in her. He did not intimate that he found her charming.
Jane had still serious doubts as to her charm, and Brodrick's monstrous
sincerity would have left her to perish of her doubt. She would not have
had him different. It was because of _his_ moral quality, his sincerity,
that she had liked him from the first.

Most certainly she liked him. If she had not liked him she would not
have come out so often to Roehampton and Wimbledon and Putney. She could
not help but like him when he so liked her, and liked her, not for the
things that she had done for literature, not for the things she had done
for him, but for her own sake. That was what she had wanted, to be liked
for her own sake, to be allowed to be a woman.

Unlike Tanqueray, Brodrick not only allowed her, he positively
encouraged her to be a woman. Evidently, in Brodrick's opinion she was
just like any other woman. He could see no difference between her and,
well, Gertrude Collett. Gertrude, Jane was sure, stood to Brodrick for
all that was most essentially and admirably feminine. Why he required so
much of Jane's presence when he could have Gertrude Collett's was more
than Jane could understand. She was still inclined to her conjecture
that he was using her to draw Miss Collett, playing her off against Miss
Collett, stinging Miss Collett to the desired frenzy by hanging that
admirable woman upon tenter-hooks. That was why Jane felt so safe with
him; because, she argued, he couldn't do it if he had not felt safe with
her. He was not in love with her. He was not even, like Tanqueray, in
love with her genius.

If she had had the slightest doubt about his attitude, his behaviour on
the day of her arrival had made it stand out sharp and clear. She had
dined at Moor Grange, and Caro Bickersteth had been there. Caro had
insisted on dragging Jane's genius from its temporary oblivion, and
Brodrick had turned silent and sulky, positively sulky then.

And in that mood he had remained for the two weeks that she had stayed
at Roehampton. He had betrayed none of the concern so evidently felt for
her by Eddy and Winny and Gertrude Collett and Mrs. Heron and the
doctor. They had all contended with each other in taking care of her, in
waiting on her hand and foot. But Brodrick, after bringing her there;
after, as she said, dumping her down, suddenly and heavily, on his
family, Brodrick had refused to compete; he had hung back; he had
withdrawn himself from the scene, maintainin