Part 24 (2/2)

”I don't say that _I_ think it would be a scandal,” he said. ”I'm only telling you the way that _they'd_ certainly see it. It might have been different if your brother had never been in our service. You must see that. _We_ know, of course, but other people don't, and we shall never be able to explain to them. People like the Turnbulls and the Atkinsons and all that lot will say that Brenda eloped with the chauffeur. It's no good beating about the bush--that's the plain fact we've got to face.”

”Then, hadn't we better face it?” Anne returned with a flash of indignation. ”Or do you think you can persuade Arthur to go back to Canada, alone?”

Jervaise grunted uneasily.

”You know it's no earthly, Frank,” Brenda said. ”Why can't you be a sport and go back and tell them that they might as well give in at once?”

”Oh! my dear girl, you must know perfectly well that they'll _never_ give in,” her brother replied.

”Mr. Jervaise might,” Banks put in.

Frank turned to him sharply. ”What do you mean by that?” he asked.

”He'd have given in this morning, if it hadn't been for you,” Banks said, staring with his most dogged expression at Jervaise.

”What makes you think so?” Jervaise retaliated.

”What he said, and the way he behaved,” Banks a.s.serted, the English yeoman stock in him still very apparent.

”You're mistaken,” Jervaise snapped.

”Give me a chance to prove it, then,” was Banks's counter.

”How?”

”I've got to take that car back. Give me a chance for another talk with Mr. Jervaise; alone this time.”

I looked at Banks with a sudden feeling of anxiety. I was afraid that he meant at last to use that ”pull” he had hinted at on the hill; and I had an intuitive shrinking from the idea of his doing that. This open defiance was fine and upright. The other att.i.tude suggested to my mind the conception of something cowardly, a little base and underhand. He looked, I admit, the picture of st.u.r.dy virtue as he stood there challenging his late master to permit this test of old Jervaise's att.i.tude, but the prize at stake was so inestimably precious to Banks, that it must have altered all his values. He would, I am sure, have committed murder for Brenda--any sort of murder.

Frank Jervaise did not respond at once to the gage that had been offered.

He appeared to be moodily weighing the probabilities before he decided his policy. And Brenda impatiently prompted him by saying,--

”Well, I don't see what possible objection you can have to that.”

”Only want to save the pater any worry I can,” Jervaise said. ”He has been more cut up than any one over this business.”

”The pater has?” queried Brenda on a note of amazement. ”I shouldn't have expected him to be half as bad as the mater and Olive.”

”Well, he is. He's worse--much worse,” Jervaise a.s.serted.

I was listening to the others, but I was watching Banks, and I saw him sneer when that a.s.sertion was made. The expression seemed to have been forced out of him against his will; just a quick jerk downwards of the corners of his mouth that portrayed a supreme contempt for old Jervaise's distress. But that sneer revealed Banks's opinion to me better than anything he had said or done. I knew then that he was aware of something concerning the master of the Hall that was probably unknown either to Brenda or Frank, something that Banks had loyally hidden even from his sister. He covered his sneer so quickly that I believe no one else noticed it.

”But, surely, it would be better for the pater to see Arthur and have done with it,” Brenda was saying.

”Oh! I dare say,” Jervaise agreed with his usual air of grudging the least concession. ”Are you ready to go now?” he asked, addressing Banks.

Banks nodded. ”I'll pick up the car on the way,” he said.

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