“It must be still more awful for Viola.”

To that she said, “It isn’t.  You don’t know how Viola feels about Jimmy.  None of my people do.  They simply don’t understand it.”

“Oh, come,” I said, “they’ve accepted it, haven’t they?”

“They’ve accepted it because they don’t understand her.  They say they never know what she’ll do next, and Jimmy’s come as a sort of relief to them.  They thought she might do something much worse.  You see, she isn’t a bit like any of us.  If she wants to do a thing she’ll do it, no matter what it is.  She wanted to go to Bruges with Jimmy and look at the Belfry, and she did it like a shot.  What they can’t see is that she’ll never want to do anything wrong, so she’ll never do it.  They can’t see that there was just as much Belfry as Jimmy in it.  There always will be a Belfry in Viola’s life, and when she hears the bells going she’ll run off to see.  And Jimmy’s the only man who’ll ever take her to a Belfry.

“She’s all right.  Because she knows that Jimmy’s really ten times more refined than any of us.  His little soul’s all made of beautiful clean white silk.  But Viola can’t go on telling people how beautiful he is.  They’ve got to see it for themselves.

“I wish you could see it as she does.  I wish you could see how she feels about it—­”

“My dear Norah,” I said, “I’ve been trying for three years to see as Viola sees, and feel as Viola feels.  But how can I?  I’m not Viola.”

“But,” she said, “you do understand her.  If I thought you didn’t—­if I thought that you could go back on her—­and if you go back on Jimmy you go back on her—­”

“Well?”

“Well, I don’t think I could ever speak to you again.”

“My dear child,” I said, “you’re absurd.  I haven’t gone back on either of them.  Won’t it do if I see Jimmy as you see him?”

“Ye-es,” she said.  “But—­I wonder if you do.”

“Norah,” I said then, “I wonder if Viola’s as sorry for him as you are.  I hope she isn’t.”

“She isn’t, then.  She isn’t sorry for him a bit.  No more am I. You’ll make me sorry for you if you don’t take care.”

When we went to say good night to Jevons we found Viola sitting on the arm of his chair with the little dish in her hand, feeding him with chocolate nougat.  Her posture was one of supple contrition, and we heard her say: 

“Cheer up, Jimmy.  It doesn’t really matter what you do.  Nobody would ever take you for more than four years old.”

Yes.  Norah, the youngest, was the one who had grown up.

VIII

Norah has often told me that I exaggerated the importance of the Nougat Incident; that my weakness is a tendency to dwell with a morbid concentration on small, inessential details.  When I tell her that if I succeed in surviving Jimmy I shall write his biography, she tilts her chin and says I’m the last person who should attempt it.