es for him.

"It's a most difficult situation, Miss Banks," he said, starting a new
line; "and we don't in the least know what to make of it. What on earth
could induce Brenda to run off like this, with no apparent object?"

"But how do you know she really has?" asked Anne. "You haven't told me
anything, yet, have you? I mean, she may have gone out into the Park to
get cool after the dance, or into the woods or anything. Why should you
imagine that she has--run away?"

I joined in the conversation, then, for the first time. I had not even
been introduced to Anne.

"That's very reasonable, surely, Jervaise," I said. "And wouldn't it--I
hardly know her, I'll admit--but wouldn't it be rather like your sister?"

So far as I was concerned, Anne's suggestion carried conviction. I was
suddenly sure that our suspicions were all a mistake.

Jervaise snubbed me with a brief glance of profoundest contempt. He
probably intended that commentary on my interruption to go no further; but
his confounded pose of superiority annoyed me to the pitch of
exasperation.

"You see, my dear chap," I continued quickly, "your unfortunate training
as a lawyer invariably leads you to suspect a crime; and you overlook the
obvious in your perfectly unreasonable and prejudiced search for the
incriminating."

Jervaise's expression admirably conveyed his complete boredom with me and
my speeches.

"You don't know anything about it," he said, with a short gesture of final
dismissal.

"But, Mr. Jervaise," Anne put in, "what can you possibly suspect, in this
case?"

"He'd suspect anything of anybody for the sake of making a case of it," I
said, addressing Anne. I wanted to make her look at me, but she kept her
gaze fixed steadily on Jervaise, as if he were the controller of all
destinies.

I accepted my dismissal, then, so far as to keep silence, but I was
annoyed, now, with Anne, as well as with Jervaise. "What on earth could
she see in the fellow?" I asked myself irritably. I was the more irritated
because he had so obviously already forgotten my presence.

"Have you no reason to suspect anything yourself, Miss Banks?" he asked
gravely.

"If you're suggesting that Brenda and Arthur have run away together," she
said, "I'm perfectly, perfectly certain that you're wrong, Mr. Jervaise."

"Do you mean that you know for certain that they haven't?" he returned.

She nodded confidently, and I thought she had perjured herself, until
Jervaise wi