e
liked. Neurosis, to that extent, was a valuable asset. He could do,
Louis said, with some of it himself.

Brodrick, as he surveyed with Tanqueray the immensity of his wife's
achievement, wondered whether, for all that, she had not paid too high a
price. And Sophy Levine, who overheard him, whispered to Frances that it
was he, poor dear, who paid.

Tanqueray got up and left the room. He had heard through it all the
signal that he waited for, the sound of the opening of Jane's door.

Her eyes searched his at the very doorway. "Is it all right, George?"
she whispered. Her hand, her thin hand, held his until he answered.

"It's tremendous."

"Do you remember two years ago--when you wouldn't drink?"

"I drank this time. I'm drunk, Jinny, drunk as a lord."

"I swore I'd make you drink, this time; if I died for it."

She leaned back in the corner of her couch, looking at him.

"Thank heaven you've never lied to me; because now I know."

"I wonder if you do. It's alive, Jinny; it's organic; it's been
conceived and born." He brought his chair close to the table that stood
beside her couch, a barrier between them. "It's got what we're all
praying for--that divine unity----"

"I didn't think it could have it. _I_'m torn in pieces."

"You? I knew you would be."

"It wasn't the book."

"What was it?" he said fiercely.

"It was chiefly, I think, Mabel Brodrick's illness."

"_Whose_ illness?"

"John's wife's. You don't know what it means."

"I can see. You let that woman prey on you. She sucks your life. You're
white; you're thin; you're ill, too."

She shook her head. "Only tired, George."

"Why do you do it? Why do you do it, Jinny?" he pleaded.

"Ah--I must."

He rose and walked up and down the room; and each time as he turned to
face her he burst out into speech.

"What's Brodrick doing?"

She did not answer. He noticed that she never answered him when he spoke
of Brodrick now. He paid no heed to the warning of her face.

"Why does he let his beastly relations worry you? You didn't undertake
to marry the whole lot of them."

He turned from her with that, and she looked after him. The set of his
shoulders was square with his defiance and his fury.

He faced her again.

"I suppose if _he_ was ill you'd have to look after him. I don't see
that you're bound to look after his sisters-in-law. Why can't the
Brodricks look after her?"

"They do. But it's me she wants."

He softened, looking down a