“The Jervaises don’t encourage that sort of thing,” he replied. “Afraid of the place getting frippery. I’ve heard them talking about it in the car. And as they own every blessed cottage in the place….” He left the deduction to my imagination, and continued with the least touch of bashfulness, “You wouldn’t care to come to us, I suppose?”
“To the Home Farm?” I replied stupidly. I was absurdly embarrassed. If I had not chanced to see that grouping in the wood before lunch, I should have jumped at the offer. But I knew that it must have been Miss Banks who had seen me—spying. Jervaise had had his back to me. And she would probably, I thought, take his view of the confounded accident. She would be as anxious to avoid me as I was to avoid her. Coming so unexpectedly, this invitation to the Farm appeared to me as a perfectly impossible suggestion.
Banks, naturally, misinterpreted my embarrassment.
“I suppose it would put you in the wrong, as it were—up at the Hall,” he said. “Coming to us after that row, I mean, ’d look as if what they’d been saying was all true.”
“I don’t care a hang about that,” I said earnestly. In my relief at being able to speak candidly I forgot that I was committing myself to an explanation; and Banks inevitably wandered into still more shameful misconceptions of my implied refusal.
“Only a farm, of course…” he began.
“Oh! my dear chap,” I interposed quickly. “Do believe me, I’d far sooner stay at the Home Farm than at Jervaise Hall.”
He looked at me with rather a blank stare of inquiry.
“Well, then?” was all he found to say.
I could think of nothing whatever.