memory--then (I forgot to say that at that time I was reader to a firm of
publishers; these things are in themselves so inessential to this story)
I turned over to him any books that came more into his province than
mine. His province, I can tell you, was pretty extensive, too.

He began by doing me the honour to consult me about any instances that
seemed doubtful.

And so--you see how carefully I had prepared his path for him--one
afternoon he turned up at my rooms, uninvited, between four and five. He
said he remembered I had told him I should be free at that hour.

He remembered. Yes; I don't think Tasker Jevons ever forgot anything,
anything likely to be useful to him, in his life.

And he hadn't been with me ten minutes before Viola Thesiger came in.

He was saying, "Why the Heaven-afflicted idiot" (his author) "should
think it necessary--" when Viola came in.

She came in, and suddenly I made up my mind that she was beautiful. I
hadn't seen it before. I don't know why I saw it now. It may have been
some turn of her small, squarish head that surprised me with subtle
tendernesses and curves; or more likely it may have been her effect on
him. I may have seen her with his eyes. I don't know--I don't know. I
hardly like to think he saw anything in her I hadn't seen first.

He stopped talking. They looked at each other. I introduced him. Not to
have introduced him would have struck him as a slight.