surroundings; but not for the Viola I found.

The _garcon_ of the _pension_ closed the door of this room in my face as
he went in with my card to inquire whether she would receive me. I
thought, "If she refuses I shall have to insist; and that will be
unpleasant."

But she didn't refuse. On the other side of the door I heard a subdued,
but curiously reassuring cry.

She had been sitting outside the open window. Her chair was on the
flagged path of the garden. As I came in she had risen and was standing
in the window, with the intense blue darkness of the garden behind her
and the light of the room on her face. She was smiling in a serene and
candid joy. For one second I imagined that she had not read the name on
the card and that she thought I was Jevons. And then I must have looked
away quite steadily so as not to see her shock of recognition; for her
voice recalled me.

"Wally--how ripping! However _did_ you get here?"

I don't know what I said. I probably didn't say anything. The sheer
surprise of it so staggered me that I must have muttered or grunted or
choked instead. But I know I took her hand and did my best to smile back
at her with the stiff mouth she noticed later.

She went on: "I _am_ glad to see you. Have you had any dinner?"

I said I had.

"Then," she said, "let's sit in the garden."

I took her hat off a chair and stuck it on a bust on the bureau (Viola
laughed). I set the chair on the flagged path of the garden.

"Have you had coffee?" she said then.

I had.

"So have I. But I haven't had it in the garden. We'll have some more."

I rang for coffee.

We sat down and faced each other. She was smiling again as if the delight
of seeing me fairly bubbled out of her. One thing struck me then, that at
this rate it would be easy enough to ignore Jevons. In fact, if Jevons
hadn't given Viola away just now I should have thought that she _was_
travelling in Belgium on her own account and that his being here in the
same town with her was a coincidence, an accident. I could have got over
Withers and his story.

Then she said, "Have you come across Mr. Jevons yet? He's here."

I answered, with what I knew to be a very stiff mouth, "We're staying in
the same hotel."

"You might have brought him along with you," she said.

I said I didn't want to bring him along with me.

She raised her eyebrows in delicate reproof of my rudeness and said, "Why
not?"

"Because," I said, "I want to talk to yo