Part 81

She would have liked to have said that to Miss Collett. She would have liked to have taken Brodrick to the seat at the end of the alley and have said to him, "It's all perfectly right. Don't be an idiot and miss it. You can't do a better thing for yourself than marry her, and it's the only way, you know, you can pay her back. Don't you see that you're cruel to her? That it's you that's making her ill? She can't look pretty when she's ill, but she'd be quite pretty if you made her happy."

But all she said was, "He's like that, is he?" And she went out to where he waited for her.

"Have you got to go?" he said.

She said, Yes, she was half expecting Nina Lempriere.

"The fiery lady?"

"Yes."

"You may as well stay. She won't be there," said Brodrick.

But Jane did not stay.

The whole family turned out on to the Heath to see them go. At the end of the road they looked back and saw it there. Sophy Levine was holding up the Baby to make him wave to Jane.

"Why did you tell them?" she said reproachfully to Brodrick.

"Because I wanted them to like you."

"Am I so disagreeable that they couldn't--without that?"

"I wanted you," he said, "to like them."

"I do like them."

He glanced at her sidelong and softly.

"Tell me," she said. "What have they done to look so happy, and so perfectly at peace?"

"That's it. They haven't done anything."

"Not to do things--that's the secret, is it?"

"Yes," he said, "I almost think it is."

"I wonder," said she.

XXI

Brodrick was right. Nina was not there.

At the moment when Jane arrived, anxious and expectant, in Kensington Square, Nina and Tanqueray were sitting by the window of the room in Adelphi Terrace.

They were both silent, both immobile in the same attitude, bowed forward, listening intently, the antagonistic pair made one in their enchantment, their absorption.

A young man stood before Tanqueray. He stood a little behind Nina where she sat in the window-seat. One shoulder leaned beside her against the shutter. He was very tall, and as he stood there his voice, deep and rhythmic, flowed and vibrated above them, giving utterance to the thing that held them.

Nina could not see him where she sat. It was Tanqueray who kept on looking at him with clear, contemplative eyes under brows no longer irritable.

He was, Tanqueray thought, rather extraordinary to look at. Dressed in a loosely-fitting suit of all seasons, he held himself very straight from the waist, as if in defiance of the slackness of his build. His eyes, his alien, star-gazing eyes, were blue and uncannily clear under their dark and delicate brows. He had the face of a Celt, with high cheek-bones, and a short high nose; the bone between the nostrils, slightly prominent like a buttress, saved the bridge of it from the final droop. He had the wide mouth of a Celt, long-lipped, but beautifully cut. His thick hair, his moustache, his close-clipped, pointed beard, were dark and dry. His face showed a sunburn whitening. It had passed through strange climates. He had the look, this poet, of a man who had left some stupendous experience behind him; who had left many things behind him, to stride, star-gazing, on. His face revealed him as he chanted his poems. Unbeautiful in detail, its effect as a whole was one of extraordinary beauty, as of some marvellously pure vessel for the spiritual fire. Beside him, it struck Tanqueray that Nina showed more than ever a murky flame.

The voice ceased, but the two remained silent for a moment.