“Oh!  Mr. Melhuish is on our side,” Mrs. Banks returned gaily.

“Nancy!  Nancy!” he reproved her.  “This is too serious a matter to make a joke about.”

I was watching Mrs. Banks, and saw the almost invisible lift of the eyebrows with which she passed on the conduct of the case to Anne.

“Mother isn’t joking, dear,” Anne said, accepting the signal without an instant’s hesitation.  “Really serious things have been happening while you were away.”

Her father frowned and shook his head.  “This isn’t the place to discuss them,” he replied.

“Well, father, I’m afraid we must discuss them very soon,” Anne returned; “because Mr. Jervaise might be coming up after supper.”

“Mr. Jervaise?  Coming here?” Banks’s tone of dismay showed that he was beginning, however slowly, to appreciate the true significance of the situation.

“Well, we don’t know that he is,” Arthur put in.  “I just thought it was possible he and Mr. Frank might come up this evening.”

“They will certainly come.  Have no doubt of that,” Mrs. Banks remarked.

The old man turned to his son as if seeking a refuge from the intrigues of his adored but incomprehensible womenfolk.

“What for?” he asked brusquely.

“To take her back to the Hall,” Arthur said with the least possible inclination of his head towards Brenda.

Banks required a few seconds to ponder that, and his wife and daughter waited in silence for his reply.  I had a sense of them as watching over, and at once sheltering and directing him.  Nevertheless, though I admired their gentle deftness, I think that at that point of the discussion some forcible male element in me sided very strongly with old Banks.  I was aware of the pressure that was so insensibly surrounding him as of a subtly entangling web that seemed to offer no resistance, and yet was slowly smothering him in a million intricate intangible folds.  And, after all, why should he be torn away from his root-holds, exiled to some forlorn unknown country where his very methods of farming would be inapplicable?  Brenda and Arthur were young and capable.  Let them wait, at least until she came of age.  Let her be tried by an ordeal of patient resistance.  If she were worthy she could fight her family for those thirteen months and win her own triumph without injuring poor Banks.

And whether because I had communicated my thought to her by some change of attitude or because she intuitively shared my sympathy for her father, Anne turned to me just before she spoke, with a quick little, impatient gesture as if beseeching me not to interfere.  I submitted myself to her wish with a distinct feeling of pleasure, but made no application of my own joy in serving her to the case of her father.

He was speaking again, now, with a solemn perplexity, as if he were confusedly challenging the soft opposition of his women’s influence.