fair what Essie did
with her money, what in her affections remained unimpaired. Rather it
was reassuring that she had so promptly found solace; it enlarged his
own feeling of freedom. "It got worse, yesterday," Stephen Jannan
continued; "she came to the office, insisted on seeing me. Luckily I was
busy with a mastership that kept me over three hours. But she left, I
was told, with the air of one soon to return. She was brandied with
purpose. There is no end, Jasper, to what I am prepared to do for you;
but, my dear fellow, neither of us can have this. She wept. My young
gentlemen were pierced with sympathetic curiosity. You must realize,
Jasper, that you are not a sparrow, to float unnoticed from ledge to
ledge."

An angry impotence seized Jasper Penny. He was tempted to have Stephen
Jannan turn over to Essie, at once, a conclusive sum of money. That
would put an end to any communication between them, provide her with the
power of self-gratification which for Essie Scofield spelled
forgetfulness.... For a little, he was obliged, wearily, to add.
Together with such a young man as he had seen in her house her capacity
for expenditure would be limitless. She would come back to him with
fresh demands, perhaps at an inconceivably awkward time, in a calculated
hysteria--he had cause to know--surprisingly loud and convincing. Susan
must be absolutely secured against that possibility. He could not help
but think of the latter as yielding in the end, married to him.

He gazed at Stephen Jannan in a sombre perplexity. "A nuisance," the
other nodded. "Only time, I suppose, and the most rigid adherence to
your statements will convince the lady of what she may expect. In the
meanwhile, frankly, we had better put it in some other hands; not so
much on my account as your own--the sympathetic young gentlemen, you
see. That can be easily arranged."

Jasper Penny was not thinking of the material Essie, the present,
concrete problem; but he was once more absorbed in the manner in which
her influence followed, apparently shaped, his existence. He was again
appalled by the vitality of the past; the phrase itself was an error,
there was no past. All that had gone, that was to come, met ceaselessly
in the present, a confusion of hope and regret. It was evident that he
would have to see Essie again, and explain that what she had from him
depended entirely on her reciprocal attitude. This could only be
satisfactory in person. He would go to