t she would have to suffer, and that she knew it, and that it was this
suffering that she repulsed and thrust from her with her stabs. He was
making a tender place in her mind that might some day become a wound.

"You know I did," I insisted--I think, to turn her mind from him.

She looked at me gravely before she smiled.

"Nobody but Jimmy really thinks me nice. Nobody but Jimmy knows how nice
I _am_."

And then she showed me the house.

I praised some detail that Jevons had devised (not that there was much
detail; it was all extremely simple). And I believe she saw criticism of
Jimmy in that.

"I know it looks as if he cared a lot about this sort of thing. And I
daresay you think it's silly of him. But he doesn't really care."

"It certainly looks," I said, "as if he cared about something."

"It's me he cares about," she said.

"And do you care about--this sort of thing, Viola?"

"I care about his caring. But I was every bit as happy in that little
four-roomed house, if that's what you mean."

"Aren't you glad to have more room to move about in?"

"I'm glad to have room for Daddy and Mummy when they come to stay."

It was as if she had said, "If you think I'm glad to have room to get
away from him you're mistaken."

And there was another impression that she gave me. It was also as if she
wanted to warn me not to form the habit of coming to see her when she was
alone. I should gain nothing by it. If I insisted on seeing her alone I
should get Jimmy, Jimmy, all the time.

I didn't try to see her again alone.

But I saw her often. Jevons was always asking me there. He made a point
of it whenever they had what Viola called "anybody interesting." By this
she meant somebody belonging to the confraternity of letters. Jevons had
a sort of idea that I liked meeting these people and that it did me good.
The house in Edwardes Square might have become a haunt of Jimmy's
_confreres_ if Jimmy had had time to attend to them and if he hadn't been
so deliberately exclusive. He was trying for the best--not for the great
names so much as for the great achievements, and they were few. And there
were one or two of them who rejected Jevons.

And then you had to reckon with Mrs. Jevons's rejections. She was as
fastidious in her way as he was in his; and besides, she guarded him, so
that the circle around him was rather tight and small.

Oh, he was faithful; he kept me in it; he gave me of his best; and if he
could have