“You asked me not to beat about the bush, a minute ago,” I said, “and now you’re trying to dodge all my questions with the most futile and palpable evasions.”

“For instance?” he replied calmly, with a cunning that nearly trapped me.  For when I tried to recall, as I thought I could, a specific and convincing instance of his evasion, I realised that to cite a case would only draw us into an irrelevant bickering over side issues.

“Your last three or four answers were all obvious equivocations,” I said, and raising my voice I went straight on over his attempt to expostulate by adding, “And if Mrs. Jervaise’s state of nerves is an excuse for her confiding in you, it isn’t, in my opinion, any excuse for her confiding in Miss Tattersall and Nora Bailey and Hughes, and setting them on to—­ostracise me.”

“Oh! come,” Jervaise protested, a little taken aback.  I had put him in a quandary, now.  He had to choose between an imputation on his mother’s good taste, savoir faire, breeding—­and an admission of the rather shameful source of the present accusation against me.

“As a matter of fact, it’s absolutely clear to me that Grace Tattersall is at the bottom of all this,” I continued, to get this point settled.  “I’m perfectly sure your mother would not have treated me as she did unless her mind had been perverted in some way.”

“But why should she—­Miss Tattersall—­I mean she seemed rather keen on you...”

“I can explain that,” I interrupted him.  “She wanted to gossip with me about the whole affair this morning, and she made admissions that I suppose she was subsequently ashamed of.  And after that she discovered by an accident that I had met Banks, and jumped to the totally false conclusion that I had been drawing her out for my own disreputable purposes.”

“Where did you meet Banks?” was Jervaise’s only comment on this explanation.

“I’m going to tell you that,” I said.  “I told you that I meant to be perfectly honest with you, but I want to know first if I’m not right about Miss Tattersall.”

“She has been a bit spiteful about you,” he admitted.

“So that’s settled,” I replied by way of finally confirming his admission.  “Now, I’ll tell you exactly what happened last night.”

I made a fairly long story of it; so long that we reached the lodge at the Park gates before I had finished, and turned back again up the avenue.  I was careful to be scrupulously truthful, but I gave him no record of any conversation that I thought might, however indirectly, inculpate Banks.

Jervaise did not once interrupt me, but I saw that he was listening with all his attention, studying my statement as he might have studied a complicated brief.  And when I had done, he thrust out his ugly underlip with an effect of sneering incredulity that I found almost unendurably irritating.

“Do you mean to say that you don’t believe me?” I asked passionately.