sir," he said
to me as we retreated, "he pulls it off what you may call a bleedin'
masterpiece."

I tried to explain about Viola an hour later. But he wouldn't listen to
me. That was all right, he said. He was going to ask us to take her for a
month or so anyhow. It was getting a bit stuffy for her down here.

Then he fixed me with "Did Thesiger go up with her?"

There was no good trying to lie to Jevons, so I said that had been
Thesiger's idea, but Viola hadn't cared much about having him, for she
had got out at Fittleworth and taken Norah on with her.

"I suppose the young ass tried to make love to her. He's fool enough for
anything," said Jimmy. But he reverted. "I still can't see why you took
the car out. Anybody but an idiot would have known it was going to rain."

BOOK III

HIS BOOK

XII

At this period, and even now when I go back to it, I am completely
puzzled by Jevons. Here was a man who professed to understand his wife,
to know what she was feeling and thinking in every moment of her
existence; he would tell you that a man was a fool if he couldn't get the
woman he wanted; and yet, having got her, he didn't seem to know in the
most elementary way how to keep her. He didn't seem to care. He adored
her, and yet he didn't seem to care. I believe he knew that she was
leaving him, that she had left him; and yet, here he was, treating her
departure as if it didn't matter, as if it were the most natural and
reasonable thing in the world, and lashing himself into a fury about his
wretched motor-car. And he was treating the dangerous element in the
case, Charlie Thesiger, as if it didn't matter either; as if it didn't
exist. He must have known we'd taken his car out to bring his wife
back--he knew we wouldn't have touched the beastly thing for anything
short of saving her life or his honour; and yet he had flown into a
passion and sworn at his chauffeur because we'd taken it. He adored his
wife and yet he behaved as if she were of no importance compared with the
god he'd made of his motor-car.

All that evening, I remember, he was absorbed in the solitary problem of
how he could save his god from further outrages. He settled it towards
midnight by saying that he'd buy another car that we could do what we
damn-pleased with--a car that wouldn't matter--that you could take out in
all weathers.

"I'll not have that black-and-white car used as it was used this
afternoon," he said. And after lashi