“But how can I say that, when I think—­”

“Oh! you can’t say it now, of course; it’s too late.  No; that would never do.  You must keep it up—­only you mustn’t be really angry.  Why not try a little cold severity?”

She looked so charming and humorous that the old man began to melt a little.  He glanced up at her once or twice under his heavy eyebrows.

“I wonder what you’ll do,” he said with a kind of gruffness, “when you find you’ve got to marry a pauper?”

“I shan’t have to marry a pauper,” said Jenny.  “That wouldn’t do either.”

“Oh! you’re counting on that eight hundred a year still, are you?”

Jenny allowed a little coldness to appear on her face.  Rude banter was all very well, but it mustn’t go too far. (Secretly she allowed to herself sometimes that this old man had elements of the cad in his character.)

“That’s entirely my own affair,” she said, “and Frank’s.”

Lord Talgarth blazed up a little.

“And the eight hundred a year is mine,” he said.

Jenny laid down her spoon as the servant reappeared with the fish and the menu-card.  He came very opportunely.  And while her host was considering what he would eat next, she was pondering her next move.

Jenny, as has been said, was an exceedingly sensible girl.  She had grown up in the Rectory, down at the park gates; and since her mother’s death, three years previously, had managed her father’s house, including her father, with great success.  She had begun to extend her influence, for the last year or two, even over the formidable lord of the manor himself, and, as has been seen, was engaged to his son.  Her judgment was usually very sound and very sane, and the two men, with the Rector, had been perfectly right just now in leaving the old man to her care for an hour or so.  If anything could quiet him it would be this girl.  She was quite fearless, quite dignified, and quite able to hold her own.  And her father perceived that she rather enjoyed it.

When the man had gone out again, she resumed: 

“Well, let’s leave it,” she said, “for a day or two.  There’s no hurry, and—­”

“But I must answer this—­this telegram,” he growled.  “What am I to say to the feller?”

“Tell him to follow his discretion, and that you have complete confidence—­”

“But—­”

“Yes; I know you haven’t, really.  But it’ll do no harm, and it’ll make him feel important.”

“And what if the boy does take to the roads?”

“Let him,” said Jenny coolly.  “It won’t kill him.”

He looked up at her again in silence.

Jenny herself was very far from comfortable, though she was conscious of real pleasure, too, in the situation.  She had seen this old man in a passion pretty often, but she had never seen him in a passion with any real excuse.  No one ever thwarted him.  He even decided where his doctor should send him for his cure, and in what month, and for how long.  And she was not, therefore, quite certain what would happen, for she knew Frank well enough to be quite sure that he meant what he said.  However, she reflected, the main thing at present was to smooth things down all round as far as possible.  Then she could judge.