"What, to change your names? The men, I mean?" she asked, laughing a little.
"For anybody in the direct line to take the name of Tristram—so that, 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.