as Cecily had declared he would. When he held Blent, he held it in peace of mind, though in violation of law, till one came who reproached him in a living body and with speaking eyes; faced with that, he could find no comfort in Blent. Cecily violated no law, but she violated nature, the natural right in him. To her then his presence would be intolerable, and she could not find the desperate refuge that he had chosen. Her only remedy was to forbid him the place. Her instinct drove her to that, and the instinct, so well understood by him, so well known, was to him reason enough. She could not feel mistress of Blent while he was there.
Indeed he had not meant to go. He had told Iver that in perfect good faith. It would have been in bad taste for him to think of going—of going anything like so soon as this. Whence then came his new feeling of desolation and of hurt? It was partly that he was forbidden to go. It was hard to realize that he could see Blent now only by another's will or sufferance. It was even more that now it was no question of refraining from going at once, in order to go hereafter with a better grace. He awoke to the idea that he was never to go, and in the same moment to the truth that he had always imagined himself going again, that Blent had always held a place in his picture of the future, that whatever he was doing or achieving or winning, there it was in the background. Now it was there no more. He could almost say with Mina and with Cecily herself, "This is the end of it."
What then of the impressions Mina had gathered from Mr Disney's dinner-party? It can only be said that when people of impressionable natures study others of like temperament they should not generalize from their conduct at parties. In society dinners are eaten in disguise, sometimes intentional, sometimes un
conscious, but as a rule quite impenetrable. If Harry's had been unconscious, if the mood had played the man, the deception was the more complete.
He went to see Lady Evenswood one day; she had sent to express her desire for a talk before she fled to the country. She had much that was pleasant to say, much of the prospects of his success, of his "training-on," as easy-mannered Theo had put it to Mina Zabriska.
"And if you do, you'll be able to think now that you've done it all off your own bat," she ended.
"You've found out my weaknesses, I see," he laughed.
"Oh, I doubt if there's any such thing as an absolute strength or an absolute weakness. They're relative. What's an advantage in one thing is a disadvantage in another."
"I understand," he smiled. "My confounded conceit may help me on in the world, but it doesn't make me a grateful friend or a pleasant companion?"
"I believe George Southend agrees as far as the grateful friend part of it is concerned. And I'm told Lord Hove does as to the rest. But then it was only Flora Disney herself who said so."