"Nicky brought a book of poems out and Jinny cried."
"It was th--th--the last straw," sobbed Jinny.
Brodrick left them together, just to show how imperturbable he was.
"George," she said, "it was horrible. Poor Nicky stood there where you
are, waiting for me to say things. And I couldn't, I couldn't, and he
saw it. He saw it and turned white----"
"He _is_ white," said Tanqueray.
"He turned whiter. And he burst out into a dreadful perspiration. And
then--oh, don't laugh--it was so awful--he took my hand and wrung it,
and walked out of the room, very dignified and stiff."
"My dear child, he only thought you were speechless with emotion."
But Jane was putting on her hat and coat which lay beside her.
"Let's get out somewhere," she said, "anywhere away from this
intolerable scene. Let's tear over the Heath."
She tore and he followed. Gertrude saw them go.
She turned midway between Putney and Wimbledon. "Oh, how my heart aches
for that poor lamb."
"It needn't. The poor lamb's heart doesn't ache for itself."
"It does. I stabbed it."
"Not you!"
"But, George--they were dedicated to me. Could my cup of agony be
fuller?"
"I admit it's full."
"And how about Nicky's?"
"Look here, Jinny. If you or I or Prothero had written those poems we
should be drinking cups of agony. But there is _no_ cup of agony for
Nicky. He believes that those poems are immortal, and that none of us
can rob them of their immortality."
"But if he's slaughtered--and he will be--if they fall on him and tear
him limb from limb, poor innocent lamb!"
"He isn't innocent, your lamb. He deserves it. So he won't get it. It's
only poets like Prothero who are torn limb from limb."
"I don't know. There are people who'd stick a knife into him as soon as
look at him."
"If there are he'll be happy. He'll believe that there's a plot against
him to write him down. He'll believe that he's Keats. He'll believe
anything. You needn't be sorry for him. If only you or I had Nicky's
hope of immortality--if we only had the joy he has even now, in the
horrible act of creation. Why, he's never tired. He can go on for ever
without turning a hair, whereas look at _our_ hair after a morning's
work. Think what it must be to feel that you never can be uninspired,
never to have a doubt or a shadowy misgiving. Neither you nor I nor
Prothero will ever know a hundredth part of the rapture Nicky knows. We
get it for five minutes, an hour, perhaps, and all the rest is simply
hard, heavy, heartbreaking, grinding labour."
Their wild pace slackened.
"It's a dog's life, yours and mine, Jinny. Upon my soul, for mere
sensation, if I could choose I'd rather be Nicky."
He paused.
"And then--when you think of his supreme illusion----"
"Has he another?"
"You know he has. If all of us could believe that when the woman we love
refuses us she only does it because of her career----"
"If he _did_ believe that----"
"Believe it? He believes now that she didn't even refuse him. He thinks
he renounced her--for the sake of her career. It's quite possible he
thinks she loves him; and really, considering her absurd behaviour----"
"Oh, I don't mind," she moaned, "he can believe anything he likes if it
makes him happier."
"He _is_ happy," said George tempestuously. "If I were to be born again,
I'd pray to the high gods, the cruel gods, Jinny, to make me mad--like
Nicky--to give me the gift of indestructible illusion. Then, perhaps, I
might know what it was to live."
She had seen him once, and only once, in this mood, the night he had
dined with her in Kensington Square six weeks before he married Rose.
"But you and I have been faithful to reality--true, as they say, to
life. If the idiots who fling that phrase about only knew what it meant!
You've been more faithful than I. You've taken such awful risks. You
fling your heart down, Jinny, every time."
"Do you never take risks? Do you never fling your heart down?"
He looked at her. "Not your way. Not unless I _know_ that I'll get what
I want."
"And haven't you got it?"
"I've got most of it, but not all--yet."
His tone might or might not imply that getting it was only a question of
time.
"I say, where are you going?"
She was heading rapidly for Augustus Road. She wanted to get away from
George.
"Not there," he protested, perceiving her intention.
"I must."
He followed her down the long road where the trees drooped darkly, and
he stood with her by the gate.
"How long will you be?" he said.
"I can't say. Half-an-hour--three-quarters--ever so long."
He waited for an hour, walking up and down, up and down the long road
under the trees. She reappeared as he was turning at the far end of it.
He had to run to overtake her.
Her face had on it the agony of unborn tears.
"What is it, Jinny?" he said.
"Mabel Brodrick."
She hardly saw his gesture of exasperation.
"Oh, George, she suffers. It's terrible. There's to be an
operation--to-morrow. I can think of nothing else."
"Oh, Jinny, is there no one to take care of you? Is there no one to keep
you from that woman?"
"Oh don't--if you had seen her----"
"I don't want to see her. I don't want _you_ to see her. You should
never have anything to do with suffering. It hurts you. It kills you.
You ought to be taken care of. You ought to be kept from the sight and
sound of it." He gazed wildly round the Heath. "If Brodrick was any good
he'd take you out of this damned place."
"I wouldn't go. Poor darling, she can't bear me out of her sight. I
believe I've worn a path going and coming."
They had left the beaten path. Their way lay in a line drawn straight
across the Heath from Brodrick's house. It was almost as if her feet had
made it.
"Jinny's path," he said.
They were silent, and he gathered up, as it were, the burden of their
silence when he stopped and faced her with his question--
"How are you going on?"