t it. And if you're discontented with
life, remember that you too will reach the stage of being just told
about it some day."

Things will come home to a man at last, strive he never so desperately
against them--if the things are true and the man ever honest with
himself. It was one night, a little while after this conversation, that
the truth came to Harry Tristram and found acceptance or at least
surrender. His mind had wandered back to that scene in the Long Gallery,
and he had fallen to questioning about his own action. There was a new
light on it, and the new light showed him truth. "I must face it; it's
not Blent," he said aloud. If it were Blent, it was now Blent only as a
scene, a frame, a background. When he pictured Blent, Cecily was there;
if he thought of her elsewhere, the picture of Blent vanished. He was in
love with her then; and what was the quality that Lady Evenswood had
praised in a lover? Let him cultivate it how he would--and the culture
would be difficult--yet it would not serve here. If he went to Blent
against Cecily's commands and his own promise, he could meet with
nothing but a rebuff. Yes, he was in love; and he recognized the
_impasse_ as fully as Mina herself, although with more self-restraint.
But he was glad to know the truth; it strengthened him, and it freed him
from a scorn of himself with which he had become afflicted. It was
intolerable that a man should be love-sick for a house; it was some
solace to find that the house, in order to hold his affections, must
hold a woman too.

"Now I know where I am," said Harry. He knew what he had to meet now; he
thought he knew how he could treat himself. He went down to Blinkhampton
the next morning, harried his builder out of a holiday expedition, and
got a useful bit of work in hand. It was, he supposed, inevitable that
Cecily should journey with him in the spirit to Blinkhampton; he
flattered himself that she got very little chance while he was there.
She was the enemy, he declared, with a half-peevish half-humorous smile.
It was not altogether without amusement to invent all manner of devices
and all sorts of occupations to evade and elude her. He ventured to
declare--following the precedents--that she had treated him shamefully.
That broke down. Candor insisted once again on his admitting that he
himself would have done exactly the same thing. It never occurred to him
to regret, even for a moment, that he had not taken her at her word, an