I said that a little reflection would show her that it was impossible to keep him out. To this she said, "Please go and find Norah. I want her."
I found Norah. I warned her that Viola was going to be extremely difficult. She said it would be all right if I left Viola to her.
As we approached, Viola turned to her sister with an air of outraged and long-suffering dignity.
"Norah," she said. "I do wish you would make Wally see what an ass he's making of himself."
My wife said, in her admirable, judicial way, "How an ass?"
"Well—trying to make me go back and bringing Kendal out here to fetch me. He doesn't seem to see that if I do go back with him it'll be as good as proclaiming to everybody that I ran away with Charlie and was found out by my clever brother-in-law who tracked me down in my husband's motor-car and brought me back in it. Whereas, if I go quietly on to London, as I meant to and as everybody knows I meant to, it'll be all right."
"It won't," I said, "as long as Charlie's there. It will be if you come home with us in the car now, and go up to town with Norah and me on Monday."
"I've told you," she said wearily, "that I can't go back because I shall never get away if I do. And I must—I must—and I will."
"Yes, dear, and you shall," my wife said, as if she were humouring somebody who was mad.
But for a mad woman Viola, I must say, was extraordinarily lucid.