With a little start she turned to find a young man standing just on the other side of the parapet; she had not noticed his approach till he had given a low cough to attract her attention. As he raised his hat her quick vision took him in as it were in a complete picture--the thin yet well-made body, the slight stoop in the shoulders, the high forehead bordered with thick dark hair growing in such a shape that the brow seemed to rise almost to a peak, a long nose, a sensitive mouth, a pointed chin, dark eyes with downward lids. The young man--she would have guessed him at twenty-two or three--had a complete composure of manner; somehow she felt herself in the presence of the lord of the soil--an absurd thing to feel, she told herself. "Madame Zabriska? My mother, Lady Tristram, has sent me to bid you welcome in her name, but not to disturb you by coming in so soon after your journey. It is our tradition to welcome guests at the moment of their arrival." He spoke rather slowly, in a pleasant voice, but with something in his air that puzzled Mina. It seemed like a sort of watchfulness--not a slyness (that would have fitted so badly with the rest of him), but perhaps one might say a wariness--whether directed against her or himself it was too soon for her even to conjecture. Still rather startled, she forgot to express her thanks, and said simply: "You're Mr Fitzhubert Tristram?" "Mr Tristram," he corrected her; and she noticed now for the first time the slow-moving smile which soon became his leading characteristic in her thoughts. It took such a time to spread, it seemed to feel its way; but it was a success when it came. "I use my father's name only as a Christian name now. Tristram is my surname; that also, if I may repeat myself, is one of our traditions." "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. "I'm glad it was run up in time for us to take it," she said, thinking she would try the effect of a little chaff. The effect was nothing; Harry Tristram took no notice of the remark.