"They travelled together, Furnival. They travelled together."

I said, "Yes. And it wasn't till they'd got to Bruges the second time
that Jevons realized that they never ought to. As soon as he did realize
it, he cleared out."

He did that too late, the Canon insisted. It was no good my trying to
shield Jevons. It wasn't easy to believe that Jevons was as innocent as
Viola, and, as nobody was going to believe it, the injury the brute had
done her was irreparable.

"Not," I said, "if she marries me."

He said, "My dear boy, supposing--supposing it isn't all as innocent as
you think? You can't marry her."

I said that made no difference. It was all the more reason.

All the more reason, he insisted, for her marrying Jevons.

That, he said, was what they'd have to go into.

But there I took a high stand. I said it was for me to go into it, and if
I didn't, why should they? If I believed in Viola, surely they might? If
I knew that she could do nothing and feel nothing that was not beautiful,
wasn't my knowledge good enough for them? I said, "I shall go to her at
once and ask her to marry me."

He got up and laid his hand on my arm. "No," he said. "Not at once. Wait.
Far better wait."

I asked him, "How long?"

He said, "Till she's had time to get over him."

Mrs. Thesiger (I had half an hour with her, too) said the same thing.
"Wait," she said, "at any rate, another week."

She had given her, as Jevons would have said, a week.

* * * * *

I waited.

I stayed with the Thesigers a week. In fact, I stayed ten days. I got
used to the chimes and slept through them. I played chess with Mrs.
Thesiger; I played golf and tennis with the girls and the young
subalterns of the garrison; I played violent hockey with Mildred and
Norah; I walked with Viola and Victoria; I tried to talk to Millicent
(Millicent, I must own, was a bit beyond me); I played tennis again
(singles) against Norah, who was bent on beating me. We all went for
picnics with the subalterns into Romney Marshes and visited Winchelsea
and Rye. And in between I was taken by Canon and Mrs. Thesiger to lunch
or dinner or tea in the other Canons' houses, and was introduced to the
Dean and the Archbishop. I attended the Cathedral services to an extent
that provoked Viola to denounce me as a humbug.

I told her I did it in order to look at the finest spectacle of defiance
I had ever seen--the Canon in his stall in the chan