n you, Miss
Jenny. That's a very dangerous idea to get about."

Cartmell was evidently thinking of the old story--of the episode of
Cheltenham days. But had Powers been thinking of that? And was Jenny,
with her bright eyes intent on Cartmell's face? She did not look
alarmed--only rather expectant. She foresaw a fight with Powers, but had
no doubt that she could beat him--if only the mischief had not gone too
far.

"He seemed to refer to--Cheltenham?" she asked, smiling.

Cartmell was the embarrassed party to the conversation. "I--I'm afraid
so, Miss Jenny," he stammered, and his red face grew even redder.

"Oh, I'll settle that all right," Jenny assured him.

"You'll give him the sack?" Cartmell asked bluntly.

She had many good reasons to produce against that, just as she had
produced many for bringing him to Catsford. "I'll reduce him to order,
anyhow," she promised.

That was what she wanted--to bring him to heel, not to lose him. But
surely it was no longer for his own sake, nor even to satisfy that
instinct of hers which forbade the alienation of the least of her human
possessions? There was more than that in it. He was part of the
scheme--he fitted into that explanation which my brain had insisted on
conceiving as I walked home from Ivydene. Of this aspect of the case
Cartmell was entirely innocent.

By one of her calculated bits of audacity--concealing much, she would
seem to have nothing to conceal--she took me with her when she went down
to Ivydene the next morning, to haul Powers over the coals. She would
have me present at the interview between them. Well, it may also have
been that she did not want too much plain speaking--or, rather,
preferred to do what was to be done in that line herself.

She attacked him roundly; he stood before her not daring to resist
openly, yet covertly insolent, hinting at what he dared not say
plainly--certainly not before me, for he had not yet decided what game
to play. He waited to see what he could still get out of Jenny. She
rehearsed to him Cartmell's charges as to his conduct; its idleness, its
unseemliness, the disrepute it brought on her and on the Institute.
Somehow all this sounded a little bit unreal--or, if not unreal, shall I
say preliminary? Powers confessed part, denied part, averred a prejudice
in Cartmell--this last not without some reason. She rose to her gravest
charge.

"And you seem to have the impertinence to hint that you can do what you
like,