Part 35

"Tanqueray. He's a man, and it doesn't matter. But you, a woman----It's horrible."

He was almost animated.

"There's your friend, Miss Bickersteth. She lives alone."

"Miss Bickersteth--is Miss Bickersteth."

"There's Nina Lempriere."

"The fiery lady?" He paused, meditating. "Why do her people let her?"

"She hasn't got any. Her people are all dead."

"How awful. And your small friend, Miss Gunning? Don't say she lives alone, too."

"She doesn't. She lives with her father. He's worse than a family----"

"Worse than a----?" He stared aghast.

"Worse than a family of seven children."

"And that's a misfortune, is it?" He frowned.

"Yes, when you have to keep it--on nothing but what you earn by writing, and when it leaves you neither time nor space to write in."

"I see. She oughtn't to have to do it."

"But she has, and it's killing her. She'd be better if she lived alone."

"Well--I don't know anything about Miss Gunning. But for you----"

"You don't know anything about me."

"I do. I've seen you. And I stick to it. It's horrible."

"What's horrible?" said Miss Bickersteth, as they approached.

"Ask Mr. Brodrick."

But Brodrick, thus appealed to, drifted away towards Nicholson, murmuring something about that train he had to catch.

"What have you done to agitate him?" said Miss Bickersteth. "You didn't throw cold water on his magazine, did you?"

"I shouldn't have known he had a magazine."

"What? Didn't he mention it?"

"Not to me."

"Then something is the matter with him." She added, after a thoughtful pause, "What did you think of him?"

"There's no doubt he's a very amiable, benevolent man. The sort of man who wants everybody to marry because he's married himself."

"But he isn't married."