f us. His little soul's all made of beautiful clean
white silk. But Viola can't go on telling people how beautiful he is.
They've got to see it for themselves.

"I wish _you_ could see it as she does. I wish you could see how she
feels about it--"

"My dear Norah," I said, "I've been trying for three years to see as
Viola sees, and feel as Viola feels. But how can I? I'm not Viola."

"But," she said, "you _do_ understand her. If I thought you didn't--if I
thought that you could go back on her--and if you go back on Jimmy you go
back on _her_--"

"Well?"

"Well, I don't think I could ever speak to you again."

"My dear child," I said, "you're absurd. I haven't gone back on either of
them. Won't it do if I see Jimmy as _you_ see him?"

"Ye-es," she said. "But--I wonder if you do."

"Norah," I said then, "I wonder if Viola's as sorry for him as you are. I
hope she isn't."

"She isn't, then. She isn't sorry for him a bit. No more am I. You'll
make me sorry for _you_ if you don't take care."

When we went to say good night to Jevons we found Viola sitting on the
arm of his chair with the little dish in her hand, feeding him with
chocolate nougat. Her posture was one of supple contrition, and we heard
her say:

"Cheer up, Jimmy. It doesn't really matter what you do. Nobody would ever
take you for more than four years old."

Yes. Norah, the youngest, was the one who had grown up.

VIII

Norah has often told me that I exaggerated the importance of the Nougat
Incident; that my weakness is a tendency to dwell with a morbid
concentration on small, inessential details. When I tell her that if I
succeed in surviving Jimmy I shall write his biography, she tilts her
chin and says I'm the last person who should attempt it.

"Between us," she says, "we might manage it. But if you're left to
yourself you'll make him _all_ nougat."

When I retort that if _she_ were left to _her_self she'd eliminate the
very things that make him the engaging animal he is, and remind her that
a straw will show the way the wind's blowing, she asks me, "Did any big
wind ever blow a straw before it all the way?"

Well, perhaps I _am_ the very last person--he made me the last person by
what he did to me--but when it comes to exaggeration I haven't attached
more importance to the Nougat Incident than Jevons did himself. Why, when
he shut himself up in his study that night, instead of hurling himself
forward in the Grand Attack, he m