Part 16 (2/2)

I glanced a trifle desperately at Olive Jervaise. I judged her to be rather a colourless creature who would not have the spirit openly to snub me. She was nearly opposite to me, between her brother and Hughes, and well placed for an open attack if I could once engage her attention. But when I came to consider an opening, every reasonably appropriate topic seemed to have some dangerous relation to the _affaire Brenda_. Any reference to the dance, to the Sturtons, the place, the weather, suddenly a.s.sumed in my mind the appearance of a subtle approach to the subject I most wished to avoid. If I was, indeed, regarded in that house as a spy in league with the enemy, the most innocent remark might be construed into an attempt to obtain evidence.

I fancy, too, that I was subject to an influence other than the heightened self-consciousness due to my awkward situation. I had only just begun to realise that the absence of Brenda must be a horribly insistent fact to her own family. She was so entirely different from the rest of them. Her vivacity, her spirit must have shown amidst the nervous respectability of this dull and fearful household like the gleam of unexpected water in the blankness of a desert. Her absence must have seemed to them a positive thing. Probably every one at the table was thinking of her at that moment.

And the result of this combined thought was producing a hallucination of Brenda in my mind, strong enough to hypnotise me. In any case, her apparition stood at the end of every avenue of conversation I could devise. I could think of no opening that did not lead straight up to the subject of her absence.

And even while I was still pondering my problem (I had come to such fantastic absurdities as contemplating an essay on the Chinese gamut, rejecting it on the grounds that Brenda was the only musician in the family), that awful lunch was abruptly closed by a unanimous refusal of the last course. Perhaps the others were as eager as I was to put an end to that ordeal; all of them, that is, with the exception of the spiteful snake who was responsible for my humiliation.

The family managed to get out of the room this time without their usual procrastinating civilities. I went ahead of Frank and Hughes. I intended to spend a lonely afternoon in thinking out some plan for exposing the treachery of Grace Tattersall, but as I was crossing the Hall, Frank Jervaise came up behind me.

”Look here, Melhuish,” he said.

I looked. I did more than that; I confronted him. There is just a suspicion of red in my hair, and on occasion the influence of it is shown in my temper. It must have shown then, for Jervaise was visibly uncomfortable.

”It's no d.a.m.ned good being so ratty, Melhuish,” he said. ”Jolly well your own fault, anyway.”

”What's my own fault?” I demanded.

”We can't talk here,” he said uneasily. ”Let's go down the avenue.”

I had an impression that he was going to offer to fight me. I certainly hoped that he would.

”Very well,” I agreed.

But when he spoke again, I realised that it was as a lawyer and not as a fighter. He had, indeed, been preparing a cautious impeachment of me. We had reached the entrance to the avenue before he began, and the cloister of its cool shade seemed a sufficiently appropriate setting for his forensic diplomacy. Outside, in the glare of the brilliant August sun, I should have flared out at him. In the solemnity of that Gothic aisle, I found influences which helped me to maintain a relative composure.

He posed his first question with an a.s.sumed indifference.

”Why didn't you sleep in the house last night?” he asked.

I took time to consider my answer; I was taken aback by his knowledge of the fact he had disclosed. My first impulse was to retort ”How do you know that I didn't sleep in the house?” but I was determined to be very cautious at the outset of this cross-examination. Obviously he meant it to take the form of a cross-examination. I was equally determined that I would presently reverse the parts of counsel and witness--or was I the prisoner giving evidence on my own behalf?

We must have gone another fifteen or twenty deliberate paces before I replied,--

”I'll answer that question in a minute. I should like to know first what grounds you have for stating that I didn't sleep in the house?”

He shrugged his shoulders. ”You admit that you didn't?” he retorted.

”If you're going to conduct your conversation on the principles of the court room,” I said, ”the only thing I can do is to adopt the same method.”

He ignored that. ”You admit that you didn't sleep in the house?” he repeated.

”I'll admit nothing until I know what the devil you're driving at,” I replied.

He did not look at me. He was saving himself until he reached the brow-beating stage. But I was watching him--we were walking a yard or two apart--and I noted his expression of simulated indifference and forbearance, as he condescendingly admitted my claim to demand evidence for his preliminary accusation.

”You were very late coming down,” he began and paused, probably to tempt me into some ridicule of such a worthless piece of testimony.

”Go on,” I said.

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