He wrote to Jenny asking if he might call on her; he wanted to have a few words with her on a matter of importance relating to herself. He added that he was acting entirely on his own responsibility and in no way at the suggestion of any other person.
Jenny twisted his letter in her hands with an air of irresolution, almost of shrinking.
"I don't want to see him," she said to me plaintively. "It won't be—comfortable. He's let me severely alone up to now. Can't he let me alone still? I suppose he'll lecture me horribly! If there were anything to be got by it! But there isn't."
"He sent you a pleasant message about Margaret," I reminded her.
"Yes, so he did. And I don't want him to think me afraid. I'll see him. But I'm afraid of him. Austin, you must be there."
"I don't think he'll expect that."
"Never mind what he expects. If I see him, it's on my own conditions. I want you there. It's cowardly, but I do. Tell him he can come, but that I propose to see him in your presence."
So she would have it, being obviously disturbed at the idea of the interview. Was he coming to her as Nathan came to David—to denounce her sin? He was no doubt wrong about her intentions for the future, but he was fatally right in his opinion about what she had done in the past. He had a locus standi, too, or so he would conceive—a professional right to tell her the truth.
"I'm spoiled. I haven't had half enough of the disagreeables," she said with a woeful smile.
There was truth in that—so far as external things went, visible and palpable pains and penalties. She had not paid full toll. Luck had been with her and had afforded her a case—not a good one, but good enough to give her courage a handle. Her other advantages—her attractiveness, her position, her wealth, she had used with dexterity and without scruple to protect her from punishment. She had cajoled and she had bribed—both successfully; only the irreconcilables remained unreconciled. To no small extent she had jockeyed outraged morality—in externals. Many people did it even more successfully—by not being even half found out, and therefore not put on their defense at all. But for one who had been at least half found out, against whom circumstantial evidence was terribly strong although direct proof might be lacking, she had come off very cheaply. Nobody about her told her so; we spoiled her. She was afraid that Alison, in manner, very likely even in words, would tell her now, face to face. Being taken to task was terribly against the grain with her. Only Jenny might punish Jenny—and the blows must fall in secret.