“Indeed?  You have heard; since your return?” faltered old Jervaise.  “But I cannot suppose for one moment that either you or your husband approve of—­of your son’s gross misbehaviour.”  He got out the accusation with an effort; he had to justify himself before his son.  But the slight stoop of his shoulders, and his hesitating glances at Mrs. Banks were propitiatory, almost apologetic.  It seemed to me that he pleaded with her to realise that he could say and do no less than what he was saying and doing; to understand and to spare him.

“But that is new to me,” Mrs. Banks replied.  “I have heard nothing of any gross misbehaviour.”

She was so clearly mistress of the situation that I might have been sorry for old Jervaise, if it had not been for the presence of that scowling fool by the door.

“I—­I’m afraid I can describe your son’s conduct as—­as nothing less than gross misbehaviour,” the old man stammered, “having consideration to his employment.  But, perhaps, you have not been properly informed of the—­of the offence.”

“Is it an offence to love unwisely, Mr. Jervaise?” Mrs. Banks shot at him with a sudden ferocity.

He blustered feebly.  “You must see how impossible it is for your son to dream of marrying my daughter,” he said.  The blood had mounted to his face; and he looked as if he longed to get up and walk out.  I wondered vaguely whether Frank had had that eventuality in mind when he blockaded the door with his own gloomy person.

“Tchah!” ejaculated Mrs. Banks with supreme contempt.  “Do not talk that nonsense to me, but listen, now, to what I have to say.  I will make everything quite plain to you.  We have decided that Arthur and Brenda shall be married; but we condescend to that amiable weakness of yours which always demands that there shall be no scandal.  It must surely be your motto at the Hall to avoid scandal—­at any cost.  So we are agreed to make a concession.  The marriage we insist upon; but we are willing, all of us, to emigrate.  We will take ourselves away, so that no one can point to the calamity of a marriage between a Banks and a Jervaise.  It will, I think, break my husband’s heart, but we see that there is nothing else to be done.”

Old Jervaise’s expression was certainly one of relief.  He would, I am sure, have agreed to that compromise if he had been alone; he might even have agreed, as it was, if he had been given the chance.  But Frank realised his father’s weakness not less surely than we did, and although this was probably not the precise moment he would have chosen, he instantly took the case into his own hands.

“Oh! no, Mrs. Banks, certainly not,” he said.  “In the first place we did not come here to bargain with you, and in the second it must be perfectly plain to you that the scandal remains none the less because you have all gone away.  We have come to fetch my sister home, that’s the only thing that concerns you.”