that.
"Well, then, we shall see you at eight o'clock," said Jenny, giving him her hand.
"Delighted," said he, bowing low. "Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Miss Chatters." Chat was sitting by, tatting. She habitually tatted.
"This is my old friend Mr. Nelson Powers," said Jenny. "Mr. Powers – Mr. Austin." We bowed – neither of us cordially. The man's eyes were wary and very alert; he looked at me as though I might be a policeman in plain clothes; possibly my expression gave him some excuse.
Jenny rang the bell. "Mr. Powers is coming back to dinner. You'll come, of course? We shall have a pleasant little party of four!"
"I'm sorry, but I'm engaged to dinner to-night."
Jenny gave me a quick look, Chat gave me a long one. Loft appeared. "Au revoir, Mr. Powers!" With a pronounced bow over his hat Powers was out of the room. I made no effort to follow. Jenny's face told me that the battle was to be fought where we were.
She poured out a cup of tea and gave it to me. Then, as she sat down, she said, "I'm sorry you can't come to-night. Where are you going?"
I did not want Chat there – but I remembered what happened to Cartmell when he did not want me there.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
Her pallid face flushed a little, but she smiled. Chat looked at her and got up; no, Chat was not altogether a fool! "Yes, please, Chat," said Jenny very quietly. Chat left us. I finished my tea – it was cold, and easy to gulp down – and waited for the storm.
"You've nothing to add to your polite excuses?" she inquired.
"Does that gentleman come from Cheltenham?"
"Yes, from Cheltenham, Mr. Austin. But how did you come to know that? Did my father mention him?" She was not embarrassed – only very angry.
"No."
"It was Mr. Cartmell?"
"Yes. He had no right, I daresay, but I'm glad he did – and so will he be."
"If both my solicitor and my secretary are glad – !" She broke off with a scornful laugh. "I'm not going to discuss the matter with you, but I like people who are about me to receive my invitations with politeness."
"This isn't easy for me, Miss Driver, but – that man oughtn't to come to this house. He oughtn't to be allowed to see you."
She rose from her chair, her eyes set unmovingly on my face. Her voice was low. "How dare you say that? How dare you? Am I to take orders from you – my secretary – my servant?"
"You called me your friend the other day."
"I seem to have been hasty. A kind friend indeed to listen to stories against me!"
"The story is against the man – not against you."
"Are you dining with any other friends to-night?"
"I've told you that I'm not."
"Then I request – I desire – that you will make it convenient to give me the pleasure of your company – to meet my friend, Mr. Powers."
My temper went suddenly. "I won't sit at meat with the blackguard – above all, not in your company."
I saw her fist clench itself by her side. "I repeat my request," she said.
"I repeat my refusal, but I can do no less than offer you my resignation."
"You won't accept my offer – but I accept yours very gladly."
"It will be kind of you to relieve me from my duties as soon as possible."
"To-morrow." She turned her back on me and walked off to the window. I stood there a minute, and then went to the door. She turned round, and our eyes met. I waited for a moment, but she faced round to the window again, and I went out.
I walked quickly down the hill. I was very unhappy, but I was not remorseful. I knew that another man could have done the thing much better, but it had been the right thing to do and I had done it as well as I could. She had made no attempt to defend Powers, nor to deny what she must have known that Cartmell had said about him. Yet, while tacitly admitting that he was a most obnoxious description of blackguard, she asked him to dinner – and ordered me to sit by and see them together. If her service entailed that sort of thing, then indeed there must be an end to service with her. But grieved as I was that this must be so – and the blow to me was heavy on all grounds, whether of interest or of feeling – I grieved more that she should sit with him herself than that she bade me witness what seemed in my eyes her degradation. What was the meaning of it? I was at that time nowhere near understanding her.
My home was no more than a cottage, built against the south wall of the Old Priory. The front door opened straight into my parlor, without hall or vestibule; a steep little stair ran up from the corner of the room itself and led to my bedroom on the floor above. Behind my parlor lay the kitchen and two other rooms, occupied by my housekeeper, Mrs. Field, and her husband, who was one of the gardeners. It was all very small, but it was warm, snug, and homely. The walls were covered almost completely with my books, which overflowed on to chairs and tables, too. When fire and lamp were going in the evening, the little room seemed to glow with a studious cheerfulness, and my old leather arm-chair wooed me with affectionate welcome. In four years I had taken good root in my little home. I had to uproot myself – to-morrow.
With this pang, there came suddenly one deeper. I was about to lose – perforce – what was now revealed to me as a great, though a very new, interest in my life. From the first both Cartmell and I had been keenly interested in the heiress – the lonely girl who came to reign over Breysgate and to dispose of those millions of money. We had both, I think, been touched with a certain romantic, or pathetic, element in the situation. We had not talked about it, much less had we talked about what we felt ourselves or about what we meant to do; but it had grown into a tacit understanding between us that more than our mere paid services were due from us to Jenny Driver. No man had been very near her father, but we had been nearest; we did not mean that his daughter should be without friends if she would accept friendship. Nay, I think we meant a little more than that. She was young and ignorant; Nick Driver's daughter might well be willful and imperious. We meant that she should not easily escape our service and our friendship; they should be more than offered; they should be pressed; if need be, they should be secretly given. It had been an honest idea of ours – but it seemed hard to work in practice. Such service as I could give was ended well-nigh before it had begun. I thought it only too likely that Cartmell's also would soon end, save, at least, for strictly professional purposes. And I could not see how this end was to be avoided in his case any more than it had been found possible to avoid it in mine. With the best will in the world, there were limits. "Some things are impossible to some men," old Mr. Driver had said in that letter; it had been impossible to me – as it would, I think, have been to most men – to see Powers welcomed by her as a gentleman and a friend.
Yet I began almost to be sorry – almost to ask why I had not swallowed Powers and accepted the invitation to dinner. Might I, in that way, have had a better chance of getting rid of Powers in the end? It would have been a wrong thing to do – I was still quite clear about that – wrong in every way, and very disgusting, to boot; quite fatal to my self-respect, and an acquiescence in a horrible want of self-respect in Jenny. But I might have been useful to her. Now I could be of no use. That evening I first set my feet on what I may perhaps call a moral slope. It looked a very gentle slope; there did not appear to be any danger in it; it
