taking wings.

"I'll tell you one thing. I think you'll have to open the purse-strings
wider still before many days are out."

He looked at me very sharply. "The marriage coming off? And a big
settlement? Well, that'd be right enough. All the same, I can't say I
like it, Austin. Fillingford's son! Doesn't it stick in your throat a
bit?"

"I said I'd tell you one thing. I didn't say I'd tell you two or three
more."

"All the town says it. My word, you should hear Mrs. Jepps! My wife says
it's something terrible." He twinkled in amusement again. "Lord, it's
sometimes worth being a bit staggered yourself just to see how much
worse the thing takes other people!"

"Mrs. Jepps and the rest of the town had better wait a little. It's a
pity to waste good indignation."

"Aye, and folks hate being cheated of a scandal they've made up their
minds to."

"Scandal's a hard word in the case that you're thinking of."

"I've no great stock of words outside of a conveyance of land--there I
can use as many as any man except counsel. But, to tell the truth, it
goes against my stomach."

"It sticks in your throat! And it goes against your stomach! And all
this before you've been even asked to swallow it! Aren't you
considerably premature?"

"You think there's a chance she won't--?" His manner was openly eager.

"Yes--but hold your tongue, and pay up your five hundred for early
possession."

"Upon my soul, Austin, I never more than half believed it. But when
everybody buzzes a thing into a man's ears--and his own wife first among
them--and he sees no other meaning of things, why----"

"The best of us are likely to give in--yes! Well, I've got another
appointment--at Alison's."

"Alison's? What have you got to do with Alison these days?"

"Come now, does your position interfere with your friendships? What have
you to do with Mrs. Jepps?"

"It was my wife. I never see the old witch."

"I've no wife--so I have to face the devil on my own account."

From my talk with Cartmell I was the more anxious for the success of my
other appointment. That might help to free Jenny from the danger of
being made so angry as to do what she hated to do, and what faithful old
Cartmell could not stomach. If anything could drive her to it, it would
be a slight, a harshness, a rudeness, toward Margaret. How she had
flared up at Alison's objections! If Margaret were spurned, to Jenny's
mind Octon also was again spurned. Then the temper would s