Part 161

"She'll estrange 'im, if you don't take care."

"She couldn't."

"Couldn't? She'll get a 'old before you know where you are."

"But," said Jane quietly, "I do know where I am."

"Not," Rose insisted, "when you're away, writin'."

Tanqueray saw Jane's face flush and whiten. He looked at Rose.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said, with anger under his breath.

Jane seemed not to know that he was there. She addressed herself exclusively to Rose.

"What do you suppose happens when I'm--away?"

"You forget."

"Never!" said Jane. The passion of her inflection was lost on Rose who brooded.

"You forget," she repeated. "And she doesn't."

Involuntarily Tanqueray looked at Jane and Jane at Tanqueray. There were moments when his wife's penetration was terrible.

Rose was brooding so profoundly that she failed to see the passing of that look.

"If it was me," she murmured in a thick voice, a voice soft as her dream, "if it was my child----"

Tanqueray's nerves gave way. "But it isn't." He positively roared at her. "And it never will be."

Rose shrank back as if he had struck her. Jane's heart leaped to her help.

"If it was," she said, "it would have the dearest, sweetest little mother."

At that, at the sudden tenderness of it coming after Tanqueray's blow, Rose gave a half-audible moan and got up quickly and left the room. They heard her faltering steps up-stairs in the room above them.

It was then that Tanqueray asked Jane if she would stay and dine with them. She could send a note to Brodrick by the nurse.

She stayed. She felt that if she did not Tanqueray would bully Rose.

Rose was glad she stayed. She was afraid to be left alone that evening with George. She was dumb before him, and her dumbness cut Jane to the heart. Jane tried to make her talk a little during dinner. They talked about the Protheros when Susan was in the room, and when she was out of it they talked about Susan.

This was not wise of Jane, for it exasperated Tanqueray. He wanted to talk to Jane, and he wanted to be alone with her to talk.

After dinner they went up to his study to look at some books he had bought. The best of selling your own books, he said, was that you could buy as many as you wanted of other people's. He had now got as many as he wanted. They were more than the room would hold. All that he could not get on to the shelves were stacked about the floor. He stood among them smiling.

Rose did not smile. The care of Tanqueray's study was her religion.

"How am I to get round them 'eaps to dust?" said she.

"You don't get round them, and you don't dust," said Tanqueray imperturbably.

"Then--them books'll breed a fever."