If it was her only observation, at least it was a characteristic one. Jenny had a great belief in things "blowing over"—a belief that inspired and explained much of her diplomacy. What seemed sometimes in retrospect to have been far-sighted scheming or elaborate cunning had been in reality no more than waiting for a thing to "blow over"—holding the balance, maintaining an artificial equilibrium by a number of clever manipulations, until things should right themselves and gain, or regain, a proper and natural basis. The best opinion I could form of her present proceedings was that they rested on some such idea. For the moment she banned Octon under the pressure of her other neighbors; but in time the memory of his offenses would grow dimmer—and in time also her own position and power would be more firmly established. Then he could come back. She might have persuaded him into good humor by such a plea as that. If it were so, I thought that she had misled him and perhaps deceived herself. People have long memories for social offenses. And—one could not help asking the question—what of Fillingford? Where was he to fit in, what part was he to play? Was a millennium to come when he was to lie down on Jenny's hearthrug side by side with Octon?
There was a lady too many at dinner—a man short! Jenny could have avoided this blot on her arrangements by eliminating Chat—and poor Chat was quite accustomed to being eliminated. But she chose not to adopt this course. I rather think that she liked to feel herself a bit of a martyr in the matter, but possibly she was also minded to make a little demonstration of her submission, to let them guess that Octon had been coming and that she had acted on their orders with merciless promptitude. In other respects the party was one of her most successful. Great as was the strain which she had been through in the afternoon, she herself was gay and sparkling. And how they petted her! Lady Aspenick might naturally have looked to be the heroine of the occasion—nor had she any reason to complain of a lack of interest in her story (I had to complain of a great deal too much interest in mine)—but it was for Jenny that the highest honors were reserved; the most joy was over the one sinner that repented.
Fillingford, of course, took her in to dinner. It was not in the man to pay what are called "marked attentions" before the eyes of others, but his manner to her was characterized by a pronounced friendliness and deference; he seemed to be trying to atone for the coercion which he had been compelled to exert earlier in the day. He did not fall into the mistake of treating her acquiescence as a trifle or the case as merely that of "cutting a cad," to use Aspenick's curtly contemptuous phrase. He raised her action to the rank of an obligation conferred on her neighbors and especially on himself. He was man of the world enough to convey this impression without departing too far from the habitual reserve of his demeanor.
Lady Aspenick looked at the pair through her eyeglasses; we had at last exhausted the incident of the morning—though we had not settled the precise degree of accidentality which attached to the collision between her whip and Octon's face; under a veiled cross-examination she had become rather vague about it—that may weigh a little in Octon's favor.
"It's a long while since I've seen Lord Fillingford so lively," she remarked. "He seems to get on so well with Miss Driver. As a rule, you know, we women despair of him."
"Has he such a bad character among you as that?"
"He seemed to have given himself up to being old long before he need. He's only forty-three, I think." She laughed. "There, in my heart I believe I'm matchmaking, like a true woman!"
"Yes, I believe you are. Well, these speculations are always interesting."
"We're beginning to make them in the neighborhood, I can tell you, Mr. Austin."
"And—knowing the neighborhood—I can believe you, Lady Aspenick."