He waited.  Still he could make out nothing of her face, though he glanced across the tea-things once or twice.

“My dear, I don’t know what to say.  I—­”

“Father, dear, I just want that from you.  Do you think that any consideration at all ought to stand in the way, if I were—­I don’t say for one single moment that I am—­but if I were—­well, really fond of him?  I’m sorry to have to speak so very plainly, but it’s no good being silly.”

He swallowed in his throat once or twice.

“If you really were fond of him—­I think ...  I think that, no consideration of the sort you have mentioned ought to ... to stand in your way.”

“Thank you, father,” said Jenny softly.

“When did you first think of it?”

Jenny paused.

“I think I knew he was going to ask me two days ago—­the day you met us out riding, you know.”

* * * * *

There was a long silence.

They had already discussed, when Frank’s affair had been before them, all secondary details.

The Rector’s sister was to have taken Jenny’s place.  There was nothing of that sort to talk about now.  They were both just face to face with primary things, and they both knew it.

The Rector’s mind worked like a mill—­a mill whose machinery is running aimlessly.  The wheels went round and round, but they effected nothing.  He was completely ignorant as to what Jenny intended.  He perceived—­as in a series of little vignettes—­a number of hypothetical events, on this side and that, but they drew to no conclusion in his mind.  He was just waiting on his daughter’s will.

* * * * *

Jenny broke the silence with a slow remark in another kind of voice.

“Father, dear, there’s something else I must tell you.  I didn’t see any need to bother you with it before.  It’s this.  Mr. Dick Guiseley proposed to me when he was here for the shooting.”

She paused, but her father said nothing.

“I told him he must wait—­that I didn’t know for certain, but that I was almost certain.  If he had pressed for an answer I should have said ‘No.’  Oddly enough, I was thinking only yesterday that it wasn’t fair to keep him waiting any longer.  Because ... because it’s ‘No’ ... anyhow, now.”

The Rector still could not speak.  It was just one bewilderment.  But apparently Jenny did not want any comments.

“That being so,” she went on serenely, “my conscience is clear, anyhow.  And I mustn’t let what I think Mr. Dick might say or think affect me—­any more than the other things.  Must I?”

“...  Jenny, what are you going to do?  Tell me!”

“Father, dear,” came the high astonished voice, “I don’t know.  I don’t know at all.  I must think.  Did you think I’d made up my mind?  Why!  How could I?  Of course I should say ‘No’ if I had to answer now.”