“Or of Banks?” I added.
“Oh! it wasn’t his fault,” Miss Tattersall said spitefully. “He was just infatuated, poor fool. She could do anything she liked with him.”
I reflected that Olive Jervaise and Nora Bailey would probably have expressed a precisely similar opinion.
“I suppose he’s a weak sort of chap?” I said.
“No. It isn’t that,” Miss Tattersall replied. “He doesn’t look weak—not at all. No! he is just infatuated—for the time being.”
We had been pacing up and down the lawn, parallel to the front of the house and perhaps fifty yards away from it—a safe distance for maintaining the privacy of our conversation. And as we came to the turn of our walk nearest to the drive, I looked back towards the avenue that intervened between us and the swelling contours of Jervaise Clump. I was thinking about my expedition towards the sunrise; and I was taken completely off my guard when I saw a tweed-clad figure emerge from under the elms and make its way with a steady determination up the drive.
“Well, one of them isn’t in London, anyway,” I said.
“Why? Who?” she returned, staring, and I realised that she was too short-sighted to make out the identity of the advancing figure from that distance.
“Who is it?” she repeated with a hint of testiness.
I had seen by then that I had inadvertently given myself away, and I had not the wit to escape from the dilemma.