Part 69

"And supposing that I hadn't got a book?"

"But you have."

"Supposing?"

"Then I should fall back on Mr. Tanqueray."

"Fall back on him!--The date is settled."

"But I thought----"

"I've settled it."

"Oh. And it can't be unsettled?"

"It can't--possibly."

"Why not?"

She meditated. "Because--it would spoil the chances of the book."

"I see. The chances of the book."

Their eyes met in conflict. It was as if they were measuring each other's moral value.

"I should make you a bigger offer, Miss Holland," he said; "only I believe you don't want that."

"No. Certainly I don't want that."

He paused. "Do you mind telling me if you've any other chance?"

"None. Not the ghost of one."

"So that, but for this all-important question of the date, I might have had you?"

"You might have had me."

"I'm almost glad," he said, "to have lost you--that way."

"Which way?" said she.

At that moment a servant of the house brought in tea. She announced that Mr. Nicholson was down-stairs and would like to see Miss Holland.

"Very well. You'll stay?" Jane said to Brodrick.

He did. He was, Jane reflected, the sort of man who stayed.

"Here's Mr. Brodrick," said she, as Nicky entered. "He's going to make all our fortunes."

"His own, too, I hope," said Brodrick. But he looked sulky, as if he resented Nicholson's coming in.

"Of course," he said, "they tell me the whole thing's a dream, a delusion, that it won't pay. But I know how to make it pay. The reason why magazines go smash is because they're owned by men with no business connections, no business organization, no business capacity. I couldn't do it if I hadn't the 'Telegraph' at my back. Practically I make the paper pay for the magazine."

And he went into it, in his quick, quiet voice, expounding and expanding his scheme, laying it down fairly and squarely, with lucidity but no apparent ardour.