The Creators Part 95

For the moments that she remained alone with him she wandered among his books. There were some that she would like to borrow. She talked about them deliberately while Tanqueray maddened.

He walked with her to the station.

She turned on him as they dipped down the lane out of sight and hearing.

"George," she said, "I'll never come and see you again if you bully that dear little wife of yours."

"I?--Bully her?"

"Yes. You bully her, you torture her, you terrify her till she doesn't know what she's doing."

"I'm sorry, Jinny."

"Sorry? Of course you're sorry. She slaves for you from morning till night."

"That's not my fault. I stopped her slaving and she got ill. Why, it was you--_you_--who made me turn her on to it again."

"Of course I did. She loves slaving for you. She'd cut herself in little pieces. She'd cook herself--deliciously--and serve herself up for your dinner if she thought you'd fancy her."

"You're right, Jinny. I never ought to have married her."

"I didn't say you never ought to have married her. I say you ought to be on your knees now you have married her. She's ten thousand times too good for you."

"You're right, Jinny. You always were right, you always will be d.a.m.nably right."

"And you always will be--oh dear me--so rude."

He looked in her face like a whipped dog trying to reinstate himself in favour, as far as Tanqueray could look like a whipped dog.

"Let me carry those books for you," he said.

"You may carry the books, but I don't like you, Tanks."

His devil, the old devil that used to be in him, looked at her then.

"You used to like me," he said.

But Jinny was beyond its torment. "Of course I liked you. I liked you awfully. You were another person then."

He said nothing to that.

"Forgive me, George," she said presently. "You see, I love your little wife."

"I love you for loving her," he said.

"You may go on loving me for that. But you needn't come any further with me. I know my way."

"But I want to come with you."

"And I, unfortunately, want to be alone."

"You shall. I'll walk behind you--as many yards as you like behind you.

I've got to carry the books."

"Bother the books. I'll carry them."

"You'll do nothing of the sort."

They walked together in silence till the station doors were in sight. He meant to go with her all the way to Putney, carrying the books.

"I wish," he said, "I knew what would really please you."

"You do know," she said.

A moment pa.s.sed. Tanqueray stopped his stride.

"I'll go back and beg her pardon--_now_."

She gave him her hand. He went back; and between them they forgot the books.

Though it was not yet ten the light was low in Rose's bedroom. Rose had gone to bed. He went up to her room. He raised the light a little, quietly, and stood by her bedside. She lay there, all huddled, her body rounded, her knees drawn up as if she had curled into herself in her misery. One arm was flung out on the bed-clothes, the hand hung cramped over a fold of blanket; sleep only had slackened its convulsive grip.

Her lips were parted, her soft face was relaxed, blurred, stained in scarlet patches. She had cried herself to sleep.

And as he looked at her he remembered how happy she had been playing with Jinny's baby; and how his brutal words had struck her in the hurt place where she was always tender.

His heart smote him. He undressed quietly and lay down beside her.

She stirred; and, finding him there, gave a little cry and put her arms about him.

And then he asked her to forgive him, and she said there was nothing to forgive.

She added with her seeming irrelevance, "You didn't go all the way to Putney then?"

She knew he had meant to go. She knew, too, that he had been sent back.

XLIX

On her return Jane went at once to Brodrick in his study. The editor was gloomy and perturbed. He made no response to her regrets, nor yet to her excuse that Tanqueray had kept her. Presently, after some moments of heavy silence, she learned that her absence was not the cause of his gloom. He was worried about the magazine. Levine was pestering him. When she reminded him that Louis had nothing to do with it, that she thought he was going to be kept out, he replied that that was all very well in theory; you couldn't keep him out when he'd got those infernal Jews behind him, and they were running the concern. You could buy him out, you could buy out the whole lot of them if you had the money; but, if you hadn't, where were you? It had been stipulated that the editor was to have a free hand; and up till now, as long as the thing had paid its way, his hand had been pretty free. But it wasn't paying; and Levine was insisting that the free hand was the cause of the deficit.

He did not tell her that Levine's point was that they had not bargained for his wife's hand, which was considerably freer than his own. If they were prepared to run the magazine at a financial loss they were not prepared to run it for the exclusive benefit of his wife's friends; which, Levine said, was about what it amounted to.

That was what was bothering Brodrick; for it was Jane's hand, in its freedom, that had kept the standard of the magazine so high. It had helped him to realize his expensive dream. The trouble, this time, he told her, was a tale of Nina Lempriere's.

Jane gave an excited cry at this unexpected flashing forth of her friend's name.