ecalled to her her
certainty that he would come. And he was there in the doorway before her
mind had time to adjust itself to his appearance.

She fell on him with Hugh's illness as if it were a weapon and she would
have slain him with it.

He stood back and denied the fact she hurled at him. As evidence
supporting his denial, he produced his recent correspondence with the
editor. He had heard from him that morning, and he was all right then.
Jinny was being "had," he said.

He had not come there to talk about Brodrick, or to think about him. He
was not going to let Jinny think about him either.

He had come early because he wanted to find her with all the dreams of
the night about her, before her passion (he was sure of it) could be
overtaken by the mood of the cool morning.

Jinny had begun to pack her manuscript (she had forgotten it till now)
in the leather case it travelled in. She had a hat with a long veil on.
Tanqueray's gaze took in all this and other more unmistakable signs of
her departure.

"What do you think you're doing?" he said.

"I'm going back."

"Why?"

"Haven't I told you?"

Positively he had forgotten Brodrick.

He began all over again and continued, tenderly, patiently, with all his
cold, ascendant, dispassionate lucidity, till he had convinced her that
her fear was folly.

She was grateful to him for that.

"All the same," she said, "I'm going. I wasn't going to stay here in any
case."

"You were going?"

"Yes."

"And do you suppose I'm going to let you go? After last night?"

"After--last--night--I _must_ go. And I must go back."

"No. Remember what you said to me last night. We know ourselves and we
know each other now as God knows us. We're not afraid of ourselves or of
each other any more."

"No," she said. "I am not afraid."

"Well--you've had the courage to get so far, why haven't you the courage
to go on?"

"You think I'm a coward still?"

"A coward." He paused. "I beg your pardon. I forgot that you had the
courage to go back."

Her face hardened as they looked at each other.

"I believe after all," he said, "you're a cold little devil. You stand
there staring at me and you don't care a damn."

"As far as damns go, it was you, if you remember, that didn't care."

"Are you always going to bring that up against me? I suppose you'll
remind me next that you're a married woman and the mother of two
children."

"We do seem rather to have forgotten it," she s