Within a fortnight of that reading Prothero received a letter from George Tanqueray. It briefly told him that the lady whom he had refused to meet had prevailed upon her publishers to bring out his poems in the autumn, at their own and not Prothero's expense.

How the miracle had been worked he couldn't conceive, and Tanqueray was careful to leave him unenlightened. It had been simply a stock instance of Jinny's way. Jinny, whose affairs were in Tanqueray's hands, had been meditating an infidelity to Messrs. Molyneux, by whom Tanqueray vehemently assured her she had been, and always would be, "had." They had "had" her this time by the sacrificial ardour with which they soared to her suggestion that Mr. Prothero should be published. Miss Holland must, they urged, be aware that Mr. Prothero had been rejected by every other firm in London. They were sure that she realized the high danger of their enterprise and that she appreciated the purity of their enthusiasm. The poems were, as she knew, so extraordinary that Mr. Prothero had not one chance in a thousand even with the small public that read poetry. Still, they were giving Mr. Prothero his fractional opportunity, because of their enthusiasm and their desire to serve Miss Holland. They understood that Miss Holland was thinking of leaving them. They would not urge her to remain, but they hoped that, for her own sake, she would reconsider it.

Jane had reconsidered it and had remained.

"You understand clearly, Jinny," Tanqueray had said, "that you're paying for Prothero's poems?"

To that Jinny had replied, "It's what I wanted to do, and there wasn't any other way."

Owen Prothero could no longer say that nobody knew his name. His innocence was unaware of the secret processes by which names are made and unmade; but he had gathered from Nina that her friends had created for him a rumour and reputation which he persistently refused to incarnate by his presence among them. He said he wanted to preserve his innocence. Tanqueray's retirement was not more superb or more indignant; Tanqueray had been fortuitously and infrequently "met"; but nobody met Prothero anywhere. Even Jane Holland, the authentic fount of rumour, had not met him.

It was hard on Jane that she who was, as she piteously pleaded, the prey of all the destroyers, should not be allowed a sight of this incomparable creator. But she respected the divine terror that kept Nina's unlicked Celt outside women's drawing-rooms.

She understood, however, that he was to be seen and seen more often than not, at Tanqueray's rooms in Torrington Square. Tanqueray's wife did not count. She was not the sort of woman Prothero could be afraid of, and she was guiltless of having any drawing-room. Jane remembered that it was a long time since she had seen Tanqueray's wife.

One afternoon, about five o'clock, she called in Torrington Square. She approached the house in some anxiety, afraid of seeing the unhappy little face of Tanqueray's wife looking out of the ground-floor window.

But Rose was not at the window. The curtains were drawn across, obviously for the purpose of concealing Rose. A brougham waited before the door.

Jane, as she entered, had a sense of secrecy and disturbance in the house. There was secrecy and disturbance, too, in the manner of the little shabby maid who told her that the doctor was in there with Mrs. Tanqueray.

She was going away when Tanqueray came out of the sitting-room where the doctor was.

"Don't go, Jinny," he said.

She searched his face.

"Oh, George, is anything the matter?"

He raised his eyebrows. His moustache tilted with them, upwards. She recognized the gesture with which he put disagreeable things away from him.

"Oh, dear me, no," he said.

"May I see her—afterwards?"

"Of course you may see her. But"—he smiled—"if you'll come up-stairs you'll see Prothero."

She followed him to the room on the top floor, his refuge, pitched high above Rose and her movements and her troubles.

He paused at the door.

"He may thank his stars, Jinny, that he came across Nina instead of you."

"You think I'd better keep clear of him?"

"No. I think he'd better keep clear of you."

"George, is he really there?"

"Yes, he's there all right. He's caught. He's trapped. He can't get away from you."

"I won't," she said. "It's dishonourable."

He laughed and they went in.

The poet was sitting in Tanqueray's low chair, facing them. He rose at some length as they entered, and she discerned in his eyes the instinct of savage flight. She herself would have turned and fled, but for the singularity of such precipitance. She was afraid before this shyness of the unlicked Celt, of the wild creature trapped and caught unaware, by the guile she judged dishonourable.

Tanqueray had hardly introduced them before he was called off to the doctor. He must leave them, he said, to each other.

