He said, "My dear boy, supposing—supposing it isn't all as innocent as you think? You can't marry her."
I said that made no difference. It was all the more reason.
All the more reason, he insisted, for her marrying Jevons.
That, he said, was what they'd have to go into.
But there I took a high stand. I said it was for me to go into it, and if I didn't, why should they? If I believed in Viola, surely they might? If I knew that she could do nothing and feel nothing that was not beautiful, wasn't my knowledge good enough for them? I said, "I shall go to her at once and ask her to marry me."
He got up and laid his hand on my arm. "No," he said. "Not at once. Wait.
Far better wait."
I asked him, "How long?"
He said, "Till she's had time to get over him."
Mrs. Thesiger (I had half an hour with her, too) said the same thing.
"Wait," she said, "at any rate, another week."
She had given her, as Jevons would have said, a week.