"I knew you'd feel like that. Just because you feel like that, I want to make the other suggestion to you. I'm not speaking idly. I have my warrant, Mr Tristram. If----" She was at a loss for a moment. "If you ever went back to Blent," she continued, not satisfied, but driven to some form of words, "it isn't inevitable that you should go as Mr Tristram. There are means of righting such injustices as yours. Wait, please! It would be felt--and felt in a quarter you can guess--that the master of Blent, which you'd be in fact anyhow, should have that position recognized. Perhaps there would not be the same feeling unless you were still associated with Blent." "I don't understand at all." She exchanged a despairing glance with Southend; she could not tell whether or not he was sincere in saying that he did not understand. Southend grew weary of the diplomacy which he had advocated; after all it had turned out to be Lady Evenswood's, not his, which may have had something to do with his change of mood toward it. He took up the task with a brisk directness. "It's like this, Harry. You remember that the unsuccessful claimant in the Bearsdale case got a barony? That's our precedent. But it's felt not to go quite all the way--because there was a doubt there. (Luckily for Mina she was not by to hear.) But it is felt that in the event of the two branches of your family being united it would be proper to--to obliterate past--er--incidents. And that could be done by raising you to the peerage, under a new and, as we hope, a superior title. We believe Mr Disney would, under the circumstances I have suggested, be prepared to recommend a viscounty, and that there would prove to be no difficulties in the way." The last words had, presumably, reference to the same quarter that Lady Evenswood had once described by the words, "Somebody Else." They watched him as he digested the proposal, at last made to him in a tolerably plain form. "You must give me a moment to follow that out," he said, with a smile. But he had it all clear enough before he would allow them to perceive that he understood. For although his brain made easy work of it, his feelings demanded a pause. He was greatly surprised. He had thought of no such a thing. What differences would it make? Southend was well satisfied with the way in which his overture was received. Lady Evenswood was watching intently. "The idea is----" said Harry slowly--"I mean--I don't quite gather what it is. You talk of my cousin, and then of a viscounty. The two go together, do they?" It was rather an awkward question put as bluntly as that. "Well, that did seem to be Mr Disney's view," said Southend.