Rude banter was all very well, but it mustn't go too far.

(Secretly she allowed to herself sometimes that this old man had elements of the cad in his character.) "That's entirely my own affair," she said, "and Frank's." Lord Talgarth blazed up a little.
"And the eight hundred a year is mine," he said.
Jenny laid down her spoon as the servant reappeared with the fish and the menu-card.

He came very opportunely.

And while her host was considering what he would eat next, she was pondering her next move.
Jenny, as has been said, was an exceedingly sensible girl.

She had grown up in the Rectory, down at the park gates; and since her mother's death, three years previously, had managed her father's house, including her father, with great success.