of him. I
don't suppose he had ever before met anything like Jevons--I mean really
met him, at close quarters--in his life. But he was gallant, and he had
his face well under control. Only the remotest, vanishing quiver and
twinkle betrayed the extremity of his astonishment.

Viola, with an admirable air of detachment from Jevons, introduced them.
I don't know how she did it. It was as if, without any actual
repudiation, she declined to hold herself responsible for Jevons'
appearance; for the extraordinary little bow he made; for his jerky
aplomb and for his "Glad to meet you, Captain." And for the rest, she
just handed him over to her brother and trusted Reggie to be decent to
him.

I had wondered: Are they going to let on that they've been out together?
She cannot--she cannot own up to that. But how are they going to get out
of it, and will he betray her?

I saw how they were going to get out of it. If they didn't say in as many
words that they'd met on the doorstep they implied it in everything they
said. They asked each other polite questions, all to the tune of: "What
have you been doing since I last saw you?"--to convey the impression that
they had met thus casually after a long interval. Jevons played up to her
well, almost too well; so well, in fact, did he play, that not long
afterwards I was to ask myself: Was this perfection the result of
collusion? Had they anticipated just such a sudden, disconcerting
encounter? Had they thought it all out and arranged with each other
beforehand how they should behave? I don't know. I never cared to ask
her.

The game lasted some little time. I didn't like to see her driven to
these shifts (I was afraid, in fact, they'd overdo it), and I came to her
help by telling Jevons that Captain Thesiger was an enthusiastic admirer
of his work; and Reggie burst in jubilantly--he was evidently glad to
be able to meet Jevons on this happy ground--with: "Are you the chap who
wrote those things I've been reading? I say, Vee-Vee, you might have told
me."

He fastened upon Jevons then and there. He started him off on the boxing
match. There was very little about boxing that Reggie didn't know, but he
appealed to Jevons with a charming deference as to an expert. The dear
boy had a good deal of his sister's innocent veneration for the chaps who
wrote the things they'd been reading, who could, that is to say, do
something they couldn't do.

And Jevons, once started on the boxing match,