"Only because Romeo got back at the wrong moment! Miss Driver, you say, was pleased?"

"Yes--oh, more than that! But for her I don't believe I could have done it. Still it's my own job--and I'm ready to face it. These things must be meant to come, Austin."

I glanced at the clock. He laughed reluctantly and nervously. "Give a fellow five minutes more!" he said.

"With pleasure. Spend it in thinking not of yourself, nor even of your father--but of Margaret."

"Yes, that's right," he said eagerly. "That's the thing to think about.

That'll carry me through." He gave another unwilling laugh. "If he'd only be violent, or kick me out, or something of that sort--like the silly old fools in the plays! Not he! He'll behave perfectly, be very calm and very quiet--particularly civil about Margaret herself! He'll tell me I must judge for myself--just as he did about coming to Breysgate. And all the while he'll be breaking his heart." He smiled at me ruefully. "Aunt Sarah'll do the cursing--but who cares for that?"

"A good many people besides Lady Sarah will have a word to say, no doubt."

"I don't care a d.a.m.n for the lot of them--except my father," he said--and I was glad to hear him say it. It expressed--vigorously--my own feelings in the matter. "And don't you think I'm the happiest man on earth?" he added a moment later.

"Earth's not heaven. Try to let Lord Fillingford see what you've shown me."

"What do you mean, Austin?"

"You don't mind my saying it? It's another of those things that one generally doesn't care to talk about. Try to show him that you love her very much, and that next in order--and not quite out of sight either--comes your father. Don't treat it casually--as if you were telling him you were going to dine out--though I daresay that's the etiquette. Try the open heart against the hidden one. You appreciate his case. Show him you do. That's my advice."

"It's good advice. I'll try." He came to me holding out his hand. "And wish me good luck!"

"You've had as fine a slice of luck to-day as happens to most men.

Here's to another!"

He wrung my hand hard. "I've made an a.s.s of myself, I suppose!" That was homage to the etiquette. "I'll remember what you've said. He has a case, by Jove, and a strong one!" He smiled again. "Somehow Margaret's case won, though," he ended.

He went his way--a straight lad and a simple gentleman. He had no idea that any schemes had been afoot, that any wires had been pulled, either for him or against his father--if to get this thing done were indeed against Fillingford. Nor had he any idea that his scruples about family loyalty were to be annihilated by the intervention of a fairy G.o.dmother.

Jenny had stuck to the romantic color of her scheme. She sent him forth to meet his father with no plea in extenuation, with no proffer of gold wherewith to gild the hated name of Octon. His fight was to be single-handed. So she chose to prove his metal--with, perhaps, a side-thought that the fairy G.o.dmother's intervention, coming later, might be more effective--and would certainly gain in picturesqueness!

That notion, unflattering maybe, one could not easily dismiss when the workings of her mind were in question. Yet it might be that a finer idea was there--that it was not only Lacey's metal which was to be proved that night. She had said that she was ready to bribe, that she might have to bully--and implied that she was prepared to do both at once, if need be. But had it come across her thoughts that, by divine chance, she might have to do neither? She knew Fillingford's love for his son; she had sent Margaret to met Fillingford that he might see her as she was.

She might be minded now to prove if love alone would not serve the turn.

The battalions might all be held in leash--and the G.o.d of Love himself sent forth as herald to a parley. If Fillingford surrendered to that pleading, the victory would not be so purely Jenny's: but she would, I believed, have the grace to like it better. That it was a less characteristic mode of proceeding had to be admitted: but to-day there would be an atmosphere at the Priory which might incline her to it. She would not force Fillingford, if she need not--neither by threats nor by bribes. Being myself, I suppose, somewhat touched by Amyas Lacey's exaltation, I found myself hoping that she would try--first--the appeal of heart to heart. That she would accept it as final--I knew too much to look for that.

The case could not, in its nature, be so simple. With the appeal of love must come that relief from a greater fear which she had carefully implanted, on which she certainly reckoned. That was in the very marrow of her plan; no romantic fancies could get rid of it. The best excuse for it lay in the fact that it would certainly be useful, and was probably necessary. When things are certainly useful and probably necessary, the world is apt to exhibit toward them a certain leniency of judgment. Jenny did not set herself above the world in moral matters.

I went up to the Priory after dinner, availing myself of Jenny's strictly defined invitation. But up there I made a blunder. I blundered into a room where one person at least did not want me--I am not so sure about the other. Dormer had gone clean out of my head; more serious matters were to the front. Heedlessly I charged into the library; there were he and Jenny! Luckily I seemed to have arrived only at the tail-end of their conversation. "Quite final," were the words I heard from her lips as I opened the door. She was standing opposite Dormer, looking demurely resolute, but quite gentle and friendly. He was looking not much distressed, but most remarkably sulky.

