affair had been a miscarriage of justice--a conspiracy of false
evidence, got together by Nonconformist adversaries. But think of
the fool that I was. . . .

II

LET me think where we were. Oh, yes . . . that conversation took
place on the 4th of August, 1913. I remember saying to her that,
on that day, exactly nine years before, I had made their
acquaintance, so that it had seemed quite appropriate and like a
birthday speech to utter my little testimonial to my friend Edward.
I could quite confidently say that, though we four had been about
together in all sorts of places, for all that length of time, I had not,
for my part, one single complaint to make of either of them. And I
added, that that was an unusual record for people who had been so
much together. You are not to imagine that it was only at
Nauheim that we met. That would not have suited Florence.

I find, on looking at my diaries, that on the 4th of September,
1904, Edward accompanied Florence and myself to Paris, where
we put him up till the twenty-first of that month. He made another
short visit to us in December of that year--the first year of our
acquaintance. It must have been during this visit that he knocked
Mr Jimmy's teeth down his throat. I daresay Florence had asked
him to come over for that purpose. In 1905 he was in Paris three
times--once with Leonora, who wanted some frocks. In 1906 we
spent the best part of six weeks together at Mentone, and Edward
stayed with us in Paris on his way back to London. That was how
it went.