And I saw, now, just the same boyish dread and perplexity that I had seen when he made his confession to me at Oakstone.  He looked to me, indeed, absurdly unchanged by the sixteen years that had separated the two experiences.

“You know, Melhuish,” he said; “I’m not altogether blaming Brenda in one way.”

“Do you think she’s really in love with Banks?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “How can any one know?  But it has been going on a long time—­weeks, anyhow.  They were all getting nervous about it at home.  The mater told me when I came down this afternoon.  She wanted me to talk to B. about it.  I was going to.  She doesn’t take any notice of Olive.  Never has.”  He stopped and looked at me with an appeal in his face that begged contradiction.

We were standing still in the moonlight at the edge of the wood and the accident of our position made me wonder if Jervaise’s soul also hesitated between some gloomy prison of conventional success and the freedom of beautiful desires.  I could find no words, however, to press that speculation and instead I attempted, rather nervously, to point the way towards what I regarded as the natural solution of the immediate problem.  “Come,” I said, “the idea of a marriage between Banks and your sister doesn’t appear so unreasonable.  The Bankses are evidently good old yeoman stock on the father’s side.  It is a mere accident of luck that you should be the owners of the land and not they.”

“Theoretically, yes!” he said with a hint of impatience.  “But we’ve got to consider the opinions—­prejudices, if you like—­of all my people—­to say nothing of the neighbours.”

“Oh! put the neighbours first,” I exclaimed.  “It’s what we think other people will think that counts with most of us.”

“It isn’t,” Jervaise returned gloomily.  “You don’t understand what the idea of family means to people like my father and mother.  They’ve been brought up in it.  It has more influence with them than religion.  They’d prefer any scandal to a mesalliance.”

“In your sister’s case?” I put in, a trifle shocked by the idea of the scandal, and then discovered that he had not been thinking of Brenda.

“Perhaps not in that case,” he said, “but...” he paused noticeably before adding, “The principle remains the same.”

“Isn’t it chiefly a matter of courage?” I asked.  “It isn’t as if ... the mesalliance were in any way disgraceful.”

I can’t absolve myself from the charge of hypocrisy in the making of that speech.  I was thinking of Jervaise and Anne, and I did not for one moment believe that Anne would ever marry him.  My purpose was, I think, well-intentioned.  I honestly believed that it would be good for him to fall in love with Anne and challenge the world of his people’s opinion for her sake.  But I blame myself, now, for a quite detestable lack of sincerity in pushing him on.  I should not have done it if I had thought he had a real chance with her.  Life is very difficult; especially for the well-intentioned.