I looked at Mr. Jervaise, who was standing despondently by the fireplace, but he did not return my glance.  He presented, I thought, the picture of despair, and I suffered a sharp twinge of reaction from my championship of the Banks interest at sunrise.  Those two protagonists of the drama, Banks and Brenda, were so young, eager and active.  Life held so much promise for them.  This ageing man by the fireplace—­he must have been nearly sixty—­had probably ceased to live for his own interests.  His ambitions were now centred in his children.  I began to feel an emotional glow of sympathy for him in his distress.  Probably this youngest, most brilliant, child of his was also the most tenderly loved.  It might well be that his anxiety was for her rather than for himself; that the threat to his pride of family was almost forgotten in his sincere wish for his daughter’s happiness.  It would appear so certain to him that she could never find happiness in a marriage with Arthur Banks.

And with that thought a suspicion of my late companion of the hill-top leapt into my mind.  He had hinted at some influence or “pull” over Brenda’s father that might perhaps be used in a last emergency, although the use of it implied the taking of a slightly dishonourable advantage.  Was it not probable, I now wondered, that this influence was to be obtained by working on Jervaise’s too tender devotion to his daughter?  Was she, perhaps, to be urged as a last resource to bear on that gentle weakness by threat or cajolery?

I began to wish that I had not been quite so friendly with Mr. Banks.  I had been led away by the scent and glamour of the night.  Here, in this Sunday morning breakfast-room, I was able for the first time to appreciate the tragedy in its proper relation to the facts of life.  I saw that Brenda’s rash impulsiveness might impose a quite horrible punishment on her too-devoted father.

I turned away towards one of the window-seats.  Miss Tattersall and Nora Bailey were sitting together there, pretending a conversation while they patiently awaited the coming of breakfast.  Mrs. Jervaise was talking now to her elder daughter; Frank was arguing some point with Gordon Hughes, and as I felt unequal to offering comfort to the lonely head of the house, so evidently wrapped in his sorrow, I preferred to range myself with the fourth group.  I thought it probable that the sympathies of those two young women might at the moment most nearly correspond to my own.

I was surprised to be greeted by Miss Tattersall with what had all the appearance of a discreetly covert wink, and I raised my eyebrows with that air of half-jocular inquiry which I fancied she would expect from me.  She evaded the implied question, however, by asking me what time I “really got to bed, after all.”

“The sun was up before I went to sleep,” I replied, to avoid the possible embarrassment of her comments should I admit to having slept in the open air; and then John and a female acolyte came in with the long-desired material of breakfast.