Part 197

"They must learn to do without me. They would have some one else."

"Yes, and they'll be fond of her."

"Not in the same way. I think perhaps I've given myself too much to them. There's something unusual, something tragic in the way they cling to me. I know it's bad for them. I try to check it, and I can't. And I've no right to let it go on. Nobody has a right except their mother."

"Well, it's awfully nice of you to feel like that about it. But as you say, I don't see how it's to be helped. I think you're taking an exaggerated view--conscientiously exaggerated. They're too young, you know, to be very tragic."

She smiled as through tears.

"I don't think you'll save tragedy by going. Besides, what should I do?"

"You?"

"Yes. You don't appear to have thought of me."

"Don't I?" She smiled again, as if at some secret, none too happy, of her own.

"If I had not thought of you I should never have come here a second time. If I had not thought of you I should not have thought of going."

"Did you think I wanted you to go?"

"I--was not quite sure."

He laughed. "Are you sure now?"

She looked at him again.

"I do help you by staying?"

He was overwhelmed by his indebtedness.

"Most certainly you do. I must have been very ungracious if you haven't realized how indispensable you are."

"If you're sure of that--I'll stay."

"Good."

He held out his hand and detained hers for a moment. "Are you sure you don't want to leave us? I'm not asking too much of you?"

She withdrew her hand.

"You have never asked too much."

Thus Gertrude uncovered the knees of the gods.

LXII

Four days in every week Jane had a letter from Gertrude and once a week a letter from Brodrick. She was thus continually assured that all was well and that Brodrick was very comfortable with Gertrude.

She was justified in staying on, since her genius had come back to her, divinely placable, divinely propitiated and appeased.

She knew that in a measure she owed this supreme reconciliation to George Tanqueray. Her genius was virile. He could not give it anything, nor could it have taken anything he gave. He was passive to her vision and humble, on his knees, as he always had been, before a kindred immortality. What he did for her was to see her idea as she saw it, but so that through his eyes she saw steadily and continuously its power and perfection. She was aware that in the last five years she had grown dependent on him for that. For five years he had lifted her out of the abyss when she had found herself falling. Through all the surgings and tossings that had beset her he had kept her from sinking into the trough of the wave. Never once had he let go his hold till he had seen her riding gaily on the luminous crest.

His presence filled her with a deep and strong excitement. For two years, in their long separations, she had found that her craving for it was at times unbearable. She knew that when her flame died down and she was in terror of extinction, she had only to send for him to have her fear taken from her. She had only to pick up a book of his, to read a sentence of his, and she would feel herself afire again. Everything about him, his voice, his look, the touch of his hand, had this penetrating, life-giving quality.