"You asked me not to beat about the bush, a minute ago," I said, "and now you're trying to dodge all my questions with the most futile and palpable evasions." "For instance?" he replied calmly, with a cunning that nearly trapped me. For when I tried to recall, as I thought I could, a specific and convincing instance of his evasion, I realised that to cite a case would only draw us into an irrelevant bickering over side issues. "Your last three or four answers were all obvious equivocations," I said, and raising my voice I went straight on over his attempt to expostulate by adding, "And if Mrs. Jervaise's state of nerves is an excuse for her confiding in _you_, it isn't, in my opinion, any excuse for her confiding in Miss Tattersall and Nora Bailey and Hughes, and setting them on to--ostracise me." "Oh! come," Jervaise protested, a little taken aback. I had put him in a quandary, now. He had to choose between an imputation on his mother's good taste, savoir faire, breeding--and an admission of the rather shameful source of the present accusation against me. "As a matter of fact, it's absolutely clear to me that Grace Tattersall is at the bottom of all this," I continued, to get this point settled. "I'm perfectly sure your mother would not have treated me as she did unless her mind had been perverted in some way." "But why should she--Miss Tattersall--I mean she seemed rather keen on you..." "I can explain that," I interrupted him. "She wanted to gossip with me about the whole affair this morning, and she made admissions that I suppose she was subsequently ashamed of. And after that she discovered by an accident that I had met Banks, and jumped to the totally false conclusion that I had been drawing her out for my own disreputable purposes." "Where did you meet Banks?" was Jervaise's only comment on this explanation. "I'm going to tell you that," I said. "I told you that I meant to be perfectly honest with you, but I want to know first if I'm not right about Miss Tattersall." "She has been a bit spiteful about you," he admitted. "So that's settled," I replied by way of finally confirming his admission. "Now, I'll tell you exactly what happened last night." I made a fairly long story of it; so long that we reached the lodge at the Park gates before I had finished, and turned back again up the avenue. I was careful to be scrupulously truthful, but I gave him no record of any conversation that I thought might, however indirectly, inculpate Banks. Jervaise did not once interrupt me, but I saw that he was listening with all his attention, studying my statement as he might have studied a complicated brief. And when I had done, he thrust out his ugly underlip with an effect of sneering incredulity that I found almost unendurably irritating. "Do you mean to say that you don't believe me?" I asked passionately.