get my own way
all the same. Let them look out for that! Yes, I get my own way in the
end, Austin."

"No doubt--not that I know what is your way in this particular matter."

Her little outbreak of anger passed as quickly as it had come. She
shrugged her shoulders with a woeful smile.

"My own way! So one talks. What is one's way? The way one would choose?
No--it's generally the way one has to tread. It's in that sense that I
shall get my own way."

"You'll try for it in the other sense, though, I fancy."

"Yes, perhaps I shall--and I shan't try less because Lord Fillingford
and the Aspenicks either scold or pet me."

"Well, but it's hardly reasonable to expect to have things both ways, is
it?"

She came to me, laughing, and took hold of my hands: "But if I choose to
have them both ways, sir?" she asked.

"Then, of course," said I, "the case is different."

"I will have them both ways," said Jenny.

"You can't."

"See if I don't!" she cried in merry defiance. "Only, mind you, not a
word of it--to the county!" She pressed my hands and let them go. "Oh,
I'm so tired!"

"Stop thinking--do stop thinking--and go to sleep."

She nodded at me kindly and reassuringly as Loft came in to put out the
lights. I left her standing there in her rich frock, with her jewels
gleaming, yet with her eyes again weary and mournful. She had had a bad
day of it, for all her triumph in the evening. Trying to have it both
ways was hard work.

CHAPTER IX

THE INSTITUTE CLERK

Mr. Bindlecombe was jubilant. Jenny's vacillations were over--the
Institute was really on the way. A Provisional Committee had been
formed; it was composed of Bindlecombe (in the Chair, in virtue of his
office of Mayor, which he still held), Fillingford, Cartmell, Alison the
Rector of the old parish church, and Jenny. I was what I believe they
term in business circles "alternate" with--or to?--Jenny; when she could
not attend, I was to act and, if need be, vote in her place. As a fact,
I generally went even when she did. Since the Institute was to serve for
women as well as for men, a subsidiary and advisory Ladies' Committee
was formed--and Lady Sarah Lacey was induced to accept the chairmanship
of it. Jenny was justifiably proud of this triumph; but the Ladies'
Committee had nothing to do with finance, and finance was, of course,
the question of paramount interest, in the early stages at least. The
original ten thousand pounds which I had allo