“Don’t they know anything about this? Anything, I mean, before last night’s affair?”
“Practically nothing at all,” Banks said. “Of course, nothing whatever about last night.”
“And you honestly think…” began Jervaise.
“That’ll be all right, won’t it, Anne?” Banks replied.
But Anne, still leaning back in the corner of the settle, refused to answer.
Jervaise turned and looked down at her. “If you all went…?” he said, giving his incomplete sentence the sound of a question.
“Oh! I should certainly go, too,” she replied.
Jervaise frowned moodily. I could see that he was caught in an awkward dilemma, but I was not absolutely sure as to the form it took. Had Anne made conditions? Her remark seemed, I thought, to hint a particular stipulation. Had she tried to coerce him with the threat of accompanying her brother to Canada unless the engagement to Brenda was openly sanctioned by the family?
“But you must see how impossible it is,” Jervaise said, still looking at Anne.
“We don’t think so,” Brenda put in.