“No use trying to find her, of course,” he agreed, irritably, “but we’d better talk things over with the governor.”
“If I can be of any help…” I remarked elliptically.
“You won’t be if you start that transcendental rot,” he returned, as if he already regretted his condescension.
“What sort of rot do you want me to talk?” I asked.
“Common sense,” he said.
I resisted the desire to say that I was glad he acknowledged the Jervaise version of common sense to be one kind of rot.
“All serene,” I agreed.
He did not thank me.
And when I looked back on the happenings of the two hours that had elapsed since Jervaise had fetched me out of the improvised buffet, I was still greatly puzzled to account for his marked choice of me as a confidant. It was a choice that seemed to signify some weakness in him. I wondered if he had been afraid to trust himself alone with Anne at the Farm; if he were now suffering some kind of trepidation at the thought of the coming interview with his father? I found it so impossible to associate any idea of weakness with that bullying mask which was the outward expression of Frank Jervaise.