"One couldn't be sure," her mother protested.

"If you're going to wait till you're sure, of course..." Frank remarked
brutally, with a shrug of his eyebrows that effectively completed his
sentence.

"It was so impossible to believe that she would do a thing like that," his
mother complained.

"Point is, what's to be done now," Ronnie said. "By gad, if I catch that
chap, I'll wring his neck."

Mr. Jervaise, who was taking a lonely promenade up and down the far side
of the Hall, looked up more hopefully at this threat.

"Oh! we can _catch_ him," Frank commented. "He has stolen the car, for one
thing..." his inflection implied that catching Banks might be only the
beginning of the trouble.

"Well, once we've got him," returned Ronnie hopefully.

"Don't be an ass," Frank snubbed him. "We can't advertise it all over the
county that he has gone off with Brenda."

"I don't see..." Ronnie began, but Mrs. Jervaise interrupted him.

"It was so unfortunate that the Atkinsons should have been here," she
remarked.

"Every one will know, in any case," Olive added.