Yes. Something happened that put Jevons and his half-crown out of my head for long enough. I forgot to pay him, and he had to go without his dinner for three nights in consequence. It was his last half-crown.
He told me this as an immense joke, long afterwards.
And Viola Thesiger cried.
That crying of hers, that child-like softening and breaking down under him, in itself so unexpected (I didn't know she could do it), that sudden and innocent catastrophe, was the first sign to me that I was done for—wiped out. There wasn't any violence or any hysteria about it, only grief, only pity. It was an entirely simple, gentle and beautiful performance, and it took place in my rooms after Jevons had left us. But, as I say, this was long afterwards. The agony of my undoing was a horribly protracted affair.
I needn't say that what happened—I mean the thing that made me forget all about Jevons and his half-crown—was Viola Thesiger.
I had his address, but the next day—the day after the match—was Sunday, so I couldn't get the postal order I had meant to send him. And on Monday she walked into my rooms at ten in the morning.
The appointment, I may remark, was for nine-thirty. I had fixed that early hour for it because I wanted to get it done with. I wasn't going to have my morning murdered with violence when it was two hours old; neither did I intend it to be poisoned by the thought of this interview hanging over me at the end.
I had just sent for Pavitt, my man, and told him that if Miss Thesiger called he was on no account to let her in. He was to say that the appointment was for nine-thirty and that Mr. Furnival was now engaged. She would have to call again at three if she wished to see him. When engaging a typist it is as well to begin as you mean to go on, and I was anxious to let Miss Thesiger know at once that I was not a man who would stand any nonsense. I was abominably busy that morning.
And Pavitt let her in. (It was the first time he had failed in this way.) He never explained or apologized for it afterwards. He seemed to think that when I had seen Miss Thesiger I would see, even more vividly than he did, how impossible it was to do otherwise, unless he had relinquished all claim to manhood and to chivalry. The look he sent me from the threshold as he retreated backwards, drawing the door upon himself like a screen and shutting me in alone with her, said very plainly, "You may curse, sir, and you may swear; but if you think you'll get out of it any better than I have you're mistaken."
Yes: it was something more than her appearance and her manner, though they, in all conscience, were enough.