And we took her. (Viola nursed the four-year-old child all the way.) We also took an old man and a young woman with a baby at her breast, and two small children.  It was the only thing to be done, Viola said.

It was nearly half-past five when we left Bruges the second time.

“God only knows,” I groaned, “what time we’ll get to Ghent!”

“He does,” she said.  “He knows perfectly well we shall get there by half-past seven.”

And we did.

It was dark when we turned into the Place d’Armes and drew up before the long, grey Hotel de la Poste.  I jumped out and stood by the kerb to give Viola my hand.

“But—­” she said, “I know this place.”

“You ought to.”

I don’t know where she expected us to go.  She still sat in the car as if held there by the shock of recognition.  She ignored my outstretched hand.

“You’d better take your things,” she said at last, “if you want to get out here.  I’m going on to look for Jimmy.”

I had then my first full sense of what I was in for.  I saw that she was perfectly prepared to throw me over, to dump me down here or anywhere else and go on by herself with the car and the chauffeur that were, or ought to have been, mine.

She didn’t care if I was Special Correspondent to the Morning Standard, and she had that beastly chauffeur in her pocket all the time. (I discovered afterwards that she’d laid in food for him and hidden it in the locker under the front seat, so that they might be ready for any sort of adventure.) And yet in the very moment that I realized her disastrous obstinacy I found her intolerably pathetic.

“If you want to look for Jimmy,” I said, “you’d better get out too.  He’ll be here if he’s anywhere in Ghent.”

But she was already on the kerb, brushing me aside.  She had seen behind my back the approach of the concierge and she made for him.

“Is Mr. Jevons in this hotel—­Mr. Tasker Jevons?”

Yes, Mr. Chevons was in the hotel.  Madame would find him in the lounge.

She had swept past him to the stair of the lounge, and I was following her discreetly when the proprietor dashed out of his bureau to intercept us.  The lounge, he said, was reserved from seven till nine o’clock for the officers of the General Staff.

Viola had paid no attention to the proprietor and was sweeping up the stair.  I gave Jevons’s name and explained that the lady was Mrs. Jevons.

The proprietor, a portly and pompous Belgian, positively dissolved in smiles and bows and apologetic gestures. Mille pardons, monsieur, mille pardons. It would be all right.  Monsieur Chevons was dining with the officers of the General Staff.

He did not know that Madame was expected.  He was to reserve a room for Monsieur?

I told him to reserve rooms for me and the chauffeur, and to consult Mr. Jevons about Madame.  And I hurried up the stair after Viola.