"I don't see why you want it," she persisted. The slight embarrassment in Southend's manner stirred the old lady's curiosity. "It's rather odd to reward a man for his mother's----. There, I don't say a word about Addie. I took her to her first ball, poor girl." "Disney used to know her as a girl." "If you're relying on Robert Disney's romantic memories----" But she stopped, adding after a pause, "Well, one never knows. But again, why a viscounty?" Driven into a corner, but evidently rather ashamed of himself, Southend explained. "The viscounty would be more convenient if a match came about between him and the girl." "What, the new Lady Tristram? Well, George, romance has taken possession of you to-day!" "Not at all," he protested indignantly. "It's the obviously sensible way out." "Then they can do it without a viscounty." "Oh, no, not without something. There's the past, you see." "And a sponge is wanted? And the bigger the sponge the better? And I'm to get my nose bitten off by asking Robert Disney for it? And if by a miracle he said yes, for all I know somebody else might say no!" This dark reference to the Highest Quarters caused Southend to nod thoughtfully: they discussed the probable attitude--a theme too exalted to be more than mentioned here. "Anyhow the first thing is to sound Disney," continued Southend. "I'll think about it after I've seen the young man," Lady Evenswood promised. "Have you any reason to suppose he likes his cousin?" "None at all--except, of course, the way he's cleared out for her." "Yielding gracefully to necessity, I suppose?" "Really, I doubt the necessity; and, anyhow, the gracefulness needs some explanation in a case like this. Still I always fancied he was going to marry another girl, a daughter of a friend of mine--Iver--you know who I mean?" "Oh, yes. Bring Harry Tristram to see me," said she. "Good-by, George. You're looking very well." "And you're looking very young." "Oh, I finished getting old before you were forty." A thought struck Southend. "You might suggest the viscounty as contingent on the marriage." "I shan't suggest anything till I've seen the boy--and I won't promise to then." Later in the afternoon Southend dropped in at the Imperium, where to his surprise and pleasure he found Iver in the smoking-room. Asked how he came to be in town, Iver explained: "I really ran away from the cackling down at Blentmouth. All our old ladies are talking fifteen to the dozen about Harry Tristram, and Lady Tristram, and me, and my family, and--well, I dare say you're in it by now, Southend! There's an old cat named Swinkerton, who is positively beyond human endurance; she waylays me in the street. And Mrs Trumbler, the vicar's wife, comes and talks about Providence to my poor wife every day. So I fled." "Leaving your wife behind, I suppose?" "Oh, she doesn't mind Mrs Trumbler. But I do."