Part 39

"Oh, at aspiring he beats Shelley into apoplexy."

"He stands for the imperishable illusion----"

"The stupendous hope----"

"And, after all, he adores you."

"And nobody else does," said Tanqueray.

"That's Nicky's achievement. He does see what you are. It's his little claim to immortality. Just think, George, when Nicky dies and goes to heaven he'll turn up at the gates of the poets' paradise, and they'll let him in on the strength of that. The angel of the singing stars will come up to him and say, 'Nicky, you sing abominably, but you can see. You saw George Tanqueray when nobody else could. Your sonnets and your ballads are forgiven you; and we've got a nice place for you, Nicky, near Keats and Shelley.' Because it wouldn't be heaven for Nicky if he wasn't near them."

"How about them, though?"

"Oh, up in heaven you won't see anything of Nicky except his heart."

"I suppose he'll be stuck somewhere near you, too. It won't be heaven for him if he isn't. The first thing he'll ask is, 'Where's Jane?'"

"And then they'll break it to him very gently--'Jane's in the other place, Nicky, where Mr. Tanqueray is. We had to send her down, because if she wasn't there it wouldn't be hell for Mr. Tanqueray.'"

"But why am I down there?"

"Because you didn't see what Nicky was."

"If you don't take care, Jinny, he'll 'have' you like the rest. You're laying up sorrow for yourself in the day when Nicky publishes his poems."

"It's you he'll turn to."

"No. I'm not celebrated," said he grimly. "There, do you see the full horror of it?"

"I do," she moaned.

Tanqueray's devil came back to him.

"Do you think he'll fall in love with Laura?"

"No, I don't." She said it coolly, though his gaze was upon her, and they were both of them aware of Nicky's high infatuation.

"Why not?" he said lightly.

"Because Nicky'll never be in love with any woman as she is; and nobody could be in love with Laura as she isn't."

She faced him in her courage. He might take it, if he liked, that she knew Nicky was in love with her as she was not; that she knew Tanqueray would never, like Nicky, see her as she was not, to be in love with that.

"Oh, you're too subtle," he said. But he understood her subtlety.

He must tell her about Rose. Before the others could come up with them he must tell her. And then he must tell Nicky.

"Jane," he said, "will you forgive me for never coming to see you? I simply couldn't come."

"I know, George, I know."

"You don't. You don't know what I felt like."

"Perhaps not. And yet, I think, you might----"