I forgave her for ignoring me when she said that.  I felt that I could almost forgive Jervaise; he was so deliciously sold.

“But you’ve surely some other grounds for certainty besides—­intuition?” he insisted anxiously.

“What other grounds could I possibly have?” Anne asked.

“They haven’t, either of them, confided in you?”

“Confided?  What sort of things?”

“That there was, or might be, any—­any sort of understanding between them?”

“I know that they have met—­occasionally.”

“Lately!  Where?”

“Brenda has been having lessons in driving the motor.”

“Oh! yes, I know that.  You didn’t mean that they had been meeting here?”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” Anne said definitely.  All through that quick alternation of question and answer she had, as it were, surrendered her gaze to him; watching him with a kind of meek submission as if she were ready to do anything she could to help him in his inquiry.  And it was very plain to me that Jervaise was flattered and pleased by her attitude.  If I had attempted Anne’s method, he would have scowled and brow-beaten me unmercifully, but now he really looked almost pleasant.

“It’s very good of you to help me like this, Miss Banks,” he said, “and I’m very grateful to you.  I do apologise, most sincerely for dragging you out of bed at such an unholy hour, but I’m sure you appreciate my—­our anxiety.”

“Oh! of course,” she agreed, with a look that I thought horribly sympathetic.

I began to wonder if my first estimate of her—­based to a certain extent, perhaps, on Jervaise’s admission that she did not like him—­had not been considerably too high.  She might, after all, be just an ordinary charming woman, enlivened by a streak of minx, and eager enough to catch the heir of Jervaise if he were available.  How low my thought of her must have sunk at that moment!  But they were, now, exchanging courtesies with an air that gave to their commonplaces the effect of a flirtation.

I distracted my attention.  I couldn’t help hearing what they said, but I could refrain from looking at Anne.  She was becoming vivacious, and I found myself strangely disliking her vivacity.  It was then that I began to take note of the furnishing of the room which, when I considered it, was so peculiarly not in the manner of the familiar English farm-house.  Instead of the plush suite, the glass bell shades, the round centre table, and all the other stuffy misconceptions so firmly established by the civilisation of the nineteenth century, I discovered the authentic marks of the old English aesthetic—­whitewashed walls and black oak.  And the dresser, the settles, the oblong table, the rush-bottomed chairs, the big chest by the side wall, all looked sturdily genuine; venerably conscious of the boast that they had defied the greedy collector and would continue to elude his most insidious approaches.  Here, they were in their proper surroundings.  They gave the effect of having carelessly lounged in and settled themselves; they were like the steady group of “regulars” in the parlour of their familiar inn.