I do not happen to know whether it be etiquette to offer or return the ordinary signs of recognition when one forms part of a procession, either secular or ecclesiastical. In the case of the latter, at all events, probably it is not. This perhaps got Alison out of a difficulty—while it left Jenny in a doubt. But I think that it must be permissible to look rather more benevolent, rather less sternly aloof, than Alison's face was as she passed, escorted by her jesting adherents. To say that he took no more notice of us or of them than if we had not been there is inadequate. His ignoring of us achieved a positive quality. He passed by with his eyes purposely, aggressively, indifferent. The boys and men looked after him and his procession, and nudged one another with smiles.
Jenny's face told nothing of her view of this little incident. She was still smiling when we quickened up and, with final hand-wavings, shook ourselves clear of our adherents. At Cartmell's office her head was as clear and her manner as composed as possible. The business that brought us having been transacted, she opened fire on Cartmell about Oxley Lodge and the outlying farms of Hingston. Verily she was losing no time in her campaign!
Cartmell was obviously amused at her. "That's making up for lost time with a vengeance, Miss Jenny! Hingston and Oxley all at once!" As soon as they got on to business—got to work again—his old pride and pleasure in her began to revive.
"Only a bit of Hingston!" Jenny pleaded with a smile.
"There's plenty of money," he said thoughtfully. "In spite of keeping things going here as you ordered—much too lavishly done it was, too, in my opinion—it's been piling up since you've been away. If they're willing to sell—I hear on good authority that Bertram Ware is if he can get his price—the money's not the difficulty. But what's the good?"
"The good?" asked Jenny.
"Surely you've got plenty? What's the good of a lot more? Isn't it only a burden on you?"
She answered him not with her old impatience, but with all her resoluteness—her old certainty that she knew what she wanted, and why she wanted it—and that it was quite immaterial whether anyone else did.
"You look after the money, Mr. Cartmell; you can leave the good to me—and the burden!"
"Yes, yes, you and your father!" he grumbled. "No good advising—not the least! 'Slave-Driver' I used to call him over our port after dinner sometimes. You're just the same, Miss Jenny."