They did not talk. They sat in an odd, intuitive silence, a silence that had no awkwardness and no embarrassment. It was intimate, rather, and vividly revealing. You would have said, coming upon them there, that they had agreed upon this form of communion and enjoyed it.

It gave her leisure in which to take him more securely in. Her gaze was obliquely attentive to his face, rugged and battered by travel, sallow now, where it had once been bronze. She saw that his soul had passed through strange climates.

It was borne in on her, as they continued in their silence, that she knew something about him, something certain and terrible, something that must, ultimately and inevitably, happen to him. She caught herself secretly defining it. Tuberculosis—that was it; that was the certain and inevitable thing. Of course; anybody would have seen it. That she had not seen it at the first glance she attributed to the enchantment of his personality that held her from any immediate consideration of his singular physique. If it were not, indeed, his own magnificent oblivion. When she looked, she could see how lean he was, how insufficiently nourished. His clothes hung on him in folds; they were worn to an incredible shabbiness. Yet he carried them with an indomitable distinction. He had the grace, in flank and limb, of the wild thing made swift by hunger.

Her seeing all this now made their silence unendurable. It also suggested the thing she at last said.

"I'm distressed about Mrs. Tanqueray. I hope it's nothing serious."

Prothero's face was serious; more serious by far than Tanqueray's had been.

"Too much contemplation," he said, "is bad for her. She isn't cut out for a contemplative, though she's in a fair way of becoming a saint and——"

She filled his blank, "And a martyr?"

"What can you expect when a man mates like that?"

"It's natural," she pleaded.

"Natural? It's one of the most unnatural marriages I've ever come across. It's a crime against nature for a man like Tanqueray to have taken that poor little woman—who is nature pure and simple—and condemn her to——"

She drew back visibly. "I know. He doesn't see it," she said.

"He doesn't see anything. He doesn't even know she's there. How can he? His genius runs to flesh and blood, and he hasn't room for any more of it outside his own imagination. That's where you are with your great realists."

She gazed at him, astonished, admiring. This visionary, this poet so estranged from flesh and blood, had put his finger on the fact.

"You mean," she said, "a visionary would see more?"

He shrugged his shoulders at her reference.

"He would have more room," he said, "that would be all. He could at any rate afford to take more risks."

They were silent again.

"I believe," he said presently, "somebody's coming. I shall have to go."

Jane turned her head. The sounds he heard so distinctly were inaudible to her.

They proved to be footsteps on the staircase, footsteps that could never have been Rose's nor yet Tanqueray's. They paused heavily at the door. Some one was standing there, breathing.

A large woman entered very slowly, and Jane arrived, also slowly, at the conclusion that it must be Mrs. Eldred, George's wife's aunt.

Mrs. Eldred acknowledged her presence and Prothero's by a vague movement of respect. It was not till Prothero had gone that she admitted that she would be glad to take a chair. She explained that she was Rose's aunt, and that she had never been up them stairs before and found them tryin'.

Jane expressed sorrow for that fact and for Rose's illness.

Mrs. Eldred sighed an expository sigh.

"She's frettin' an' she's worritin'. She's worritin' about 'Im. It isn't natch'ral, that life 'E leads, and it's tellin' on 'er."

"Something's telling on her."

Mrs. Eldred leaned forward and lowered her voice. "It's this way, miss. 'E isn't properly a 'usban' to 'er."

"You shouldn't say that, Mrs. Eldred. He's very fond of her."

"Fond of 'er I dare say 'E may be. But 'E neglec's 'er."

"You shouldn't say that, either."

"Well, miss, I can't 'elp sayin' it. Wot else is it, when 'E shuts 'imself up with 'is writin' all day long and 'alf the night, and she a-settin' and a-frettin'?"

She looked round the room, apparently recognizing with resentment the scene of Tanqueray's perpetual infidelity.

"But," said Jane, "he'd be away as much if he was in business."

"'Ef 'E was in business there'd be the evenin's to look forward to. And there'd be 'is Saturdays and Sundays. As it is, wot is there for her to look forward to?"

"At any rate she knows he's there."

"It's knowin' that 'E's there wot does it. It's not as if she 'ad a 'ouse to look after, or a little baby to take 'er mind orf of 'im."

"No, it isn't."

A sound of yapping came faintly up from the ground-floor.

"That's Joey," said Mrs. Eldred tearfully, "'er Pom as she was so fond of. I've brought 'im. And I've brought Minny too."

