And then she looked at Banks with something in her expression that was surely enough to compensate him for any pain or sacrifice he might have to endure for her.
“We can’t help it, can we, Arthur?” she said.
He was too moved to answer. He set his lips tightly together and shook his head, gazing at her with a look of adoration and confidence that was almost violent in its protestation of love.
Jervaise turned round and leaned his forehead against the high mantelpiece. I looked out of the window. Anne remained hidden in the corner of the settle. We all, no doubt, had the same feeling that this love-affair was showing itself as something too splendid to be interfered with. Whether or not it had the qualities that make for endurance, it had a present force that dwarfed every other emotion. Those two lovers ruled us by their perfect devotion to each other. I felt ashamed of my presence there, as if I had intruded upon some fervent religious ceremony. They were both so sincere, so gallant, and so proud.
It was Banks who re-started the conversation. The solitude we had permitted to the lovers was at once too little and too much for them. What had passed between them by an exchange of signals in the brief interval, I could only guess; they certainly had not spoken, but Banks’s new subject suggested that they had somehow agreed to divert the interest momentarily from themselves.
“I’ve brought Mr. Melhuish back with me,” he said. “He’s going to stay the night with us.” He may have been addressing Brenda in answer to some look of inquiry that had indicated my resolutely unconscious back.
Since Turnbull had gone, I was more than ever the outsider and intruder, and I was all too keenly aware of that fact as I turned back towards the room. My embarrassment was not relieved by the slightly perplexed astonishment the announcement had evoked in the faces of the two women.
“But I thought you were staying at the Hall,” Brenda said, looking at me with that air of suspicion to which I was rapidly growing accustomed.
“I was,” I said; “but for reasons that your brother may be able to explain, I’m staying there no longer.”
She looked at Jervaise, then, but he had no reply ready. I had put him in a difficult position. I had a chance to revenge myself at last.