“No idea,” I said.

“Banks, the chauffeur,” he said, as if he were giving himself up as a well-known criminal.

I was not entirely unprepared for that reply, but I had no tactful answer to make.  I rejected the spontaneous impulse that arose, as I thought quite fantastically, to say “I believe I have met your sister;” and fell back on an orthodox “Well?” I tried to convey the effect that I still waited to be shocked.

“I suppose you’re staying up at the Hall?” he said.

“For the week-end only,” I admitted.

“Been a pretty fuss there, I take it?” he said.

“Some,” I acknowledged.

He set his resolute-looking mouth and submitted me to cross-examination.

“Been looking for me?” he began.

“In a way.  Frank Jervaise and I went up to your father’s house.”

“What time?”

“Between two and three.”

“Not since?”

“No; we left about half-past two.”

“Is she back?”

“Who?” I asked.  I was thinking of his sister, and could find no application for this question.

“Miss Jervaise.”

“Oh—­er—­Miss Brenda?  No.  She hadn’t come in when I left the house.”

“What time was that?”

“About four.  I came straight here.”

“Not back, eh?” he commented with a soft, low whistle, that mingled, I thought, something of gladness with its surprise.

“You don’t know where she is, then?” I ventured.

He turned and looked at me suspiciously.  “I don’t see why I should help your friends,” he said.

I realised that my position was a difficult one.  My sympathies were entirely with Banks.  I felt that if there was to be any question of making allowances, I wanted to be on the side of Brenda and the Home Farm.  But, at the same time, I could not deny that I owed something—­loyalty, was it?—­to the Jervaises.  I pondered that for a few seconds before I spoke again, and by then I had found what I believed to be a tolerable attitude, though I was to learn later that it compromised me no less than if I had frankly thrown in my lot with the Banks faction.

“You are quite right,” I said.  “And I would sooner you gave me no confidences, now I come to think of it.  But I should like you to know, all the same, that I’m not taking sides in this affair.  I have no intention, for instance, of telling them at the Hall that I’ve seen you.”

The daylight was flooding up from the North-West, now, in a great stream that had flushed the whole landscape with colour; and I could see the full significance of honest inquiry in my companion’s face as he probed me with his stare.  But I could meet his gaze without confusion.  My purpose was single enough, and if I had had a moment’s doubt of him when he failed to respond to my mood of fantasy; I was now fully prepared to accept him without qualification.