ke it with him they could hardly have shown themselves
more horrified.

She knew how monstrous her conduct must appear to them. She could see it
all so clearly from their point of view. That had always been after all
her poor merit, that she could see things from other people's point of
view. Her vision indeed of them, of the way they took things, was apt to
be so vivid, so engrossing that it left her with no point of view of her
own. She carried into life itself and all its relations her virtue as an
artist, that effacement of her observing self in favour of the thing
observed.

That, Nina told her, was her danger. Nina happened to be with her on the
day when another family committee met and sat upon her case. They were
sitting on it now, up-stairs with Brodrick in his study. She knew
infallibly what their judgment would be. Just as she had seemed to them
so long a creature of uncertain health, she must seem now inconstant,
insincere, the incarnation of heartlessness, egotism and caprice. She
said to herself that it was all very well for Nina to talk. This insight
was a curse. It was terrible to know what people were thinking, to feel
what they were feeling. And they were seven to one, so that when she
gave them pain she had to feel seven times the pain she gave.

But after all they, her judges, could take care of themselves. This
family, that was one consolidated affection, was like a wall, it would
shelter and protect her so long as she was content to be sheltered and
protected; if she dashed herself against it it would break her in
pieces.

And Nina was saying, "Can't you take it into your own hands? Why should
you let these people decide your fate for you?"

"Hugh will decide it," she said. "He's with them up-stairs now."

"Is he asking their advice?"

"No, they're giving it him. That's my chance, Nina."

"Your chance?"

"My one chance. They'll put his back up and, if it's only to show them,
he'll let me go."

"Do you mean to say, Jinny, that if he didn't you wouldn't go?"

"I don't even know that I'd go if he minded very much."

"I wish to goodness George Tanqueray was here. He might make you----"

"What has he ever made me do?"

"He might make you see it."

"I do see it," said Jane.

She closed her eyes as one tired with much seeing. Nina's presence
hardly helped her. Nina was even more profoundly disturbing than George
Tanqueray; she had even less of consolation to offer to one torn and
divi