under his roof, since his
necessity--the necessity of seeing Viola--compelled him, but to profit by
him to that extent, to make use of Jimmy's opulence, was beyond him. His
conscience may have even said to him, "If he loves his motor-car, for
God's sake let him have _that_, at any rate, to himself."

And Viola seemed to share Charlie's scruple. She, too, shrank from using
the new car. And I remember her saying to me one day as we crossed the
courtyard and saw Jimmy, as usual, in the garage, worshipping his car,
"I'm so glad he's got it. I think it makes him happier." As if she had
confessed that it was all he _had_ got; that she was not able to make him
happy any more; and as if, in some day of unhappiness that she saw
coming, it would be a consolation to the poor chap. At any rate, as if
she were not in the least jealous of the power it had over him.

So, that July, Norah and I drove with Jimmy when the car, so to speak,
let him drive it; and Viola walked through the woods and over the downs
with Charlie Thesiger.

We often wondered what they found to talk about.

That wonder, of what Viola could see in Charlie, and how she could endure
for so many hours the burden of his society, was all that Norah had
allowed herself, so far, to express. If she felt any uneasiness she had
not yet confided it to me. As for Jevons, he tolerated him as you only
tolerate a thing that doesn't matter. I think honestly that to both of
them, Charlie, in any serious connection with Viola, was as impossible as
Jevons himself had been to her brother Reggie.

So little did he take him seriously that at the very end of July he went
up to London for the inside of the week (he went by train so as to save
the car) while Charlie was still at the Old Grange.

* * * * *

It was the week of the international crisis, and European mobilization
was occupying Jimmy's mind to the exclusion of other matters. Still, you
could hardly suppose that it was the crisis that was taking him up to
London. I remember thinking he had run away from Charlie Thesiger,
because he bored him.

He left on Tuesday, the twenty-eighth, and he was to be back on Friday,
the thirty-first, and Charlie was to leave with Norah and me and our
nurse and Baby on the Monday following, when our fortnight was up.

So on Friday afternoon I was a little astonished to find my
sister-in-law, dressed in her town suit of white cloth, drinking tea at
three o