arrassed. I thought: "She is beginning to
be afraid of me. And that is an excellent sign."

The night before I left Canterbury I asked her, for the third time, to
marry me.

She said, "I know why you're asking me, and it's dear of you. But it's no
good. It can't be done. Not even that way."

V

The next day I went back to Bruges to release Jevons from his parole.

I found him sitting tight in his hotel in the Market-Place, waiting my
return with composure.

He had recovered in my absence and had been making the best of his
internment. He had written a series of articles on "The Old Cities of
Flanders." He worked them up afterwards into that little masterpiece of
his, "My Flemish Journal," which gave him his European celebrity (it must
have made delightful reading for the Thesigers). There was no delay, no
reverse, no calamity that Jevons couldn't turn into use and profit as it
came. Yes, I know, and into charm and beauty. Viola Thesiger lives in his
"Flemish Journal" with an enduring beauty and charm.

I said I was sorry for keeping him shut up in Bruges so long. He said it
didn't matter a bit. He had been very busy.

I thought it was his articles and his book (he had been dreaming of it)
that had made Jevons so happy. But I was mistaken.

We spent half the night in talking, sitting up in my big room on the
first floor for the sake of space and air.

Jevons went straight to the point by asking me how I had got on at
Canterbury.

I felt that I owed him a perfect frankness in return for the liberties I
had taken with him, so I told him how I had got on.

He said, "I'm not going to pretend to be astonished. But you can't say I
didn't play fair. I gave you your innings, didn't I?"

I said I'd had them, anyhow. We'd leave it at that.

He said, No. We couldn't leave it at that. He'd _given_ me my innings. He
could have stopped my having them any minute, but he'd made up his mind I
should have them. So that nobody should say afterwards he hadn't played
fair.

I remember perfectly everything that Jevons said to me that night. I am
putting it all down so that it may be clear that what the Thesigers
called the beauty of my behaviour was nothing to the beauty of his. Think
of him, shut up there in his hotel in Bruges, giving me my innings, when
he could have struck in and won the game without waiting those horrible
ten days.

Well, I suppose he knew that he had it in his hands all the time.

"You see,