I hadn't the 'Telegraph' at my back. Practically I make the
paper pay for the magazine."

And he went into it, in his quick, quiet voice, expounding and expanding
his scheme, laying it down fairly and squarely, with lucidity but no
apparent ardour.

It was Nicky who was excited. Jane could see cupidity in Nicky's eyes as
Brodrick talked about his magazine. Brodrick dwelt now on the commercial
side of it which had no interest for Nicky. Yet Nicky was excited. He
wanted badly to get into Brodrick's magazine, and Brodrick wanted,
Brodrick was determined to keep him out. There was a brief struggle
between Nicky's decency and his desire; and then Nicky's desire and
Brodrick's determination fairly skirmished together in the open.
Brodrick tried heavily to keep Nicky off it. But Nicky hovered airily,
intangibly about it. He fanned it as with wings; when Brodrick dropped
it he picked it up, he sustained it, he kept it flying high. Every
movement intimated in Nicky's most exquisite manner that if Brodrick
really meant it, if he had positively surrendered to the expensive
dream, if he wanted, in short, to keep it up and keep it high, he
couldn't be off letting Nicky in.

Brodrick's shameless intention had been to out-stay Nicky. And as long
as Nicky's approaches were so delicate as to provoke only delicate
evasions, Brodrick stayed. But in the end poor Nicky turned desperate
and put it to him point-blank. "Was there, or was there not to be a
place for poets in the magazine?"

At that Brodrick got up and went.

"Nicky," said Jane, as the door closed on the retreating editor, "he
came for my book, and I've made him take George Tanqueray's instead."

"I wish," said he, "you'd make him take my poems. But you can't. Nobody
can _make_ Brodrick do anything he doesn't want to."

"Oh----" said Jane, and dismissed Brodrick. "It's ages since I've seen
you."

"I heard that you were immersed, and so I kept away."

"That was very good of you," said she.

It struck her when she had said it that perhaps it was not altogether
what Nicky would have liked her to say.

"I _was_ immersed," she said, "in Hambleby."

"Is he finished?"

"All but. I'm waiting to put a crown upon his head."

"Were you by any chance making it--the crown?"

"I haven't even begun to make it."

"I shan't spoil him then if I stay?"

"No. I doubt if anything could spoil him now."

"You've got him so safe?"

"So safe. And yet, Nicky, there are moments wh