I walked up to the Priory, immersed in a rather scandalized, rather amused, would-be psychological line of reflection. "She can't help it!" I said to myself. "She can't let anyone go! Not even Powers! At the first chance (I did not yet guess what the chance was) she calls him to heel again. Even the meanest hound must keep with the pack. It's very curious, but that's it!"
In fact that was only part of it—and not the most significant for present purposes.
Jenny had gone from the Committee to call on Mrs. Jepps, a person of much consideration in Catsford, wife of its first Mayor (now deceased), owner of an important business house in the drapery line, vir (save that she was a woman) pietate gravis, and eminently meet to be enrolled among the active adherents of the Institute.
"And I've got her!" said Jenny complacently, as she gave me my tea.
"Mr. Alison wants to get you—I've been talking to him."
"Oh, well, I like Mr. Alison."
"He wants to get you. Don't misunderstand. He doesn't want you to get him, you know."
"Friendship is surely mutual?" suggested Jenny, with a lurking smile.
I mentioned the matter of the subscription: Jenny was satisfactorily liberal.
"Not that you'll be quit of him with that," I warned her.