half-crown was my last half-crown. I had to go without any dinner for
three days."

I mumbled something about his not meaning it.

He said, "Of course I meant it. Why, my dear chap, that's the joke!"

He stood there in the doorway, rocking with laughter. Then he saw our
faces.

"I say, I wouldn't have told you if I'd thought it would harrow you like
that. Thought you'd think it funny. It _is_ funny."

I said, "No, my dear fellow, it's just missed being funny."

I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him from the room. (I had seen
Viola's face and I didn't want him to see it.) I led him gently
downstairs with a hand still on his shoulder. He was a little grieved at
giving pain when he had hoped to give pleasure.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned and looked at me with his
ungovernable twinkle. "It _was_ funny," he said. "But it wasn't half so
funny, Furnival, as your face."

I found Viola sitting at my writing-table, with her arms flung out over
it and her head bowed on them. And she was crying--crying with little
soft sobs. I've said that I didn't think she could do it. And I didn't.
She wasn't the sort that cries. I'm convinced she hadn't cried like this
for years, perhaps never since she was a child.