Frank had already left the room when she said that, she herself went out with her elder daughter, and the four of us who remained, all visitors, were left to pair with each other as we chose.  It was Miss Tattersall who determined the arrangement.  She cleverly avoided the submissive glance of little Nora Bailey, and asked me unequivocally if I would care to take a “stroll” with her in the garden.

I agreed with a touch of eagerness and followed her, wondering if her intriguing sentence before breakfast had been nothing more than a clever piece of chicane, planned to entice me into a tete-a-tete.

(I admit that this may sound like a detestable symptom of vanity on my part, but, indeed, I do not mean to imply that she cared a snap of the fingers for me personally.  She was one of those women who must have some man in tow, and it happened that I was the only one available for that week-end.  Frank was supposed to be in love with Miss Bailey; Gordon Hughes was engaged to some girl in the north, and used that defence without shame when it suited him.)

I did not, however, permit Miss Tattersall to see my eagerness when we were alone on the terrace together.  If she was capable of chicane, so was I; and I knew that if she had anything to tell me, she would not be able to keep it to herself for long.  If, on the other hand, I began to ask questions, she would certainly take a pleasure in tantalising me.

“What’s this about going to church?” was my opening.

“Didn’t you know?” she replied.  “We all go in solemn procession.  We walk—­for piety’s sake—­it’s over a mile across the fields—­and we are rounded up in lots of time, because it’s a dreadful thing to get there after the bell has stopped.”

“Interrupting the service,” I put in with the usual inanity that is essential to the maintenance of this kind of conversation.

“It’s worse than that,” Miss Tattersall explained gaily; “because Mr. Sturton waits for the Jervaises, to begin.  When we’re late we hold up the devotions of the whole parish.”

“Good Lord!” I commented; sincerely, this time; and with a thought of my socialist friend Banks.  I could still sympathise with him on that score, even though I was now strongly inclined to side with the Jervaises in the Brenda affair.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Miss Tattersall agreed.  “Of course, they are the only important people in the place,” she added thoughtfully.

“So important that it’s slightly presumptuous to worship God without the sanction of their presence in church,” I remarked.  And then, feeling that this comment was a trifle too strong for my company, I tried to cover it by changing the subject.

“I say, do you think we ought to stay on here over the week-end?” I asked.  “Wouldn’t it be more tactful of us to invent excuses and leave them to themselves?”

“Certainly it would.  Have you only just thought of it?” Miss Tattersall said pertly.  “Nora and I agreed about that before we came down to prayers.  But there’s a difficulty that seems, for the moment, insuperable.”