ow it, when I didn't?"

"Because it's one of those things" (he twinkled) "that other people
always do know."

"Were we as obvious as all that?"

"I didn't say _you_ were obvious. I said _It_ was."

I sat down facing them, and I suppose I must have looked supremely
foolish, for Viola began to laugh and Jevons went on twinkling, not in
the least as if he saw a joke, but with a thoughtful and complacent air,
as if he were turning over the result of some private speculation that
had come off entirely to his satisfaction.

Then she took pity on me.

"He means it was bound to happen. It was the heaven-appointed thing. The
first minute I saw you, Wally, I thought, 'What an adorable husband he'd
make for Norah!' And Jimmy's trying to tell you that we've been hoping it
would come and wanting it to come and waiting for it to come for the last
year."

"I'm trying to tell him," said Jimmy, "that we've been meaning it to
come, and trying to make it come, and seeing it come for the last three
years."

This was a blow at the attitude of romantic devotion, and I had to defend
it.

"Do you believe that, Viola?" I said.

"Of course I believe it if Jimmy says so."

I sent her a look that was meant to say, "You ought to know better;" but
it missed fire somehow. She went on swinging her feet and laughing softly
at me over Jimmy's shoulder. She seemed, like Jimmy, to be contemplating
some exquisite knowledge that she had. And at last she said:

"Aren't you glad now that you didn't marry me?"

I said, "What am I to say to that?"

Jimmy got up and clapped me on the shoulder. "Never mind her," he said.
"Tell the truth and shame the devil. Tell her you're thundering glad."

At that she slid down from her perch and came round to me and patted me
very gently on the head.

"_I_ am, Wally. Jimmy, you're a beast."

And she went out of the room. Jimmy said that nothing she had contributed
to the discussion became her like her leaving it.

She had left it to him.

He got into his chair again and sat down to it.

"Now, perhaps," he said, "you see how right I was."

"When?"

"The first time we ever spoke about it."

"My dear Jimmy, I haven't spoken to anybody about it till to-night."

"We spoke about it years ago," he said.

"We couldn't possibly have spoken about it years ago."

"At Bruges. Perhaps it was I who spoke. I tell you I saw it coming. Don't
you remember I gave you six months?"

"You were out there, anyhow.