perceiving that the queer dark little woman in the big chair was laughing at him. "I don't intend to convey," he resumed with dignity, "that the mansion is hot and cold, but the bath-rooms——"
"Oh, I know," she interrupted, her great black eyes still deriding him, while her thin face was screwed up into seriousness, as she regarded Mr. Sloyd's blameless garments of springtime gray, his black-and-white tie, his hair so very sleek, his drooping mustache, and his pink cheeks. She had taken his measure as perfectly as the tailor himself, and was enjoying the counterfeit presentment of a real London dandy who came to her in the shape of a house-agent. "I don't want a big place," she explained in English, with a foreign touch about it. "There's only myself and my uncle, Major Duplay—he'll be in directly, I expect—and we've no more money than we want, Mr. Sloyd."
Sloyd's eyes wandered round the large and handsome sitting-room in Berridge's Hotel, where he found his client established.
"Oh, it doesn't matter for a few days," she added, detecting his idea and smiling again.
This explanation of her position had the effect of making Sloyd's manner rather less florid and his language less flowery.
"Among second-class but eminently genteel residences," he began, "I could confidently recommend——"
"Where's this?" she interrupted, picking up another photograph, and regarding it with apparent liking. Looking at the foot, she read aloud, "Merrion Lodge, property of the Right Honorable Baroness Tristram of Blent." She looked up sharply at Sloyd.
"Ye-es, ye-es," said Sloyd, without much enthusiasm. "A very pretty neighborhood—a few miles from Blentmouth—rising place, Blentmouth. And it's a cheap house—small, you see, and old-fashioned."
"Not hot and cold?" she asked with apparent innocence.
Sloyd smiled uncomfortably. "I could ascertain all that for you, madame."
He waited for her to speak again, but she had turned thoughtful as she sat fingering the photograph. Presently she smiled again and said, "Yes, find out about Merrion Lodge for me, Mr. Sloyd."
He began to gather up his pictures and papers.
"Is Baron Tristram alive?" she asked suddenly.
Sloyd recovered his air of superiority.
"Her ladyship is a peeress in her own right," he explained.
"She's not married then?"
"A widow, madame."
"And wasn't her husband Baron Tristram?"
"Her husband would not have been Lord—excuse me, madame, we say Lord—Tristram of Blent. Her son will succeed to the title, of course. The family reside at Blent Hall, only a few hundred yards from Merrion Lodge, a picturesque mansion in the valley. The Lodge, you perceive, stands high."
"I don't understand the family arrangements," remarked Madame Zabriska, "but I daresay I shall learn it all if I go."
"If you had a 'Peerage,' madame——" he suggested, being himself rather vague about the mysteries of a barony by writ.
"I'll get one from the waiter presently. Good-morning, Mr. Sloyd."
Sloyd was making his bow when the door opened and a man came in. He was tall, erect, and good-looking. Both air and manner were youthful, although perhaps with a trace of artifice; he would pass for thirty-five on a casual glance, but not after a longer one.
"My uncle, Major Duplay," said the little woman. "This is Mr. Sloyd, who's come about the house, uncle."
Duplay greeted the house-agent with grave courtesy, and entered into conversation with him, while Madame Zabriska, relapsed again into an alert silence, watched the pair.
The last thing that Madame Zabriska—the style sat oddly on her child-like face and figure, but Mina Zabriska at the age of twenty-eight had been a widow three years—desired to do was harm; the thing she best loved to make was mischief. The essence of mischief lay for her—perhaps for everybody—in curiosity; it was to put people in the situations in which they least expected to find themselves, and to observe how they comported themselves therein. As for hurting their interests or even their feelings—no; she was certain that she did not want that; was she not always terribly sorry when that happened, as it sometimes, and quite unaccountably, did? She would weep then—but for their misfortune, be it understood, not for any fault of hers. People did not always understand her; her mother had understood her perfectly, and consequently had never interfered with her ways. Mina loved a mystification too, and especially to mystify uncle Duplay, who thought himself so clever—was clever indeed as men went, she acknowledged generously; but men did not go far. It would be fun to choose Merrion Lodge for her summer home, first because her uncle would wonder why in the world she took it, and secondly because she had guessed that somebody might be surprised to see her there. So she laid her plan, even as she had played her tricks in the days when she was an odd little girl, and Mr. Cholderton, not liking her, had with some justice christened her the Imp.
Major Duplay bowed Mr. Sloyd to the door with the understanding that full details of Merrion Lodge were to be furnished in a day or two. Coming back to the hearth-rug he spoke to his niece in French, as was the custom with the pair when they were alone.
"And now, dear Mina," said he, "what has made you set your mind on what seems distinctly the least desirable of these houses?"
"It's the cheapest, I expect, and I want to economize."
"People always do as soon as they've got any money," reflected Duplay in a puzzled tone. "If you were on half-pay as I am, you'd never want to do it."
"Well, I've another reason." This was already saying more than she had meant to say.
"Which you don't mean to tell me?"
"Certainly not."
With a shrug he took out his cigarette-case and handed it to her.
"You and your secrets!" he exclaimed good-humoredly. "Really, Mina, I more than earn my keep by the pleasure I give you in not telling me things. And then you go and do it!"
"Shan't this time," said Mr. Cholderton's Imp, seeming not a day more than ten, in spite of her smoking cigarette and her smart costume.
"Luckily I'm not curious—and I can trust you to do nothing wrong."
"Well, I suppose so," she agreed with scornful composure. "Did you ever hear mother speak of a Mrs. Fitzhubert?"
The major smiled under his heavy mustache as he answered, "Never."
"Well, I have," said Mina with a world of significance. "I heard her first through the door," she added with a candid smile. "I was listening."
"You often were in those days."
"Oh, I am still—but on the inside of the door now. And she told me about it afterward of her own accord. But it wouldn't interest you, uncle."
"Not in its present stage of revelation," he agreed, with a little yawn.
"The funny old Englishman—you never saw him, did you?—Mr. Cholderton—he knew her. He rather admired her too. He was there when she rushed in and—— Never mind! I was there too—such a guy! I had corkscrew curls, you know, and a very short frock, and very long—other things. Oh, those frills!—And I suppose I really was the ugliest child ever born. Old Cholderton hated me—he'd have liked to box my ears, I know. But I think he was a little in love with Mrs. Fitzhubert. Oh, I've never asked for that 'Peerage!'"
Major Duplay had resigned himself to a patient endurance of inadequate hints. His wits were not equal to putting together the pieces or conducting a sort of "missing word," or missing link, exercise to a triumphant issue. In time he would know all—supposing, that is, that there were really anything to know. Meanwhile he was not curious about other people's affairs; he minded his own business. Keeping young occupied much of his time; and then there was always the question of how it might prove possible to supplement