And if I had been a witness to his oath, I was, now, a witness to his foreswearing.

He began well enough on the note proper to the heir of Jervaise.  He had the aplomb to carry that off.  He stood on the hearthrug, austere and self-controlled, consciously aristocrat, heir and barrister.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Banks.  Almost inexcusable to disturb you at this time of night.”  He stopped after that beginning and searched his witness with a stare that ought to have set her trembling.

Anne had sat down and was resting her forearms on the table.  She looked up at him with the most charming insouciance when he paused so portentously at the very opening of his address.  Her encouraging “yes” was rather in the manner of a child waiting for the promised story.

Jervaise frowned and attempted the dramatic.  “My sister, Brenda, has run away,” he said.

“When?”

“This evening at the end of the Cinderella.  You knew we were giving a dance?”

“But where to?”

“Oh!  Precisely!” Jervaise said.

“But how extraordinary!” replied Miss Banks.

“Is she here?” asked Jervaise.  He ought to have snapped that out viciously, and I believe that was his intention.  But Anne’s exquisitely innocent, absorbed gaze undid him; and his question had rather the sound of an apology.

“No, certainly not!  Why ever should she come here?” Anne said with precisely the right nuance of surprise.

“Is your brother here?”

“No!”

It looks such an absurd little inexpressive word on paper, but Anne made a song of it on two notes, combining astonishment with a sincerity that was absolutely final.  If, after that, Jervaise had dared to say, “Are you sure?” I believe I should have kicked him.

How confounded he was, was shown by the change of attitude evident in his next speech.

“It’s horribly awkward,” he said.

“Oh! horribly,” Anne agreed, with a charming sympathy.  “What are you going to do?”

“You see, we can’t find your brother, either,” Jervaise tried tactfully.

“I don’t quite see what that’s got to do with Brenda,” Anne remarked with a sweet perplexity.

Apparently Jervaise did not wish to point the connection too abruptly.  “We wanted the car,” he said; “and we couldn’t find him anywhere.”

“Oh! he’s almost sure to have gone to sleep up in the woods,” Anne replied.  “Arthur’s like that, you know.  He sort of got the habit in Canada or somewhere.  He often says that sometimes he simply can’t bear to sleep under a roof.”

I had already begun to feel a liking for Anne’s brother, and that speech of hers settled me.  I knew that “Arthur” was the right sort—­or, at least, my sort.  I would have been willing, even then, to swap the whole Jervaise family with the possible exception of Brenda, for this as yet unknown Arthur Banks.

Jervaise’s diplomacy was beginning to run very thin.