We sat down and faced each other. She was smiling again as if the delight of seeing me fairly bubbled out of her. One thing struck me then, that at this rate it would be easy enough to ignore Jevons. In fact, if Jevons hadn't given Viola away just now I should have thought that she was travelling in Belgium on her own account and that his being here in the same town with her was a coincidence, an accident. I could have got over Withers and his story.
Then she said, "Have you come across Mr. Jevons yet? He's here."
I answered, with what I knew to be a very stiff mouth, "We're staying in the same hotel."
"You might have brought him along with you," she said.
I said I didn't want to bring him along with me.
She raised her eyebrows in delicate reproof of my rudeness and said, "Why not?"
"Because," I said, "I want to talk to you."
"Oh—" I don't think I imagined the faint embarrassment in her tone. But it was very faint.
"And" I went on, "I don't want to talk about Jevons."
She looked at me then steadily. The look held me, then defied me to pass beyond a certain limit. I understood now the terms of our encounter. As long as I met her on the ground of a friendship that recognized and included Jevons she was glad to treat with me; but any attitude that repudiated Jevons, or merely ignored him, was a hostile attitude that she was prepared to resent.