"Did you go up to Worthing?" "No, I knew he was over at Wilborough. He's agent there too, you know. I rather think Dick knew it as well as I did." "Ah!" said Jimmy significantly. "Then B asked me to be an angel and bring her some work she'd been doing, which was in the Long Gallery. So I went up there and couldn't find it, though I hunted about everywhere. At last I found it in her bedroom." "You're jolly good to your sisters, George." "Oh, well, they're very decent to me. I took it out, and they weren't anywhere to be seen." "No, I suppose not. Well, if you ask me, I think it's a pretty clear case." "I haven't told you everything yet. I didn't quite know what to do with myself, so I thought I'd go exploring. There are lots of funny attics and places up in the roof. I found a rummy little place I'd never seen before, where I shouldn't wonder if priests usen't to hide." "Anything in it?" "Only a dead bat. I suppose I was up there about half an hour. I'd got pretty mucky, and was just brushing some of it off by a little window, when I saw Dick coming out of the stables on his horse. I didn't see his face, but he looked as if he was waxy." "That would be, what--an hour after lunch?" "Yes, I should think about. Well, I came down the stairs from the attics into the corridor that goes round that corner, and there was B standing just behind the curtain of the window looking out after him." "Did she see you?" "Yes, of course. She was awfully annoyed, and said I'd given her a fright." "What was her face like?" "Well, to tell you the truth, I was so surprised at the way she slanged me that I didn't take much notice--except afterwards, and then I thought it was all jolly rum, and that there must have been something else. And she was so decent about it afterwards, and said she was sorry she'd spoken to me like that, and asked me not to tell the others." "Ah!" said Jimmy. "That tells a tale." "Well, what do you think about it?" asked Young George. "I think I'll have a cigarette, after all," said Jimmy. "It helps you to think." He lit one elaborately, and blew the smoke out of his nose with a reflective air, while Young George waited anxiously for the result of his deliberation. "What happened was this, George," he said. "He proposed to her, and she meant him to. But she wasn't ready to give in at once, and he got annoyed. She gave him to understand that if he didn't like it he could lump it, not thinking he'd take it seriously. Now, lots of men don't know that you needn't take any account of what a girl says. It's often the opposite of what she means. Girls are like that. What you can say is that Mansergh didn't know enough. He gets shirty, and of course that simply makes her worse. Then he clears out, and the moment he's gone she's sorry. Was she crying, by the bye, when she was standing at the window?"