He had the air of knowing a good deal more than he cared to tell me; but then he always had that air; you may say he lived on it.

I asked him presently (in a suitable context) whether he was going back soon; and to my relief I learned that he had only just come out—­for his paper—­and was going on into Germany through Brussels.  He wouldn’t be back in England for another three weeks or more.

He wouldn’t be back, I reflected, to tell what he knew or what he didn’t know, till Reggie Thesiger had sailed.

I got rid of the little beast on the first likely pretext, having dealt with him so urbanely that he couldn’t possibly think he had told me anything I saw reason to believe and therefore to resent.

Then I went back to Bruges.

This time my quest was fairly easy.  I didn’t know what hotel Jevons was staying in; but I did know the sort of hotel that Withers stayed in when he was travelling for his paper.  My errand was narrowed down to three or four (good, but not too good), and the first I struck in the Market-Place was Withers’s hotel.  It was one of those that three days ago had known nothing of Jevons.

I inquired this time for Withers and was told that he had left that morning.  I engaged a room and strolled out into the Market-Place.  I visited the Cathedral, the Belfry, and the Beguinage, in the hope of coming suddenly across Viola and Jevons.

I did not come across them in any of those places; but I was not very earnest about the search.  I was so sure that if Withers had not lied to me they would presently come across me at their hotel.  I meant that it should be that way, if possible:  that they should come across me in a place where they could not evade me.  God only knows what I meant to say to them when they had found me.

As I entered the hotel again I saw the proprietor’s wife make a sign to her husband.  They conferred together, and sent the concierge upstairs after me.  He wanted to know if I was the gentleman who had inquired the other day for Mr. Chevons, because, if I was, Mr. Chevons had arrived the day before yesterday and was staying in the hotel.

There was no doubt about it; his name, James Tasker Jevons, was in the visitors’ list.

Viola’s was not.

From the enthusiasm of the fat proprietor and his wife you would have supposed that Jevons and I had roamed the habitable globe for months in search of one another; and that Jevons, at any rate, would be overpowered with joy when he found that I was here.  They said nothing about Viola.

And before I could ask myself what earthly motive Withers could have had for lying to me, I concluded that he had lied.

Or perhaps—­it was more than likely—­he had been mistaken.

Jevons, I said to myself, was bound to turn up at dinner.  If Viola was in Bruges, Viola would probably be with him.  I chose a table by the door behind a screen, where I could see everybody as they came in without being seen first of all by anybody.