"Yes, sir. Miss Driver is giving us an adequate sphere for our ambitions. I have longed for one. Doubtless you have also, Mr. Austin?"
"I'm not very ambitious, Mr. Powers."
"Wise, sir, wise! But we can't help our dispositions. Mine is to soar! To soar upward by dint of hard work! Miss Driver will find I've not been idle when she next honors Ivydene with a visit. You don't know if she'll be here to-morrow?"
"Not I," I answered. "Miss Driver doesn't generally tell me what she's going to do to-morrow. The boot's on the other leg—she tells me what I'm going to do to-morrow."
"Ha-ha! Very good, sir, very good! And she's a lady one is proud to take orders from."
"Quite so. Good night." I think I must have spoken rather abruptly, for Powers's answering "Good night" sounded a little startled. I really could not bear any more of the fellow. But Octon—impatient, irascible, contemptuous Octon—seemed quite happy in his company. If he were not the rose, yet—? No, the proverb really could not be strained to embrace the moral perfume of Powers.
"Good night, Austin. I'll stop and smoke half a pipe here with Mr. Powers."
"You do me honor, Mr. Octon. But if you'd step inside—perhaps just a little drop of Scotch, sir? Don't say no. Drink success to the Institute! One friendly glass!"
What a picture! Octon drinking success to the Institute with Powers! But a short time ago I should have deemed it a happily ludicrous inspiration from Bedlam. To my amazement, though Octon hesitated for a perceptible space, he did not refuse. He glanced at me, laughed in a rather shamefaced way, and said, "Well, just a minute, and just one glass to the Institute—since you are so kind, Mr. Powers." With a nod to me he turned and followed Powers toward the house.
As I walked home, a picture of the position pieced itself together in my head. The process was involuntary—even against my will. I tried to remind myself all the time of Jenny's own warning—how she had accused me of too often imputing to her long-headed cunning, how her actions were, far oftener than I imagined, the outcome of the minute, not the result of calculation or subtle thought. Yet if in this case she had been subtle and cunning, she might have produced some such combination as now insisted on taking shape before my brain. For the sake of the neighborhood, and her position and prestige in its eyes, especially for the sake of Fillingford, she had abandoned Octon and had banished him. But she wanted to see him—and to see him without creating remark; in plain fact, to see him, if not secretly, yet as privately as she could. Next, she wished to make progress with the Institute, to establish an office with a clerk, an office where meetings could be held and plans made, and where she could come and see how matters were getting on—a clerk on whom she could depend to support her, always to be on her side—a clerk who, as she had said, could not afford to be against her. Hence came Ivydene—and Mr. Powers. Was it mere chance that Ivydene was just opposite Hatcham Ford? Was Mr. Powers's support—that subserviency on which Jenny had playfully laid stress—desired only against Lady Sarah and other possibly recalcitrant members of the Committee? If Powers could not afford to oppose her on the Committee's work, could he afford any the more to thwart her in her private concerns? Plainly not. There also he was bound to help.