"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."