een Viola
pretty nearly all the time. And even at Ghent, by the tortures of anxiety
she had caused him, you may say that she had spoiled his ecstasy.

And now, without any effort, or any calculation or foresight, by a
stupendous accident, he had found happiness and peace and certainty. The
thing was so consummately done, and so timed to the minute, that when you
saw him there enjoying it, you could have sworn that he had played for it
and pulled it off. It was as if he had said to himself, "Give me time,
and I'll bring all these people round, even Mrs. Thesiger, even Reggie.
I'll _make_ them love me. Wait, and you'll just see how I shall score."

And there he was scoring.

And it was as if he had said to himself long ago, "As for Viola, I know
all about it. I know I do things that make the poor child shudder; but I
can put that all right. I can make her forget it. I give myself three
weeks." As if he said, "She thought she was going to leave me. I knew
that, too, and I didn't care. She might have left me a thousand times and
I should have brought her back."

I used to think it pathetic that Jevons should have wanted Mrs. Thesiger
to love him--that he should have wanted Reggie to. But I must say his
pathos was avenged. _They_ were pathetic now. That big, hulking Major
wasn't happy unless he was writing Jimmy's letters, or cutting up Jimmy's
meat for him, or helping him in and out of his clothes. Mrs. Thesiger
wasn't happy unless she was doing things for him. The Canon wasn't happy
(though, like Norah, he had nothing on his conscience) and Mildred and
Millicent and Victoria weren't happy, nor the Thesiger's friends in the
Cathedral Close.

And then--after they had made a hero of him for six weeks--on that
Saturday night when we were all together in the Canon's library, Jevons
made his confession.

We had been, exchanging reminiscences. Something had made Viola think of
Jimmy's General and the two Colonels at Ghent. She began telling the
Canon how we had watched them through the glass screen, and how funny
General Roubaix had looked with his arm round Jimmy's neck, and how he
had said that Jimmy was a salamander, and that he didn't know what fear
is.

"Oh, _don't_ I!" said Jimmy.

And that sent Reggie back to the day when he had first seen Jimmy.

"Look here, old man, what made you say you were an arrant coward?"

"Because," said Jimmy simply, "I am one. Dear old Roubaix was talking
through his hat.

"Not kno