nd distressed. Nor was the
anxiety all hers. Aspenick indeed had at the moment no thought but of
anger on his wife's account, but Fillingford must have had other things
in his mind. To put it at the lowest, he valued his acquaintance with
the mistress of Breysgate Priory; there were good grounds for guessing
that he valued it very much. If he had learned anything at all about
her, he must have known that he was risking it now. But he showed no
hesitation; he awaited her answer with a grave deference which declared
the importance he attached to it but gave no reason to hope that his own
course of action could be affected, whatever the answer might be.

Neither did she give the impression of hesitating--it was not exactly
that. Whether in her heart she hesitated I cannot tell; if she did, she
would not let them see it. Her demeanor betrayed nothing more than a
pained reluctance to condemn utterly, to recognize that one who had been
received as a friend and as a gentleman had by his own fault forfeited
his claim to those titles. Her delay in giving her decision--for the
real question now was whether she would join in Octon's ostracism--did
not impugn their judgment nor seem to weigh their merits against the
culprit's. It did not declare a doubt of their being right; it said only
with what pain she would recognize that they were right.

"Yes--it's the only thing," she said at last.

"I was sure you would agree with us--painful as such a course is,"
Fillingford said.

"It's only cutting a cad," Aspenick grumbled, half under his breath.
Jenny did not or would not hear him.

The bargain was struck, and fully understood without more words. Jenny's
friends must not be exposed to meeting Octon at Breysgate or in
Breysgate park. They would be strangers to Octon; if Jenny would be
their friend, she must be a stranger to him. Dropping Octon was the
condition of holding her place in their society. She understood the
condition and accepted it. There was no more to be said.

They took leave and she did not ask them to stay to lunch. Her farewell
to Aspenick was cold, though she made a civil reference to seeing him
again at dinner--nothing was said about Octon in that connection! But
toward Fillingford she showed a marked, if subdued, graciousness.
Clearly she meant to convey to him that, distressed as she was by the
incident and its necessary consequences, she attached no blame to him
for the part he had taken--nay, was grateful