Jenny copied the attitude of the pair on the terrace; she put her arm through mine and said with a laugh, "She is pretty, then?" The laugh sounded triumphant. "Why, as pretty a little thing as a man could find in a lifetime!" I cried in honest enthusiasm.
"Oh, come, you're not such a hopeless old bachelor after all," said Jenny. "Not that I in the least want you to fall in love with her—not you, Austin."
"I think I am—half!"
"Keep just the other half for me. Half's as much as I want, you know." Her voice sounded sad again, yet whimsically sad. "But I do want that from you, I think." She pressed my arm; then, waiting for no answer, she went on gayly, "I think I shall surprise Catsford with that!"
"She's going to pay you a visit?" I asked.
"She's going to live here," Jenny answered. "That's my legacy, Austin."
I smote my free arm against my thigh. "By Heaven, the girl on the mantelpiece at Hatcham Ford!" I cried.
At the moment the girl on the terrace turned round, saw us, and waved her hand merrily to Jenny. Certainly the prettiest little creature you ever saw—in the small, dainty, delicate, roguishly appealing way: and most indubitably the original of that picture which I had seen at Hatcham Ford, which vanished on the night when Octon went forth alone—little thinking that Jenny would follow him.
I turned from her to Jenny in astonishment. "But I'd made up my mind that it was his wife."
"I'm glad he told you he was married. He told you the dreadful thing about it, too, didn't he? It wasn't a thing one could talk about—he'd never have allowed that for a minute—but I wish everybody could have known. It seems a sort of excuse for what they all quarreled with in him. He'd been made to feel the world his enemy when he was young; that must tell on a man, mustn't it?"