Oh yes, it was plain to me that he didn't want to be left—that he couldn't bear it. He was trying to lure me to stay with him by holding out this prospect of a spin. I have since believed that he would have agreed to take his car out in almost any weather, if that had been the only way to keep me. He clung to me desperately, pathetically, as he had clung nine years ago at Bruges when Viola had left him there. He might, possibly, this time, have clung to anybody; he was so afraid of being left alone. I think he felt that loneliness here, in the vast, unfamiliar landscape that he had invaded, would be as bad as loneliness in Bruges. He would be abandoned, as he had been then, in a foreign country.
So till Sunday morning I stayed with him.
It was on my last evening, the evening of Saturday, August the first, that he spoke of Viola.
He asked me if I thought that Norah and I could keep her with us, if necessary, for—he hesitated—for six months? (It was as if he had given her six months.) It would, he said, be better.
I said that Norah would be delighted to keep her for any number of months. But did he think she'd stay?
He said why shouldn't she stay? Of course she'd stay. She was awfully fond of us and it was the best thing she could do. And it would make it so much easier for him. He'd feel more comfortable as long as he knew she was with us.
He spoke as if it were he and not Viola who was leaving.
I said then that though we were glad to have her we couldn't, of course, accept any responsibility—
He smiled slightly and asked, "For what?"
I said, "Well—" And he answered his own question in the pause I made.