?"

"Pretty bad. He dreams and dreams _and_ dreams."

"Won't that ever be better?"

Laura shook her head.

"It may be worse. There are things--that I'm afraid of."

"What things, Kiddy, what things?"

"Oh! I don't know----"

"How on earth do you go on?"

"I shut my eyes. And I sit tight. And I go."

"Poor Kiddy. You give me a pain."

"I'm quite happy. I'm working like ten horses to get things done while I
can." She smiled indomitably. "I'm glad Tanks didn't care for me. I
couldn't have let him in for all these--horrors. As for his marrying--I
didn't want you to have him because he wouldn't have been good for you,
but I _did_ want Jinny to."

"And you don't mind--now?"

"There are so many things to mind. It's one nail driving out another."

"It's all the nails being hammered in at once, into your little coffin,"
said Nina. She drew closer to her, she put her arms round her and kissed
her.

"Oh, don't! _Don't_ be sorry for me. I'm all right."

She broke from Nina's hand that still caressed her.

"I am, really," she said. "I like Jinny better than anybody in the world
except you and Tanks. And I like Nina better than all the Tankses that
ever were."

("Nice Kiddy," Nina whispered into Laura's hair.)

"And now Tanks is married, he can't take you away from me."

"Nobody else can," said Nina. "We've stuck together. And we'll stick."

XV

The creation of Hambleby moved on in a procession of superb chapters.
Jane Holland was once more certain of herself, as certain as she had
been in the days when she had shared the splendid obscurity of George
Tanqueray. Her celebrity, by removing her from Tanqueray, had cut the
ground from under her feet. So far from being uplifted by it, she had
felt that there must be something wrong with her since she was
celebrated and George Tanqueray was not. It was Tanqueray's belief in
her that had kept her up. It consoled her with the thought that her
celebrity was, after all, only a disgusting accident. For, through it
all, in spite of the silliness of it, he did believe. He swore by her.
He staked his own genius upon hers. As long as he believed in it she
could not really doubt. But now for the first time since she was
celebrated she believed in it herself.

She no longer thought of Tanqueray. Or, if she did think of him, her
thinking no longer roused in her the old perverse, passionate jealousy.
She no longer hated her genius because he had cared for it. She ev