"Minny?" Jane had not heard of Minny.

"The cat, miss. They'll keep 'er company. It's but right as she should 'ave them."

Jane assented warmly that it was but right.

"It's not," Mrs. Eldred continued, "as if she came reg'lar, say once in a week, to see 'er uncle and me. She'll go to Camden Town and set with that poor old Mr. Gunning. Give Rose any one that's ill. But wot is that but settin'? And now, you see, with settin' she's ill. It's all very well when you're brought up to it, but she isn't. Rose'd be well if she 'ad a 'ouse and did the work in it. And 'E won't let 'er 'ave it. 'E won't 'ear of 'er workin', 'E says."

"Well, naturally, he wouldn't like to see his wife working."

"Then, miss, 'E should 'ave married a lady 'as wouldn't want to work. That's wot 'E should have done. We were always against it from the first, 'er uncle and me was. But they was set, bein' young-like."

Mrs. Eldred's voice ceased suddenly as Tanqueray entered. Jane abstained from all observation of their greeting. She was aware of an unnatural suavity in Tanqueray's manner. He carried it so far as to escort Mrs. Eldred all the way down to the ground-floor sitting-room where Rose was.

He returned with considerable impetus to Jane.

"Well, Jinny, so you've seen my aunt-in-law?"

"I have," said Jinny contumaciously, "and I like her."

"What do you think? She's brought a dog on a chain and a beast of a cat in a basket."

Jinny abstained from sympathy, and Tanqueray grew grave.

"I wish I knew what was the matter with Rose," he said. "She doesn't seem to get much better. The doctor swears it's only liver; but he's a silly ass."

"Tanks, there's nothing the matter really, except—the poor little bird wants to build its nest. It wants sticks and straws and feathers and things——"

"Do you mean I've got to go and find a beastly house?"

"Let her go and find it."

"I would in a minute—only I'm so hard up."

"Of course you'll be hard up if you go on living in rooms like this."

"That's what she says. But when she talks about a house she means that she'll do all the work in it."

"Why not?" said Jane.

"Why not? I married her because I wasn't going to have her worked to death in that damned lodging-house of her uncle's."

"You married her because you loved her," said Jane quietly.

"Well—of course. And I'm not going to let my wife cook my dinner and make my bed and empty my slops. How can I?"

"She'll die if you don't, George."

"Die?"

"She'll get horribly ill. She's ill now because she can't run about and sweep and dust and cook dinners. She's dying for love of all the beautiful things you won't let her have—pots and pans and carpet-sweepers and besoms. You don't want her to die of an unhappy passion for a besom?"

"I don't want to see her with a besom."

Jane pleaded. "She'd look so pretty with it, George. Just think how pretty she'd look in a little house, playing with a carpet-sweeper."

"On her knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor——"

"You'd have a woman in to scrub."

"Carrying the coals?"

"You'd carry the coals, George."

"By Jove, I never thought of that. I suppose I could." He pondered.

"You see," he said, "she wants to live at Hampstead."

"You can't cut her off from her own people."

"I'm not cutting her off. She goes to see them."

"She'll go to see them if you live at Hampstead. If you live here they'll come and see you. For she'll be ill and they'll have to."

Tanqueray looked at her, not without admiration.

"Jinny, you're ten times cleverer than I."

"In some things, Tanks, I am. And so is that wife of yours."

"She's—very sensible. I suppose it's sensible to be in love with a carpet-sweeper."

She shook her head at him.

"Much more sensible than being in love with you."

His eyes evaded her. She rose.

"Oh, Tanks, you goose. Can't you see that it's you she's in love with—and that's why she must have a carpet-sweeper?"

With that she left him.

He followed her to the doorstep where he turned abruptly from her departure.

Rose in the sitting-room was kneeling by the hearth where she had just set a saucer of milk. With one hand she was loosening very gently from her shoulder the claws of Minny, the cat, who clung to her breast, scrambling, with the passion and desperation of his kind. Her other hand restrained with a soft caressing movement Joey's approaches to the saucer. Joey, though trembling with excitement, sat fascinated, obedient to her gesture. Joey was puny and hairless as ever, but in Rose's face as she looked at him there was a flush of maternal tenderness and gravity. A slightly sallow tinge under its sudden bloom told how Rose had suffered from the sedentary life.

