"As you say, for sheep there's the police court. I came as near behaving right as one can with a woman when I broke her whip." "You really think that?" "Yes, Austin, I really do--and that shows, as you were going to say, that I'm utterly hopeless. I don't fit the standards." He was sitting hunched up over the fire, monopolizing its heat, his great shoulders nearly up to his ears. He condemned himself with much better humor than he judged other people. "I don't fit them, I don't agree with them, I hate them. Left to myself, I'd get out of this." "Who's stopping you?" I asked, pulling at my pipe and trying to edge nearer the fire. He took no notice of my question--which was indeed no more than an indifferently civil way of suggesting that he was at liberty to please himself. He took no notice of my futile edging either. "Now if I had Jenny Driver's gifts for the game," he went on, "I daresay I should like it. Oh, you were quite right there! She's equal to ruling the county, and ruling it well. Since she can do it, I don't blame her for trying. Perhaps I'd try myself in the same case. But, mind you, in her heart she thinks no more of them than I do. They can give her what she wants, they can't give me what I want--that's all the difference. So it's worth her while to fool them--and it's not worth mine. Not that I could do it half as well as she does!" His admiration of Jenny was unmistakably affectionate as well as amused. There is a way a man draws at his pipe--long pulls with smiles in between. It tells a tale when a woman's name has just passed his lips. "Then all she's got--the big place and the money--the influence and so on--wouldn't attract you?" He turned slowly to me. "It might, if I thought that I could make terms with the people. But I can't do that. So I should hate it. Why did you ask me that question, Austin?" "Why not? We were discussing your character, and any sidelights--" I ended with a shrug. "You humbug, you infernal humbug!" he said. Then he fell into silence, staring again at the fire. "Not at all. My interest is quite speculative. What else should it be? Is she likely to die and leave you her property?" I spoke in sincerity, having in my mind Jenny's purpose with regard to Fillingford, for a settled purpose it had by now, to my thinking, become. My sincerity went home to him, and carried with it an uncontrollable surprise. He turned his head toward me again with a rapid jerk. His eyes searched my face, now rather suspiciously. Then he smiled. "Yes, that's true. I suppose I ought to beg your pardon!" he said.