"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 with evident relief said, "I'm very glad of that; very. Do you
mind telling me how you know?"

"By intuition," she said, without a trace of raillery in her face or her
tone.