ded, she herself being so supreme an instance of the glory of the
single flame.

The beauty and the wonder of it--in Nina--was its purity. Nina showed to
what a pitch it had brought her, the high, undivided passion of her
genius. Under it every trace of Nina's murkiness had vanished. She had
lost that look of restless, haggard adolescence, that horrible
intentness, as if her hand was always on the throat of her wild beast.
You saw, of course, that she had suffered; but you saw too that her
genius was appeased by her suffering. It was just, it was compassionate;
it had rewarded her for every pang.

Jane found herself saying beautiful things about Nina's genius. It was
the flame, unmistakably the pure flame. If solitude, if virginity, if
frustration could do that----She knew what it had cost Nina, but it was
worth it, seeing what she had gained.

Nina faced her with the eyes that had grown so curiously quiet.

"Ah, Jinny," she said, "could _you_ have borne to pay my price?"

She owned that she could not.

Up-stairs Brodrick faced his family where it sat in judgment upon Jane.

"What does she complain of?" said John.

"Interruption," said Hugh. "She says she never has any time to herself,
with people constantly running in and out."

"She doesn't mind," said Sophy, "how much time she gives to the
Protheros and the rest of them. Nina Lempriere's with her now. She's
been here three solid hours. As for George Tanqueray----"

John shook his head.

"That's what I don't like, Hugh, Tanqueray's hanging about the house at
all hours of the day and night. However you look at it, it's a most
undesirable thing."

"Oh--Tanqueray," said Brodrick, "_he_'s all right."

"He's anything but all right," said Henry. "A fellow who notoriously
neglects his wife."

"Well," said Brodrick, "I don't neglect mine."

"If you give her her head," said Henry.

He scowled at Henry.

"You know, Hugh," said Frances, "she really will be talked about."

"She's being talked about now," said Brodrick, "and I don't like it."

"There's no use talking," said John sorrowfully, and he rose to go.

They all rose then. Two by two they went across the Heath to John's
house, Sophy with Henry and Frances with John; and as they went they
leaned to each other, talking continuously about Hugh, and Tanqueray,
and Jane.

"If Hugh gives in to her in this," said Henry, "he'll always have to
give in."

"I could understand it," said Sophy, "if she had t