Harry Tristram was just on twenty-three; to others, and to himself too perhaps (if a man himself can attain any clear view), he seemed older. Even the externals of his youth had differed from the common run. Sent to school like other boys, he had come home from Harrow one Easter for the usual short holiday. He had never returned; he had not gone to the University; he had been abroad a good deal, travelling and studying, but always in his mother's company. It was known that she was in bad health; it was assumed that either she was very exacting or he very devoted, since to separate him from her appeared impossible. Yet those who observed them together saw no imperiousness on her part