For a second or two we stared at one another like antagonists searching
for an unexposed weakness. He was the first to try another opening.
"Fact is, I suppose," he said tentatively, "that you'd like to be out of
this affair altogether? Had enough of it, no doubt?"
I might have accepted that suggestion without hurting Banks's
self-respect. I saw the excuse as a possibility that provided an
honourable way of escape. I had but to say, "Well, in a way, yes. I have,
in all innocence, got most confoundedly entangled in an affair that hasn't
anything whatever to do with me, and it seems that the best thing I can do
now is to clear out." He would have believed that. He would have seen the
justice of it. But the moment this easy way of escape was made clear to
me, I knew that I did not want to take it; that in spite of everything, I
wanted, almost passionately, to go to the Home Farm.
I was aware of a sudden clarity of vision. The choice that lay before me
appeared suddenly vital; a climax in my career, a symbol of the essential
choice that would determine my future.
On the one hand was the security of refusal. I could return, unaffected,
to my familiar life. Presently, when the Jervaise nerves had become normal
again, the Jervaises themselves would recognise the egregious blunder they
had made in their treatment of me. They would apologise--through Frank.
And I should go on, as I had begun. I was already decently successful. I
should become more successful. I could look forward to increased financial
security, to a measure of fame, to all that is said to make life worth
living. And as I saw it, then, the whole prospect of that easy future,
appeared to me as hopelessly boring, worthless, futile.
On the other hand...? I had no idea what awaited me on the other hand. I
could see that I should have to accept the stigma that had been put upon
me; that I should be thrown into the company of a young woman whose
personality had extraordinarily attracted me, who probably detested me,
and who might now be engaged to a man I very actively disliked; that I
should involve myself in an affair that had not fully engaged my sympathy
(I still retained my feeling of compassion for old Jervaise); that I
should, in short, be choosing the path of greatest resistance and
unpleasantness, with no possibility of getting any return other than scorn
and disgrace.
I saw these alternatives in a flash, and no sane man would have hesitated
between them for one moment.
"But look here, Banks," I said. "What would your mother and--and your
sister say to having an unknown visitor foisted upon them without notice?"
"Oh! that'd be all right," he said with conviction.
"There's nothing I should like better than to stay with you," I continued,
"if I thought that your--people would care to have me."
"Well, as a matter of fact," he said, "my father and mother haven't come
home yet. They drove over to some relations of ours about twelve miles
away, yesterday afternoon, and they won't be back till about seven,
probably. Last chance my father had before harvest, and my mother likes to
get away now and again when she can manage it."
"They don't know yet, then, about you and...?" I said, momentarily
diverted by the new aspect this news put on the doings of the night.
"Not yet. That'll be all right, though," Banks replied, and added as an
afterthought, "The old man may be a bit upset. I want to persuade 'em all
to come out to Canada, you see. There's a chance there. Mother would come
like a shot, but I'm afraid the old man'll be a bit difficult."
"But, then, look here, Banks," I said. "You won't want a stranger up there
to-night of all nights--interfering with your--er--family council."
Banks scratched his head with a professional air. "I dunno," he said. "It
might help." He looked at me reflectively before adding, "You know She's
up there--of course?"
"I didn't," I replied. "Was she there last night when Jervaise and I went
up?"
He shook his head. "We meant to go off together and chance it," he said.
"May as well tell you now. There's no secret about it among ourselves. And
then she came out to me on the hill without her things--just in a cloak.
Came to tell me it was all off. Said she wouldn't go, that way.... Well,
we talked.... Best part of three hours. And the end of it was, she came
back to the Farm."
"And it isn't all off?" I put in.
"The elopement is," he said.
"But not the proposed marriage?"
He leaned against the door of the car with the air of one who is preparing
for a long story. "You're sure you want to hear all this?" he asked.
"Quite sure--that is, if you want to tell me," I said. "And if I'm coming
home with you, it might be as well if I knew exactly how things stand."
"I felt somehow as if you and me were going to hit it off, last night," he
remarked shyly.
"So did I," I rejoined, not less shy than he was.
Our friendship had been admitted and confirmed. No further word was
needed. We understood each other. I felt warmed and comforted. It was good
to be once more in the confidence of a fellowman. I have not the stuff in
me that is needed to make a good spy.
"Well, the way things are at present," Banks hurried on to cover our lapse
into an un-British sentimentality, "is like this. We'd meant, as I told
you, to run away...."
"And then she was afraid?"
"No, it was rather the other way round. It was me that was afraid. You
see, I thought I should take all the blame off the old man by going off
with her--him being away and all, I didn't think as even the Jervaises
could very well blame it on to him, overlooking what she pointed out, as
once we'd gone they'd simply have to get rid of him, too, blame or no
blame. They'd never stand having him and mother and Anne within a mile of
the Hall, as sort of relations. _I_ ought to have seen that, but one
forgets these things at the time."