rvous respectability of
this dull and fearful household like the gleam of unexpected water in the
blankness of a desert. Her absence must have seemed to them a positive
thing. Probably every one at the table was thinking of her at that moment.
And the result of this combined thought was producing a hallucination of
Brenda in my mind, strong enough to hypnotise me. In any case, her
apparition stood at the end of every avenue of conversation I could
devise. I could think of no opening that did not lead straight up to the
subject of her absence.

And even while I was still pondering my problem (I had come to such
fantastic absurdities as contemplating an essay on the Chinese gamut,
rejecting it on the grounds that Brenda was the only musician in the
family), that awful lunch was abruptly closed by a unanimous refusal of
the last course. Perhaps the others were as eager as I was to put an end
to that ordeal; all of them, that is, with the exception of the spiteful
snake who was responsible for my humiliation.

The family managed to get out of the room this time without their usual
procrastinating civilities. I went ahead of Frank and Hughes. I intended
to spend a lonely afternoon in thinking out some plan for exposing the
treachery of Grace Tattersall, but as I was crossing the Hall, Frank
Jervaise came up behind me.

"Look here, Melhuish," he said.

I looked. I did more than that; I confronted him. There is just a
suspicion of red in my hair, and on occasion the influence of it is shown
in my temper. It must have shown then, for Jervaise was visibly
uncomfortable.

"It's no damned good being so ratty, Melhuish," he said. "Jolly well your
own fault, anyway."

"What's my own fault?" I demanded.

"We can't talk here," he said uneasily. "Let's go down the avenue."

I had an impression that he was going to offer to fight me. I certainly
hoped that he would.

"Very well," I agreed.

But when he spoke again, I realised that it was as a lawyer and not as a
fighter. He had, indeed, been preparing a cautious impeachment of me. We
had reached the entrance to the avenue before he began, and the cloister
of its cool shade seemed a sufficiently appropriate setting for his
forensic diplomacy. Outside, in the glare of the brilliant August sun, I
should have flared out at him. In the solemnity of that Gothic aisle, I
found influences which helped me to maintain a relative composure.

He posed his first question with an assume