I tried to back out, but she called me in. "Come in, Austin. You're just in time to bid Mr. Dormer good night."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose I'd better be off. I'll pick up the car at the stables."

"Good night. We shall see you again some day soon?"

"I don't know about that. I may go away for a bit--and anyhow I expect to be pretty busy."

"Oh, yes, we shall see you again some day soon!" she said very kindly and persuasively. "You won't let it be too long, will you? And you will see Mr. Cartmell about that business, won't you?"

He nodded in an offhand surly fashion--but he might be excused for being a little out of temper. Evidently he was not going to get Jenny's land; apparently she was still to get what she wanted of his. "You'll have to pay for them!" he reminded her, almost threateningly.

"A fancy price for my fancy? Well, I'm always ready to pay that," said Jenny. "Good night and, mind you, quite soon!" Her tone implied real anxiety to see her friend again; under its influence he gave a half-unwilling nod of a.s.sent.

I escorted him as far as the hall door--further than that he declined my company. I held a match for him to light his cigar and gave him a stirrup-cup. "Good night, Austin!" Then his irritation got the better of him. "d.a.m.n it, does she want Lacey for herself, after all?" Evidently the great event of the day--from our point of view--had not been confided to him.

"Oh, no, you may be sure she doesn't."

"Then what the deuce she does want I don't know--and I don't believe she does!" With this parting grumble he slouched off sulkily toward the stable.

As a humane man, I was sorry for his plight; Jenny was still serenely ruthless.

"Annoyed, isn't he?" she asked when I rejoined her. "Really I was rather glad when you came in. He had got as far as hinting that I--he put a good deal of emphasis on his 'you'--ought to have jumped at him! It's quite possible that he'd have become more explicit--though it wouldn't have come very well from him under the circ.u.mstances."

"You've deluded the young man, you know."

"Oh, it'll do him good," she declared impatiently. "Didn't he deserve to be deluded? He wanted me for what I had, not for myself. Well, I don't so much mind that, but I tell you, Austin, he patronized me! I may be a sinner, but I'm not going to be patronized by Gerald Dormer without hitting back."

"Did you quarrel?"

She smiled. "No. I'm never going to quarrel any more. He'll be back here in no time--and have another try most likely! You see, I'm going into training--a course of amiability, so as to be ready for Lady Sarah." She sprang to her feet. "Do you know that this is a most exciting evening?"

"Oh, yes, I can imagine that. I've had a long talk with Lacey."

"Have you? Isn't he splendid, poor boy? You should have seen his face when I sent him to her! He thought of nothing but her then--but I like him for thinking of his father now. And I've brought it off, Austin! He thinks there may be just a pretty wedding present--a trousseau check, perhaps!" She came up to me. "This is a good thing I've done--to set against the rest."

"I think it is. But the boy feels horribly guilty."

She nodded. "I know--and so does poor Margaret. I'm afraid she's crying up in her own den--and that's not right for to-night, is it?"

"Love's joy and woe can be simultaneous as well as alternate, I'm afraid."

"I can't stand it much longer." She looked at the clock. "He's to send word over to-night, if he can--by a groom--how he's got on--breaking the news, you know. Let's go out into the garden and wait for this important messenger. But, whatever he says, I believe I shall have to put my oar in to-morrow. I can't have my poor Margaret like this much longer. She knows now why she was taken to Mr. Alison's, and does nothing but declare that she behaved atrociously!"

We were a silent pair of watchers. Jenny's whole soul seemed absorbed in waiting. She spoke only once--in words which betrayed the line of her thoughts. "If I'd thought it would be as bad as this--for her, I mean--I believe I'd have brought her here under another name, in spite of everything, and perpetrated a fraud! I could have told them after the wedding!"

I was afraid that she would have been quite capable of such villainy where Margaret was in question, and not altogether averse from a _denoument_ so dramatic.

"Either Lacey's shirked the interview--or it's been a very long one," I remarked, as the clock over the stables struck half-past ten. "Poor Dormer's home by now--to solitude!"

"Oh, bother Mr. Dormer and his solitude! Listen, do you hear hoofs?"

"I can't say I do," I rejoined, lighting my pipe.

"How you can smoke!" she exclaimed scornfully. Really I could not do anything else--in view of the tension.

A voice came from above our heads: "Jenny, are there any signs?"

"Not yet, dear," called Jenny, and waved her arms despairingly. "Ah!"

She held up her hand and rose quickly to her feet. Now we heard the distant sound of hoofs. "I wonder if he's written to me or to her!" She started walking toward the drive.

"To you, I'll be bound!" I answered as I followed.