"Yes. Everybody knows that they could have had it from Mr Pitt."
"Well, George, I don't believe about 1816. At least my father heard Lord Liverpool say——"
"Oh, dear me!" murmured the Imp. This historical inquiry was neither comprehensible nor interesting. But they discussed it eagerly for some minutes before agreeing that, wherever the truth lay, a viscounty could not be considered out of the way for the Tristrams—legitimate and proper Tristrams, be it understood.
"And that's where the match would be of decisive value," Lady Evenswood concluded.
"Disney said as much evidently. So you understood, Madame Zabriska?"
"I suppose so. I've told you what he said."
"He could take Blentmouth, you know. It's all very simple."
"Well, I'm not sure that our friend Iver isn't keeping that for himself," smiled Southend.
"Oh, he can be Lord Bricks and Putty," she suggested, laughing. But there seemed in her words a deplorable hint of scorn for that process by which the vitality (not to say the solvency) of the British aristocracy is notoriously maintained. "Blentmouth would do very well for Harry Tristram."