made me shine I should have blazed among them all.

It doesn't matter now which of them I met there. Jevons was charming to
them all. He set them blazing. I don't think he cared much whether _he_
blazed or not, but if he felt like it he could make a bigger blaze than
any of them. He enjoyed them; he enjoyed them vastly, violently. Having
once acquired the taste, he couldn't have lived without the intellectual
excitement they gave him. But except for that, for the stimulus, the
release of energy, it's surprising how little they really counted for
him.

And so it's not those evenings and that brilliance that I remember.

In the house in Edwardes Square I seem to have been always meeting Norah
Thesiger. Now that they had a room to put her in, she would be there for
months at a time. And whenever she was there they would be sure to ask
me. If Jevons didn't, Viola did.

There was that summer, too, when Norah and Mildred came together with
Charlie Thesiger, their cousin, who was engaged to Mildred. Charlie was
then a lieutenant in the South Kent Hussars. He was a large young man,
correct, handsome, rather supercilious and rather stupid. He seemed to
fill the house in Edwardes Square when he was in it.

He doesn't matter. At least, he didn't matter then. God knows he never
really mattered, poor boy, at any time. But he is important. He fixes
things for me. He brings me to the incident of June, nineteen-nine.

It was a very slight incident. It wouldn't be worth recording except that
it stood for others like itself, a whole crowd. And it was of such slight
things that Viola's torments were to be made.

We were at dinner in the little dining-room looking on the flagged court,
a party of six: Viola at the head of the round table, with her back to
the light; Jevons at the foot, facing her, with the light full on him;
Charlie Thesiger was on Viola's right, I was on her left, facing him.
Norah sat next to me on Jevons's right, and Mildred sat next to Charlie
on Jevons's left, facing Norah. We were all so close together that it
would be difficult for one of us to have missed anything that happened or
was said. And Viola, with the light behind her, commanded us all.

She had been very gay. I don't suppose Charlie felt anything strained
about her gaiety--he was not observant--but I did, and I put it down to
Charlie's presence, to the rather flat correctness that made Jevons stand
out. Another thing I noticed was that, in labourin