Part 33

"What things?"

"Mean things, base things. Going on my knees to people I didn't know, grovelling for an introduction."

"I'm sorry. It sounds awful."

"It was. I've been on the point of meeting you a score of times, and there's always been some horrid fatality. Either you'd gone when I arrived, or I had to go before you arrived. I believe I've seen you--once."

"I don't remember."

"At Miss Bickersteth's. You were coming out as I was going in." He looked at his watch. "And now I ought to be catching a train."

"Don't catch it."

"I shan't. For I've got to tell you how much I admire your work. I'm not going to ask how you do it, for I don't suppose you know yourself."

"I don't."

"I'm not even going to ask myself. I simply accept the miracle."

"If it's miracles you want, look at George Tanqueray."

He said nothing. And now she thought of it, he had not looked at George Tanqueray. He had looked at nobody but her. It was the look of a man who had never known a moment's uncertainty as to the thing he wanted. It was a look that stuck.

"Why aren't you at his feet?" she said.

"Because I'm not drawn--to my knees--by brutal strength and cold, diabolical lucidity."

"Oh," she cried, "you haven't read him."

"I've read all of him. And I prefer you."

"Me? You've spoilt it all. If you can't admire him, what is the use of your admiring me?"

"I see. You don't want me to admire you."

He said it with no emphasis, no emotion, as if he were indifferent as to what she wanted.

"No. I don't think I do."

"You see," he said, "you have a heart."

"Oh, if people would only leave my heart alone!"

"And Tanqueray, I believe, has a devil."

She turned on him.

"Give me George Tanqueray's devil!" She paused, considering him. "Why do you talk about my heart?"

"Because, if I may say so, it's what I like most in you."

"Anybody can like that."

"Can they?"