She went on with a sudden suppressed pa.s.sion: "I want none of it--none of it at all. I can make a happy life for myself. I can be useful--even if I have to lie--in deeds if not in words--before I can be allowed to be useful. Why am I to seek unhappiness, to seek fearfulness, to create misery? The burden I bear now my own shoulders are broad enough to carry. I had sooner carry it myself than have another groaning under it at my side!"

"Cast your burden upon G.o.d, and He will bear it. This is penitence, if only you would open the eyes of your heart!"

"Call it what you like," she said, a trifle impatiently. "Let it be pride--pride for Leonard and pride for myself; let it be calculation, precaution, fear, independence--what you will. You shall do your own name-giving, and you may give the name that satisfies your theories. But I have given you my names for it and my account of what I feel. Feeling that, am I eager to marry Amyas Lacey? I'm not eager, Mr. Alison."

There was a moment's pause. The sound of a horse trotting up to the house fell on my ears; Jenny gave me a quick glance. Alison seemed not to notice; he was looking down at the floor, deep in thought. Jenny's eyes returned to his face; she watched him with a smile as he sat pondering her explanation.

"I respect your conclusion," he said at last. "Even if there were nothing but the worldly point of view, I should say it was wise--as wise as it is severe. I hope you may find better reasons still for it, and new sources of strength to carry it out."

"You shall hope--and we shall see," she answered, not carelessly, but rather with an honest skepticism which was willing to respect his prepossessions, but would pay them no insincere homage.

"There is more for me to do than merely to hope--but enough of that just now." He smiled a little, for the first time in the interview. "I mustn't be too instant out of season. But if that is your conclusion, Miss Driver, how does it fit in with your conduct?"

"It fits in very well," she replied.

"That wouldn't be the general opinion. It's not the opinion at Fillingford Manor." He leaned back in his chair, looking rather weary and discouraged. "You're still minded to fence with me, I see," he said.

"No, I'll deal with you plainly--but I rely on your pledge. Nothing goes beyond these walls--neither to Fillingford Manor nor elsewhere?"

"I am bound to that: but pretenses are dangerous."

"It will soon be time to end this one."

As she spoke, merry voices floated into the room from the terrace outside. Jenny listened with a happy smile, and then went on, "You want to know what I mean by my conduct? Why I make Fillingford Manor unhappy, and all my neighbors mad with curiosity?" She laughed as she rose from her chair. "Come to the window here," she said to Alison.

They went to the window, and I followed. There, in the mellow sun of the late afternoon, Margaret lay on her long chair, her brown hair touched to gold, her merry laugh breaking out again, her face upturned to Lacey's. He stood beside her, his eyes set on her face, a smile of admiration plain to see on his lips. It was a fair picture of young lovers--and the complacent artist whose hand had designed it turned triumphantly to Alison.

"You ask what I mean. I mean that," she said.

Alison gave a violent start. "Miss Octon! And Amyas?" He looked for a moment at the pair, then turned back to Jenny, rather helplessly. "But that's pretty nearly as bad as the other!" he blurted out.

"Who speaks now?" she asked. "The priest in his office? Or Mr. Worldly Wiseman?"

CHAPTER XXII

THE ALTERNATIVE

Alison watched the maid and the young man for half a minute, then drew back a little way into the room; Jenny followed as far as the piano and stood leaning her elbows on the top of it, smiling at him in mockery.

"That's a fair question, perhaps. But the idea is--staggering!"

Jenny raised her brows. "But why? Has she practiced deceit and betrayed trust? Has she broken faith or threatened anybody's honor? Or done worse things still? Is she no fit wife for a young man? What have you against her, Mr. Alison? Why is this pretty nearly as bad as the other?"

Alison was sadly put about and fl.u.s.tered. His confident air of authority vanished with the unimpeachable ground on which it had been founded. He had shifted his base; the new base failed him. "Surely you must see!" he protested.

"I see a dear beautiful girl and a charming handsome young man of high degree," answered Jenny in gay mischief, "and they look very much in love with one another. Is that dreadful?"

