"Yes, Austin, I really do--and that shows, as you were going to say, that I'm utterly hopeless. I don't fit the standards." He was sitting hunched up over the fire, monopolizing its heat, his great shoulders nearly up to his ears. He condemned himself with much better humor than he judged other people. "I don't fit them, I don't agree with them, I hate them. Left to myself, I'd get out of this."

"Who's stopping you?" I asked, pulling at my pipe and trying to edge nearer the fire.

He took no notice of my question--which was indeed no more than an indifferently civil way of suggesting that he was at liberty to please himself. He took no notice of my futile edging either.

"Now if I had Jenny Driver's gifts for the game," he went on, "I daresay I should like it. Oh, you were quite right there! She's equal to ruling the county, and ruling it well. Since she can do it, I don't blame her for trying. Perhaps I'd try myself in the same case. But, mind you, in her heart she thinks no more of them than I do. They can give her what she wants, they can't give me what I want--that's all the difference. So it's worth her while to fool them--and it's not worth mine. Not that I could do it half as well as she does!"

His admiration of Jenny was unmistakably affectionate as well as amused.

There is a way a man draws at his pipe--long pulls with smiles in between. It tells a tale when a woman's name has just pa.s.sed his lips.

"Then all she's got--the big place and the money--the influence and so on--wouldn't attract you?"

He turned slowly to me. "It might, if I thought that I could make terms with the people. But I can't do that. So I should hate it. Why did you ask me that question, Austin?"

"Why not? We were discussing your character, and any sidelights--" I ended with a shrug.

"You humbug, you infernal humbug!" he said. Then he fell into silence, staring again at the fire.

"Not at all. My interest is quite speculative. What else should it be?

Is she likely to die and leave you her property?" I spoke in sincerity, having in my mind Jenny's purpose with regard to Fillingford, for a settled purpose it had by now, to my thinking, become.

My sincerity went home to him, and carried with it an uncontrollable surprise. He turned his head toward me again with a rapid jerk. His eyes searched my face, now rather suspiciously. Then he smiled. "Yes, that's true. I suppose I ought to beg your pardon!" he said.

He had recovered himself in time and had told me no secret. But he had been surprised to find that I considered any relation of his to Jenny's place and property as a mere speculation--no more than the ill.u.s.tration to an argument. Then he must consider it as more than that himself. But then how could he--he, the ostracized? Yet there was the secret treaty, whose terms availed to keep him quiet--quiet and at Hatcham Ford. There were a lover's obstinate hopes. And--the thought flashed into my mind--had he any knowledge of Fillingford's frequent calls or of the dexterous management of Lacey? It was probable that he knew as little of them as Fillingford knew of the mysterious treaty.

Suddenly he started a new topic; between it and the previous one there seemed no connection--unless Jenny were the link.

"I say, that's a rum fish--my new neighbor Nelson Powers!"

"You've made acquaintance? You haven't been long about it!"

"He smokes his pipe, leaning over his garden fence; I smoke mine, leaning over my gate. Hence the acquaintance."

"Of course; you're always so affable, so accessible to strangers."

He dropped his scarcely serious pretense of having made Powers's acquaintance casually. "Miss Driver told me something about him. We've been in communication about this house and the Inst.i.tute, you know."

"Did she tell you anything interesting about him?"

"Only that he'd been a humble friend in days gone by. You're looking rather sour, Austin. Don't you like Mr. Nelson Powers?"

"He's not one of my particular fancies," I admitted.

"Miss Driver says he's devoted to her."

"He's in debt to her, anyhow, I expect--and perhaps that'll do as well."

"Perhaps." He was speaking now in a ruminative way--as though he were comparing in his mind Jenny's account of Powers, my opinion of Powers, and his own impression of the man. He seemed to me to give more thought to Powers than I should have expected from him; a rude and contemptuous dismissal would have been Powers's more probable fate at his hands.

"Are you going to clear out for the Inst.i.tute?" I asked.

"I shall be out of this house in less than a year, anyhow. That's settled."

"Oh, then your negotiations have been very satisfactory! You had a right to stay here two years."

"The present state of affairs can't drag on for two years," he said, looking at me steadily. His ostensible reference might be to his uncomfortable relations toward his neighbors; I was sure that he meant more than that--and did not mind letting me see it. A restlessness betrayed itself in his movements; he seemed to be on the edge of an outbreak and to hold himself back with a struggle. His victory was very imperfect: he could not keep off the subject which perturbed him; he could only contrive to treat it with a show of lightness and contempt.

The subject had been in my thoughts already.

"Seeing much of our friend Fillingford just now at the Priory?"

"He comes a certain amount. I don't see much of him."

"And that sets fools gossiping, I suppose?"

"Need you ask me, Octon? I fancy you've heard something for yourself."

He rubbed his big hands together, giving a laugh which sounded rather uneasy under its cloak of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It won't be much trouble to her to make a fool of Fillingford--he's a conceited a.s.s. She'll use him as long as she wants him, and then--!" He snapped his fingers scornfully.

Had he struck on that explanation for himself? Possibly--he had studied Jenny. Yet it sounded rather like an inspired version of her policy. The weak spot about it was that, by now, Jenny could have little need of Fillingford--except in one capacity. As her husband he could give her a good deal; he could offer her no obvious advantages in any other relation. I wondered that this did not occur to Octon--and then decided that it did. He knew that the argument was weak; he hoped that I would afford it the b.u.t.tress of my confirmatory opinion.

"Well?" he growled impatiently, for I said nothing.

"I didn't understand that you asked me a question--and, if you had, I shouldn't have answered it. It's no business of mine to consider how Miss Driver treats Fillingford or means to treat him."

At that his temper suddenly gave, his hold on himself was broken. "But it is of mine, by G.o.d!" he cried.

Our eyes met for a moment; then he turned his head away, and a long silence followed. At last he spoke in a low voice.

"I call other people fools--I'm a fool myself. I can't hold my tongue. I oughtn't to be at large. But it's pretty hard to bottle it all up sometimes." He laid his hand on my knee. "I shall be obliged if you'll forget that little remark of mine, Austin."

"I can't forget it. I can take no notice of it," I said.

"It's not merely that I gave myself away--which, after all, doesn't matter as you happen to be a loyal fellow--I know that" (he smiled for a moment), "having tried to pump you myself. But what I said was against a pledge I had given."

"I wish you hadn't said it--most heartily. I'll treat it as unsaid--so far as my allegiance allows."

"Yes, I see that. She must come first with you, of course."

"And with you, too, I hope?"

"In my sort of case a man fights for himself."

"I'll say one thing to you--since you have spoken. You'd much better go away--before that year is up."

He made an impatient gesture with his hands. "I can't!" Then he leaned forward and half-whispered, "You put your money on Fillingford?"

"I don't intend to tell you what I think--if you can't gather it from what I've said already."