"I wouldn't talk about it--only--it's much better that you should know
what it is, than that you should think it's what it isn't."
She looked at him. His forehead still displayed a lowering incredulity.
"If you don't believe me, ask George Tanqueray."
"George Tanqueray?"
His nerves felt the shock of the thought that had come to him, just now
when he watched her sleep. He had not expected to meet Tanqueray again
so soon and in the open.
"How much do you think he cares for poor Rose when he's in the state I'm
in?"
His face darkened as he considered her question. He knew all about poor
Rose's trouble, how her tender flesh and blood had been made to pay for
Tanqueray's outrageous genius. He and Henry had discussed it. Henry had
his own theory of it. He offered it as one more instance of the
physiological disabilities of genius. It was an extreme and curious
instance, if you liked, Tanqueray himself being curious and extreme. But
it had not occurred to Brodrick that Henry's theory of Tanqueray might
be applied to Jane.
"What on earth do you know about George Tanqueray?" he said. "How
_could_ you know a thing like that?"
"I know because I'm like him."
"No, Jinny, it's not the same thing. You're a woman."
She smiled, remembering sadly how that was what George in a brutal
moment had said she was not to be. It showed after all how well he knew
her.
"I'm more like George Tanqueray," she said, "than I'm like Gertrude
Collett."
He frowned, wondering what Gertrude Collett had to do with it.
"We're all the same," she said. "It takes us that way. You see, it tires
us out."
He sighed, but his face lightened.
"If nothing's left of a big strong man like George Tanqueray, how much
do you suppose is left of me? It's perfectly simple--simpler than you
thought. But it has to be."
It was simpler than he had thought. He understood her to say that in its
hour, by taking from her all passion, her genius was mindful of its own.
"I see," he said; "it's simply physical exhaustion."
She closed her eyes again.
He saw and rose against it, insanely revolted by the sacrifice of
Jinny's womanhood.
"It shows, Jinny, that you _can't_ stand the strain. Something will have
to be done," he said.
"Oh, what?" Her eyes opened on him in terror.
His expression was utterly blank, utterly helpless. He really hadn't an
idea.
"I don't know, Jinny."
He suggested that she should stay in bed for breakfast.
She stayed.
Down-stairs, over the breakfast-table, he presented to Gertrude Collett
a face heavy with his suffering.
He was soothed by Gertrude's imperishable tact. She was glad to hear
that Mrs. Brodrick had stayed in bed for breakfast. It would do her
good.
At dinner-time they learned that it had done her good. Gertrude was glad
again. She said that Mrs. Brodrick knew she had always wanted her to
stay in bed for breakfast. She saw no reason why she should not stay in
bed for breakfast every morning.
Henry was consulted. He said, "By all means. Capital idea." In a week's
time, staying in bed for breakfast had made such a difference to Jane
that Gertrude was held once more to have solved the problem. Brodrick
even said that if Jane always did what Gertrude wanted she wouldn't go
far wrong.
The Brodricks all knew that Jane was staying in bed for breakfast. The
news went the round of the family in three days. It travelled from Henry
to Frances, from Frances to Mabel, from Mabel to John, and from John to
Levine and Sophy. They received it unsurprised, with melancholy
comprehension, as if they had always known it. And they said it was very
sad for Hugh.
Gertrude said it was very sad for everybody. She said it to Brodrick one
Sunday morning, looking at him across the table, where she sat in Jane's
place. At first he had not liked to see her there, but he was getting
used to it. She soothed him with her stillness, her smile, and the soft
deepening of her shallow eyes.
"It's very sad, isn't it," said she, "without Mrs. Brodrick?"
"Very," he said. He wondered ironically, brutally, what Gertrude would
say if she really know how sad it was. There had been another night like
that which had seemed to him the beginning of it all.
"May I give you some more tea?"
"No, thank you. I wonder," said he, "how long it's going to last."
"I suppose," said he, "it must run its course."
"You talk like my brother, as if it were an illness."
"Well--isn't it?"
"How should I know? I haven't got it."
He rose and went to the window that looked out on to the garden and the
lawn and Jane's seat under the lime-tree. He remembered how one summer,
three years ago, before he married her, she had lain there recovering
from the malady of her genius. A passion of revolt surged up in him.
"I suppose, anyhow, it's incurable," he said, more to himself than to
Gertrude.
She had risen from her place and followed him.
"Whatever it is," she said, "it's the thing we've got most to think of.
It's the thing that means most to her."
"To her?" he repeated vaguely.
"To her," she insisted. "I didn't understand it at first; I can't say I
understand it now; it's altogether beyond me. But I do say it's the
great thing."
"Yes," he assented, "it's the great thing."
"The thing" (she pressed it) "for which sacrifices must be made."
Then, lest he should think that she pressed it too hard, that she rubbed
it into him, the fact that stung, the fact that his wife's genius was
his dangerous rival, standing between them, separating them, slackening
the tie; lest he should know how much she knew; lest he should consider
her obtuse, as if she thought that he grudged his sacrifices, she faced
him with her supreme sincerity.
"You know that you are glad to make them."
She smiled, clear-eyed, shining with her own inspiration. She was the
woman who was there to serve him, who knew his need. She came to him in
his hour of danger, in his dark, sensual hour, and held his light for
him. She held him to himself high.
He was so helpless that he turned to her as if she indeed knew.
"Do you think," he said, "it does mean most to her?"
"You know best," she said, "what it means."
It sank into him. And, as it sank, he said to himself that of course it
was so; that he might have known it. Gertrude left it sinking.
He never for a moment suspected that she had rubbed it in.