She waited for my answer this time, and something in the eagerness of her expression begged me to play up to her lead.

“I know exactly what you mean,” I said, intensely aware of Anne’s proximity.  “I was thinking something of the same kind, only this evening, when I went to meet Arthur in the wood.  He and I were discussing it, too, as we came back.  That sense of everything belonging to some one else, of having no right, hardly the right to breathe without the Jervaises’ permission.”

Her gesture finally confirmed the fact that perfect confidence was established between us.  I felt as if she had patted my shoulder.  But she may have been afraid that I might blunder into too obvious a statement, if I were permitted to continue, for she abruptly changed her tactics by saying to Brenda,—­

“So you ran away in the middle of the dance?”

“Well, we’d finished dancing, as a matter of fact,” Brenda explained.

Mr. Banks shifted uneasily in his chair.  “Ran away, Miss Brenda?” he asked.  “Did you say you’d run away?”

She flattered him with a look that besought his approval.  “I simply couldn’t stand it any longer,” she said.

“But you’ll be going back?” he returned, after a moment’s pause.

She shook her head, still regarding him attentively with an air of appeal that implied submission to his judgment.

He had stopped eating, and now pushed his chair back a little from the table as though he needed more space to deal with this tremendous problem.

“You’ll be getting us into trouble, Miss Brenda,” he warned her gravely.  “It wouldn’t do for us to keep you here, if they’re wanting you to go back home.”

“Well, Alfred, we’ve as much right to her as they have,” Mrs. Banks put in.

The effect upon him of that simple speech was quite remarkable.  He opened his fine blue eyes and stared at his wife with a blank astonishment that somehow conveyed an impression of fear.

“Nancy!  Nancy!” he expostulated in a tone that besought her to say no more.

She laughingly waved her hands at him, using the same gesture with which she had commanded him to sit down.  “Oh! we’ve got to face it, Alfred,” she said.  “Arthur and Brenda believe they’re in love with one another, and that’s all about it.”

Banks shook his head solemnly, but it seemed to me that his manner expressed relief rather than the added perturbation I had expected.  “No, no, it won’t do.  That’d never do,” he murmured.  “I’ve been afraid of this, Miss Brenda,” he continued; “but you must see for yourself that it’d never do—­our position being what it is.  Your father’d never hear of such a thing; and you’d get us all into trouble with him if he thought we’d been encouraging you.”

He drew in his chair and returned to his supper as if he regarded the matter as being now definitely settled.  “I don’t know what Mr. Melhuish will be thinking of us,” he added as an afterthought.