style.

"I am going to post this myself," he said, "because I can't trust you
for a minute."

He ran out bareheaded and came back again.

"You can't do without me," he said, "you can't do without me for a
minute."

He sat down in his old place, and began, always as if nothing had
happened. "And now about Hambleby. Another day, Jinny, and I should have
been too late to save him."

"But, George, it's awful. They'll never understand. They don't realize
the deadly grind. They see me moving in scenes of leisured splendour."

"Tell them you don't move in scenes of leisured anything."

"The scenes I do move in! I was so happy once, when I hadn't any money,
when nobody but you knew anything about me."

"Were you really, Jinny?"

"Yes. And before that, when I was quite alone. Think of the hours, the
days, the months I had to myself."

"Then the curse fell, and you became celeb----Even then, with a little
strength of mind, you might have saved yourself. Do you think, if I
became celebrated, I should give myself up to be devoured?"

"If I could only not be celebrated," she said. "Do you think I can ever
creep back into my hole again and be obscure?"

"Yes, if you'll write a book that nobody but I can read."

"Why, isn't Hambleby----?"

"Not he. He'll only make things worse for you. Ten times worse."

"How do you mean?"

"He may make you popular."

"Is _that_ what you think of him?"

"Oh, I think a lot of him. So do you."

He smiled his old teasing and tormenting smile.

"Are you sure you're not just a little bit in love with that little
banker's clerk?"

"I was never in love with a banker's clerk in my life. I've never even
seen one except _in_ banks and tubes and places."

"I don't care. It's the way you'll be had. It's the way you'll be had by
Hambleby if you don't look out. It's the way," he said, "that's
absolutely forbidden to any artist. You've got to know Hambleby outside
and inside, as God Almighty knows him."

"Well?" Jinny's mind was working dangerously near certain personal
matters. George himself seemed to be approaching the same borders. He
plunged in an abyss of meditation and emerged.

"You can't know people, you can't possibly hope to know them, if you
once allow yourself to fall in love with them."

"Can't you?" she said quietly.

"No, you can't. If God Almighty had allowed himself to fall in love with
you and me, Jinny, he couldn't have made us all alive and kicking. You
must be