n me. Jevons,
he said, had let him down pretty badly; he'd understood from Jevons that
he was prepared to go for them at twelve hours' notice. And he'd given
him twenty-four hours; and he'd found that he'd gone out there two days
ago. Chucked them, my friend the editor supposed, for another paper.
Could I, at twenty-three hours' notice, take his place?

I said I could and I would, and I put him right about Jevons.

And then I went to see about my motor-car.

It was when Viola began to bother me about her passport that the fight
began.

First of all, she asked me what I was doing about a motor-car? I told her
she needn't worry herself about my motor-car. It wasn't any concern of
hers. She grinned at that and said, All right. What she really wanted was
to consult me about her passport.

And when I refused to be consulted about her passport, to hear a word
about her passport or about her going, she walked straight out of the
house into a passing taxi that took her to the Belgian Legation, where
she saw that weak-minded secretary that Jevons had handled; and she came
back in time for tea, very cheerful and dressed in a sort of khaki
uniform she had ordered, with a tunic and knee-breeches and puttees and a
Red Cross brassard on her right arm.

She said it had been a very tight squeeze, but she'd worked it, down
to her uniform, and it was all right, and if I'd had any difficulty with
my motor people (I had had awful difficulty, but how she knew it I
haven't to this day found out. Sometimes I think she'd worked that too;
she knew the firm, and she wasn't Mrs. Tasker Jevons for nothing)--if
I'd had any difficulty she could put that straight for me. She'd got
_her_ car--Jimmy'd ordered it for Amershott and forgotten about it--and
her chauffeur, and I could go in it with her if I liked.

It was a better car than the one I'd had in Belgium before or, she said
significantly, than the one I was going to take out with me. It was true
that I didn't know anything about cars.

Then Norah, my wife, stood up beside her sister, flagrantly partisan, and
said, Couldn't I see it wasn't any use trying to stop her? She had me at
every point. If I wouldn't take her she'd go by herself with the
chauffeur.

And when I said, How about my promises--my word of honour? Viola laughed.

"Your honour's all right, Wally," she said. "You're not taking me out;
I'm taking you."

And very early in the morning we motored down to Folkestone to catc