All this Tanqueray saw as he entered. It held him on the threshold, unmoved by the rushing assault and lacerating bark of the little dog, who resented his intrusion.

Rose got up and came to him, lifting a frightened, pleading face.

"Oh, George," she said, "don't make me send them away. Let me keep them."

"I suppose you must keep them if you want them."

"I never said I wanted them. Aunt would bring them. She thought they'd be something to occupy my mind, like."

Tanqueray smiled, in spite of his gentleness, at the absurd idea of Rose having a mind.

Rose made a little sound in her throat like a laugh. She had not laughed, she had hardly smiled, for many months now.

"The doctor—'e's fair pleased. 'E says I'll 'ave to go out walkin' now, for Joey's sake."

"Poor Joey."

He stooped and stroked the little animal, who stood on ridiculous hind-legs, straining to lick his hand.

"His hair doesn't come on, Rose——"

"It hasn't been brushed proper. You should brush a Pom's 'air backwards——"

"Of course, and it hasn't been brushed backwards. He can bark all right, anyhow. There's nothing wrong with his lungs."

"He won't bark at you no more, now he knows you."

She leaned her face to the furry head on her shoulder, and he recognized Minny by the strange pattern of his back and tail. Minny was not beautiful.

"It's Minny," she said. "You used to like Minny."

It struck him with something like a pang that she held him like a child at her breast. She saw his look and smiled up at him.

"I may keep him, too?"

At that he kissed her.

By the end of that evening Tanqueray had not written a word. He could only turn over the pages of his manuscript, in wonder at the mechanical industry that had covered so much paper with such awful quantities of ink. Here and there he recognized a phrase, and then he was aware, very miserably aware, that the thing was his masterpiece. He wondered, and with agony, how on earth he was going to finish it if they came about him like this and destroyed his peace.

It wasn't the idea of the house. The house was bad enough; the house indeed was abominable. It was Rose. It was more than Rose; it was everything; it was the touch, the intimate, unendurable strain and pressure of life.

It was all very well for Prothero to talk. His genius was safe, it was indestructible. It had the immunity of the transcendent. It worked, not in flesh and blood, but in a divine material. Whatever Prothero did it remained unmoved, untroubled by the impact of mortality. Prothero could afford his descents, his immersions in the stuff of life. He, Tanqueray, could not, for life was the stuff he worked in. To immerse himself was suicidal; it was the dyer plunging into his own vat.

Because his genius was a thing of flesh and blood, flesh and blood was the danger always at its threshold, the enemy in its house. For the same reason it was sufficient to itself. It fulfilled the functions, it enjoyed the excitements and the satisfactions of sense. It reproduced reality so infallibly, so solidly, so completely, that it took reality's place; it made him unconscious of his wife's existence and of the things that went on beneath him in the ground-floor sitting-room.

Yet he was not and had never been indifferent to life itself. He approached it, not with precaution or prejudice or any cold discretion, but with the supreme restraint of passion on guard against its own violence. If he had given himself to it, what a grip it would have had on him, what a terrible, destructive grip; if, say, he had found his mate; if he had married a woman, who, exulting in life, would have drawn him into it.

Rose had not drawn him in. She had done nothing assailing and destructive. She was, in some respects, the most admirable wife a man bent on solitude could have selected. The little thing had never got in his way. She was no longer disturbing to the intellect, nor agitating to the heart; and she satisfied, sufficiently, the infrequent craving of his senses. Up till now he would hardly have known that he was married; it had been so easy to ignore her.

But to-day she had been forced on his attention. The truth about Rose had been presented to him very plainly and boldly by Prothero, by the doctor, by Mrs. Eldred and by Jane. It was the same naked truth that in his novels he himself presented with the utmost plainness and boldness to the British public. His genius knew no other law but truth to Nature, trust in Nature, unbroken fidelity to Nature. And now it was Nature that arraigned his genius for its frustration of her purposes in Rose. His genius had made Rose the victim of its own incessant, inextinguishable lust and impulse to create.

Eleven o'clock struck and he had not written a line. Through his window he heard the front door open and Rose's little feet on the pavement, and Rose's voice calling into the darkness her old call, "Puss—Puss—Puss. Minny—Min—Min—Minny. Puss—Puss—Puss."

He sighed. He had realized for the first time that he was married.