ovements were not always exactly
calculable. She might take it into her head to do anything. I really
couldn't answer for her.

"_You_ can't," he said. "But _I_ can. She may go off and look at a belfry
or two." (I should have said that "looking at the belfry" was a phrase
the family had adopted for any queer thing that any of us might do.) "If
there's a belfry anywhere to be seen you may depend upon it she'd want to
look at it."

"Whether," I said, "it's in a dangerous place or not?"

"Whether it's in a dangerous place or not. But I'll trust you to keep her
out of dangerous places. That's rather what I wanted to talk to you
about."

I protested. "There's no good talking about it. I've told you that's just
precisely the responsibility I won't take. And I won't let Norah take it.
If you think there's going to be any danger you must look after your own
wife yourself."

"My dear fellow, how can I look after her if I'm not here?"

"You're as much here as I am," I said. "More so. And she's your wife, not
mine."

I can say now--there's no reason why I shouldn't; it would only amuse
Jimmy if he were to see it written--I can say now that for one awful
moment I suspected Jimmy of meditating an infidelity. Perhaps he was; but
not as we count infidelity.

He ignored what I took to be the essence of the thing.

"We don't know," he said, "where any of us are going to be for the next
four months--or the next four years. I know that _I_ jolly well shan't be
here. What I want to propose is this: that you'll look after Viola and
let her have your house when she wants to be in town; and that you have
this house for yourself and Norah and Baby when you want to be in the
country--just as if it was your own. There'll be that other motor-car you
can have--as if it was your own. You can run up to town in it. And you'll
probably find that the country will be the best place for you. It'll be
much the best place for _them_, and the safest--if you aren't here."

I couldn't see it even then. I said, "My dear chap, why shouldn't I be
here? I certainly mean to be here."

And he considered it and said, "I don't see why not. It's different for
you. You've got a child and I haven't."

I said I couldn't see what Baby had to do with it.

And he replied that a young child was an infernal complication, and that
he was jolly glad he hadn't got one. What Baby had to do with it was to
keep me out of it.

Then I asked him what on earth he was