might influence
her, in time, to think gently of me, I could not guess; but I hoped, even
a little vaingloriously, that she would respond to our mutual appreciation
of truth. I had shown her, I believed, how greatly I admired the spirit
she had been at such pains to conceal during that talk in the honest
sitting-room of the Home Farm. And I felt that her failure to resent the
impertinence of my "No doubt, you're used to that," had been due to an
understanding of something she and I had in common against the whole
solid, stolid, aristocratic family of Jervaise.

Moreover, she gave me what I counted as two more causes for hopefulness
before we left the house. The first was her repetition, given, now, with a
more vibrating sincerity, of the belief that we should find Brenda safely
at home when we got back to the Hall.

"I feel sure you will, Mr. Jervaise," she said, and the slight pucker of
anxiety between her eyebrows was an earnest that even if her belief was a
little tremulous, her hope, at least, was unquestionably genuine.

The second sign was the acceptance of a hackneyed commonplace; the proffer
of a friendly message through the medium of a cliche which, however false
in its general application, offered a short cut to the interpretation of
feeling. Racquet who had maintained a well-bred silence from the first
moment of his mistress's reproof, had honoured me with his approval while
we sat in the farm-house sitting-room, and sealed the agreement by a
friendly thrust of his nose as we said "Goodnight."

Anne did not look at me as she spoke, but her soft comment, "You are fond
of dogs," seemed to me a full acknowledgment of our recognition of each
other's quality.

I must admit, however, that at two o'clock in the morning one's sense of
values is not altogether normal.

III

FRANK JERVAISE

I should have preferred to maintain a thoughtful, experiencing silence
throughout our walk home. I had plenty of material for reflection. I
wanted, now, to look at all this disappearing Brenda business from a new
angle. I had a sense of the weaving of plots, and of the texture of them;
such a sense as I imagine a blind man may get through sensitive
finger-tips. Two new characters had come into my play, and I knew them
both for principals. That opening act without Brenda, Arthur Banks, or his
sister was nothing more than a prologue. The whole affair had begun again
to fascinate my interest. Moreover, I was becoming a