"Yes," said Jenny, "we must be going. Everything's settled, Austin, and—and Mr. Octon has been very kind."
"I'm glad to hear that anyhow," I said grumpily. If he had been kind, why had I heard that wail?
In fact I was thoroughly puzzled—and therefore both vexed and uneasy. He accepted his banishment—and yet was friendly. That result seemed a great victory for Jenny—yet she did not look victorious. It was Octon who wore the air of exultation and self-satisfaction; yet he had been thrown to the wolves, abandoned to the pack of Fillingfords and Aspenicks. Well, that could not be the whole truth of it, though what more there might be I could not guess.
He came with us down the gravel path which led from the hall door to the road, where the brougham was waiting. Jenny pointed across the road—where Ivydene stood with its strip of garden.
"That's the house I meant, you know," she said, evidently referring to something that had passed in their private conversation.
He stood smiling at her, with his hands in his pockets. He really was, for him, ridiculously amiable, though his amiability, like everything else about him, was rough, almost boisterous.
"If you must go on with your beastly Institute," he said, "and must have a beastly house for a beastly office, to make your beastly plans and do your other beastly work in, why, I daresay that beastly house will do as well as any other beastly house for your beastly purpose. Only do choose beastly clerks, or whatever they're going to be, who haven't got any beastly children to play beastly games and make a beastly noise in the garden."
Quite the first I had heard of this idea! Quite the first time, too, that Leonard Octon had been so agreeable—he meant to be agreeable, though the humor was like a schoolboy's—about the Institute!
"I think I'll speak to Mr. Bindlecombe about it," said Jenny, as she gave him her hand. Her farewell was more than gracious; it was grateful, it was even appealing. Nor for all my anger and vexation could I deny the real feeling in his eyes as he looked at her; he was admiring; he was affectionate; nay more, he seemed to be giving her his thanks.
She was very silent all the way home, answering only by a "yes" or a "no" the few remarks I ventured to make. On her own account she made only one—as the result of a long reverie. "It'll all blow over some day," she said.