"It's quite a different case, of course--but really, really, just as hopeless!"

"You'd better not call this hopeless--neither you nor anybody else who has anything to say to it!"

"Octon's daughter!" He e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the words in a low murmur, flinging his hands out wide.

"Yes, that's it!" said Jenny, her smile getting harder, and with a rather vicious look in her eyes. "That's why, isn't it? That's why she's not good enough for Amyas Lacey, not good enough to be mistress of Fillingford Manor! There's nothing else against her? Only--she's Leonard Octon's daughter! Well, now, I say to you that that shall not be against her. It shall be for her--mightily for her. To that she shall owe everything; that shall give her all she wants. If you have any influence, don't use it against her. Use it for her, back her up. It will be wiser in the interests of the friends whom you're so concerned for." She left the piano and came into the middle of the room, facing him. "Because it's the alternative to that unnatural hideous thing of which you came here to speak--and spoke so plainly. If I'm not much mistaken, I can turn this thing the way I choose. And I tell you that in spite of all you've said, and in spite of all I've said, your friends will be wise to accept the lesser evil. Margaret is better than me, at all events!"

She was on her high horse now. Very handsome she looked, with a glowing color in her cheeks; her voice was full of temper, hard-held. It was the turning point of the scheme which she was working out; through Alison she launched her ultimatum to Fillingford: "Margaret or myself--there is no other alternative."

Alison was recovering himself. He dropped into a chair and looked up at her commanding figure with a smile of kindness--with an admiration wrung from him by her _coup_.

"You're really wonderful," he told her. "I'll say that for you--and I'll be as worldly as you like for a minute."

"Yes, do try for once. There is such a thing as this world."

"Then--even setting aside the obvious objection, the objection our friends at the Manor are bound to feel--Lacey is Lacey, and will be Fillingford. The girl--I think her as charming as you do--comes from nowhere and has, I suppose, nothing?"

"She'll come from Breysgate Priory--and not empty-handed."

"Of course you'd behave kindly to her, but----"

Back to Octon's phrase went Jenny--back to the words in which he had bequeathed his "legacy" to her. Her face softened. "I shall do the handsome thing by her," she said in a low voice. "Can't you understand why I do this?" she asked him. "You were one of the few people who seemed to understand why I brought her here--to be with me. Can't you understand this?"

"Perhaps I can--a little. But is it fair to Lord Fillingford?"

"I can't think always and forever of Lord Fillingford," she told him impatiently. "He isn't all the world to me. I am thinking of Leonard--this is all I can do for him now. I'm thinking of the child--and of myself. I can give up for myself, but this is my compensation. What I could have she is to have--because she loves Amyas, and I love her--and because I loved her father. That's what I mean. I daresay you've some very hard names for it. They made me give up Leonard once--at any rate behave as if I was ashamed of him. Very well. They must take Leonard's daughter now--or that worse thing you and I know of."

"I'm still on the worldly plane," Alison said, smiling. "You can, of course, if you're so minded, abolish all objections except the sentimental. If it's a hundred thousand for an Inst.i.tute, what mightn't it be for a whim, Miss Driver?"

"And what mightn't it be for my dear man who's dead?" said Jenny, very low.

He got up, went to her, and took her hands. She did not repel him. He whispered a word or two to her--of comfort or sympathy, as his manner indicated. Then he looked round at me. "You've had a hand in this mischief, I suppose, Austin?"

"Oh, we just take our orders in this house," said I.

"Heaven humble your heart!" he said to her, but now the rebuke was kindly, almost playful.

"The present question is of humbling Lord Fillingford's," retorted Jenny.

Alison walked back to the window. Jenny gave me a quick nod of satisfaction; the fight was going well. "Are they still there?" she asked.

"Oh, dear me, yes! He's sat down by her on the ground--looking up, you know!"

"Yes, I can imagine, Mr. Alison."

"A fine pair!" He turned round with a sigh. "And very fond of one another! And yet you think you could--? Well, perhaps you could--who knows?" He seemed to study her thoughtfully.