his favourite
sister.

Well, he didn't go to Viola at all. He went first to the Thesigers at
Lancaster Gate. Then he came on to us.

That was all right. We had to arrange our dates to suit the General.

On the Sunday we dined at Lancaster Gate; Viola and Jevons were not
there. Reggie had come up on the Friday for ten days, and he stayed with
the General for the weekend.

He said he could stay with us for the whole week if we could have him.

We were out in the hall saying good-bye, and he was getting Norah's cloak
for her. The hall was full of Thesigers and guests. I remember Norah
saying, "We'd love to have you. But--we promised Vee-Vee to divide you
with her."

And I remember seeing Reggie's face stiffen over the collar of the cloak
as he held it. He said he didn't want to be divided.

It was so startling, she told me afterwards, that she lost her head. She
said out loud, so that everybody heard her, "Not with Vee-Vee?" And
everybody heard his answer:

"Not with Jevons."

Then he laughed.

In spite of the laugh Norah was quite frightened. She asked me, going
home in the taxi, what I thought it meant. I said I thought it meant that
Reggie didn't particularly care about meeting Jimmy. She said, "Well,
he'll have to meet him to-morrow night. I'm jolly glad we've asked them."

She added pensively, "Reggie's quite changed. I suppose it's India."

I knew she didn't suppose anything of the sort. She thought the General
had been telling him things; and I must confess I thought so too. Here, I
may say at once, we did that kindly and honourable gentleman a wrong.

He came to us in great distress the next morning. He said Viola and
Jevons were to have dined with them last night, only Reggie had declared
he wouldn't have anything to do with Jevons. He didn't want to meet him
if he could help it. He said, Couldn't they ask Viola without him? And
they _had_ asked Viola without him, and Viola had refused to come.

"And do you know" (he stared at us in a sort of helpless horror) "he
hasn't been to see her yet."

The poor General went away quite depressed. He lingered with me on the
doorstep a moment. "I'm afraid, Furnival," he said, "Reggie's going to
make it very awkward for us."

He did make it awkward.

It might have been discreet to have put off our dinner. But I knew that
Norah wouldn't hear of it; all the more if Reggie was going to make it
awkward. You don't suppose one Thesiger was going to knuckle under