m a thundering scallywag and accuse him of having calculated on
the line that would be taken.

He said quietly, "The word thundering is singularly inappropriate.
There's nothing thundering about me. I haven't calculated anything. As
for hushing it up, I'm hushing it up myself, thank you. Haven't I told
you I'm going to-morrow? Can't you see that I'm packing?"

He had evidently been trying to pack.

"And what," I asked, "is Miss Thesiger doing?"

"She's staying on here by herself a bit. In the _pension_. As if she'd
come by herself."

He seemed entirely satisfied with his plan.

I said, "Look here, Jevons, that won't do. It's no good _your_ going.
You've been seen here. You're supposed to be staying in this hotel
together. If you go and she stays--in that _pension_--you've deserted
her. You've seduced her. You're tired of her--in five days--and you've
left her."

"You don't suppose I have _really_?" said Jevons.

"I don't suppose anything. I don't know what you've done. I don't think
I want to know. That's what it'll look like. Do, for God's sake, remember
you've been _seen_."

He gathered a portion of his cheek into his mouth and sucked it.

"I suppose," he said, "it _would_ look like that."

I said of course it would. And he asked me then, quite humbly, what I
thought he'd better do.

I said I thought he'd better do exactly what I told him. He was to stay
here till Captain Thesiger had sailed for India (I wasn't going to let
him get back to England till Reggie was out of it). Miss Thesiger was to
go back to her people to-morrow, and he was not to see her or write to
her before she went.

He asked me was I thinking of taking her back myself?

I said I wasn't. Miss Thesiger had behaved as if she had disappeared.
There was no good in my behaving as if she had disappeared with _me_.

That seemed to pacify him.

I said I should take her to Ostend to-morrow and put her on board the
boat. I could see that he didn't at all care about this part of the
programme, but his intelligence accepted the whole as the best thing that
could be done in the circumstances.

Then I left him to his misery and went round to the _pension_ to see
Viola.

All my instincts revolted against what I had to do.

* * * * *

She has since told me that I did it beautifully. I don't, of course,
believe her, and it doesn't matter. The wonder is how I did it at all.

To begin with I was afraid of seei