danger--his certainty that if any danger were ever to come near him he
would funk.

And I remember Reggie saying, "My dear fellow, if you've the courage to
say so--" and Jevons beating off this consolation with a funny gesture of
despair. And then his silence.

It was as if suddenly, in the midst of his gambolling, little Jevons had
fallen into an abyss. He sat there, at the bottom of the pit, staring at
us in the misery of the damned.

I looked at Viola. Her eyelids drooped; her head drooped. Her whole body
drooped under the affliction of his stare, and she would not look at me.

Reggie (he really _was_ decent) tried to turn it off. "I wouldn't worry,
if I were you," he said. "Wait till the war comes."

"Oh, it's coming all right," said little Jevons. "No fear."

And as if he could no longer bear to contemplate his cowardice, he said
good-bye to us and left. Reggie's eyes followed his dejected, retreating
figure.

"How quaint!" he said. "But he's a smart chap, anyway. And, mind you,
he's right about that war."

I said (Heaven knows why, except that I think I must have wanted Reggie's
opinion of Jevons): "D'you think he's right about his own cowardice?"

Reggie said, "Ask me another. You can't tell. I only know I've seen men