And he hadn't been with me ten minutes before Viola Thesiger came in.
He was saying, "Why the Heaven-afflicted idiot" (his author) "should think it necessary—" when Viola came in.
She came in, and suddenly I made up my mind that she was beautiful. I hadn't seen it before. I don't know why I saw it now. It may have been some turn of her small, squarish head that surprised me with subtle tendernesses and curves; or more likely it may have been her effect on him. I may have seen her with his eyes. I don't know—I don't know. I hardly like to think he saw anything in her I hadn't seen first.
He stopped talking. They looked at each other. I introduced him. Not to have introduced him would have struck him as a slight.
I ordered tea at once in the hope of hastening his departure. He had been curiously silent since she had come in.
But he didn't go. He just sat there, saying nothing, but looking at her furtively now and again, and blinking, as if looking at her hurt him. Whenever she said anything he stared, with his mouth a little open, breathing heavily.
She hadn't paid very much attention to him. Then, suddenly, as if intrigued by his silence, she said:
"Who is the Heaven-afflicted idiot?"
I said, "Ask Mr. Jevons."
She did.