"Or go alone," he added.
"They've cut up rough, then?" I inquired.
"Young Frank has, anyway," he said with a brave assumption of breaking
away from servility.
"You didn't see the old man?"
"Never a sight of him."
"And young Frank...?"
"Shoved it home for all he was worth. Threatened me with the law and what
not. Said if I tried to take Her with me they'd have us stopped and take
an action against me for abduction. I suppose it's all right that they can
do that?"
"I'm afraid it is," I said; "until she comes of age."
"Glad I'd taken the car back, anyhow," Banks muttered, and I guessed that
young Frank's vindictiveness had not been overestimated by Anne. No doubt,
he would have been glad enough to complicate the issue by alleging Banks's
theft of that car.
"Well, what do you propose to do now?" I asked, after a short interval of
silence.
"_I_ don't know," Banks said desperately, and then added, "It depends
chiefly on Her."
"She'll probably vote for an elopement," I suggested.
"And if they come after us and I'm bagged?"
"Don't let yourself get bagged. Escape them."
"D'you think she'd agree to that? Sneaking off and hiding? Dodging about
to get out of the country, somehow?" His tone left me uncertain whether he
were asking a question or spurning the idea in disgust.
"Well, what's the alternative?" I replied.
"We might wait," he said. "She'll be of age in thirteen months' time."
I had no fear but that Banks would wait thirteen months, or thirteen
years, for Brenda. I was less certain about her. Just now she was head
over ears in romance, and I believed that if she married him his sterling
qualities would hold her. But I mistrusted the possible effect upon her of
thirteen months' absence. The Jervaises would know very well how to use
their advantage. They would take her away from the Hall and its
associations, and plunge her into the distractions of a society that could
not yet have lost its glamour for her. I could picture Brenda looking back
with wonder at the foolishness of the girl who had imagined herself to be
in love with her father's chauffeur. And even an hour earlier, so recent
had been my true conversion, I should have questioned the advisability of
a hasty, secret marriage between these two temporarily infatuated people.
Now I was hot with the evangelising passion of a young disciple. I wanted
to deliver Brenda from the thrall of society at any price. It seemed to me
that the greatest tragedy for her would be a marriage with some one in her
own class--young Turnbull, for instance.
"I shouldn't wait," I said decidedly.
"Why not?" he asked with a touch of resentment, as if he had guessed
something of my mistrust of Brenda.
"All very well, in a way, for you," I explained. "But think what an awful
time she'd have, with all of them trying to nag her into a marriage with
young Turnbull, or somebody of that kind."
"He isn't so bad as some of 'em," Banks said, evading the main issue.
"She'd never marry him though. She knows him too well, for one thing. He's
been scouring the county in a dog-cart all the morning--went to Hurley to
make inquiries before breakfast, and all over the place afterwards. John's
been telling me. He heard 'em talking when young Turnbull turned up at
tea-time. He's got guts all right, that fellow. I believe he'd play the
game fair enough if they tried to make her marry him. Besides, as I said,
she'd never do it."
"I don't suppose she would," I said, humouring him--it was no part of my
plan to disturb his perfect faith in Brenda--"I only said that she'd have
a rotten bad time during those thirteen months."
"Well, we've got to leave that to her, haven't we?" Banks returned.