d him in that connection. To Reggie, Jevons was simply an
amusing little scallywag who could write. That Viola should have taken
Jevons seriously surpassed his imagination of the possible. So that she
never was in any danger of discovery, and there was no need for her
manoeuvres. He couldn't have so much as found out that she had gone for a
walk with Jevons, because it wouldn't have entered his head that you
could go for a walk with him. People didn't do these things.

Besides, he never was alone with her that evening. She took good care of
that. She insisted on dropping him at his hotel, which we passed on our
way northwards. She actually said to him, "You must get out here.
Furny'll see me home. I want to talk to him."

And instead of talking to me, she sat leaning forward with her back half
turned to me, staring through the window at nothing at all.

That was how I came to propose to Viola in the taxi. I had been afraid to
do it before. I wasn't going to do it at all unless I was sure of her.
But it seemed to me that she had been trying all afternoon and all
evening to tell me that I might be sure.

* * * * *

Well--she wouldn't have me. She was most decided about it. I had no hope
and no defence and no appeal from her decision. Unless I was prepared to
be a bounder--and a fatuous bounder at that--I couldn't tell her that
she had given me encouragement that almost amounted to invitation. To do
her justice, until the dreadful moment in the taxi she hadn't known that
she had given me anything. She confessed that she had been trying to
convey to Reggie the impression that if her affections were engaged in
any quarter it was in mine. She had been so absorbed in calculating the
effect on Reggie that she had never considered the effect on me. She said
she thought I knew what she was up to and that I was simply seeing her
through. She spoke of Jevons as if he was a joke--a joke that might be
disastrous if her family took it seriously. It might end in her recall
from town. She intimated that there were limits even to Reggie's
enjoyment of the absurd; she owned quite frankly that she was afraid of
Reggie--afraid of what he might think of her and say to her; because, she
said, she was so awfully fond of him. As for me, and what _I_ might
think, it was open to me to regard her solitary stroll with Jevons as a
funny escapade.

I do not believe the poor child was trying to throw dust in my eyes