“You did,” murmured Banks in an undertone of grieved dismay.
“I did, father,” Arthur proceeded; “and if it hadn’t been for young Mr. Frank, we’d have come to some sort of understanding. Mr. Jervaise didn’t actually say ‘No,’ as it was.”
“And you went up again this evening?” Banks prompted him.
“Yes; I only saw Mr. Frank, then,” Arthur replied, “and he was in such a pad, there was no talking to him. Anne can tell you why.”
Banks did not speak but he turned his eyes gravely to his daughter.
Anne lifted her head with the movement of one who decides to plunge and be done with it. “He’d been making love to me in the morning,” she said; “and I—played with him for Arthur’s sake. I thought it might help, and afterwards I showed him that I’d been letting him make a fool of himself for nothing, that’s all.”
The old man made no audible comment, but his head drooped a little forward and his body seemed to shrink a little within the sturdy solidity of his oak armchair. Anne, also, had betrayed him. Perhaps, he looked forward and saw the Home Farm without Anne—she could not stay after that—and realised that the verdict of his destiny was finally pronounced.
I turned my eyes away from him, and I think the others, too, feigned some preoccupation that left him a little space of solitude. We none of us spoke, and I knew by the sound of the quick intake of her breath that Mrs. Banks was on the verge of weeping.
I looked up, almost furtively, when I heard the crash of footsteps on the gravel outside, and I found that the other three with the same instinctive movement of suspense were turning towards Mrs. Banks.
She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and nodded to Anne, a nod that said plainly enough, “It’s them—the Jervaises.”