Now that the thing she was afraid of had become a fact, she told herself that she might have known, that she had known it all the time. As she faced it she realized how terribly afraid she had been. She had had foreknowledge of it from the moment when Jane Holland came first into Brodrick's house.

She maintained her policy of silence. It helped her, as if she felt that, by ignoring this thing, by refusing to talk about it, by not admitting that anything so preposterous could be, it did somehow cease to be.

She would have been glad if Brodrick's family could have remained unaware of the situation. But Brodrick's family, by the sheer instinct of self-preservation, was awake to everything that concerned it.

Every Brodrick, once he had passed the privileged years of his minority, knew that grave things were expected of him. It was expected of him, first of all, that he should marry; and that, not with the levity of infatuation, but soberly and seriously, for the good and for the preservation of the race of Brodricks in its perfection. As it happened, in the present generation of Brodricks, not one of them had done what was expected of them, except Sophy. John had fallen in love with a fragile, distinguished lady, and had incontinently married her; and she had borne him no children. Henry, who should have known better, had fallen in love with a lady so excessively fragile that she had died before he could marry her at all. And because of his love for her he had remained unmarried. Frances had set her heart on a rascal who had left her for the governess. And now Hugh, with his Jane Holland, bid fair to be similarly perverse.

For every Brodrick took, not delight, so much as a serious and sober satisfaction, in the thought that he disappointed expectation. Each one believed himself the creature of a solitary and majestic law. His actions defied prediction. He felt it as an impertinence that anybody, even a Brodrick, should presume to conjecture how a Brodrick would, in any given circumstances, behave. He held it a special prerogative of Brodricks, this capacity for accomplishing the unforeseen. Nobody was surprised when the unforeseen happened; for this family made it a point of honour never to be surprised. The performances of other people, however astounding, however eccentric, appeared to a Brodrick as the facilely calculable working of a law from which a Brodrick was exempt. Whatever another person did, it was always what some Brodrick had expected him to do. Even when Frances's husband ran away with the governess and broke the heart Frances had set on him, it was only what John and Henry and Sophy and Hugh had known would happen if she married him. If it hadn't happened to a Brodrick, they would hardly have blamed Heron for his iniquity; it was so inherent in him and predestined.

So, when it seemed likely that Hugh would marry Jane Holland, the Brodricks were careful to conceal from each other that they were unprepared for this event. They discussed it casually, and with less emotion than they had given to the wild project of the magazine.

It was on a Sunday evening at the John Brodricks', shortly after Jane had left Putney.

"It strikes me," said John who began it, "that one way or another Hugh is seeing a great deal of Miss Holland."

"My dear John, why shouldn't he?" said Frances Heron.

"I'm not saying that he shouldn't. I'm saying that one way or another, he does."

"He has to see her on business," said Frances.

"Does he see her on business?" inquired John.

"He says he does," said Frances.

"Of course," said the Doctor, "he'd say he did."

"Why," said Sophy, "does he say anything at all? That's the suspicious circumstance, to my mind."

"He's evidently aware," said the Doctor, "that something wants explaining."

"So it does," said Sophy; "when Hugh takes to seeing any woman more than once in five months."

"But she's the last woman he'd think of," said Frances.

"It's the last woman a man thinks of that he generally ends by marrying," said John.

"If he'd only think of her," said the Doctor, "he'd be safe enough."

"I know. It's his not thinking," said John; "it's his dashing into it with his eyes shut."

"Do you think," said Frances, "we'd better open his eyes?"

"If you do that," said Levine, "he'll marry her to-morrow."

"Yes," said the Doctor; "much better encourage him, give him his head."

"And fling her at it?" suggested Sophy.

"Well, certainly, if we don't want it to happen, we'd better assume that it will happen."

"Supposing," said Frances presently, "it did happen—what then?"

"My dear Frances, it would be most undesirable," said John.

"By all means," said Levine, "let us take the worst for granted. Then possibly he'll think better of it."

The family, therefore, adopted its characteristic policy of assuming Hugh's intentions to be obvious, of refusing to be surprised or even greatly interested.

Only the Doctor, watching quietly, waited for his moment. It came the next evening when he dropped in to dine with Hugh. He turned the conversation upon Jane Holland, upon her illness, upon its cause and her recovery.

"I shouldn't be surprised," said he, "if some time or other she was to have a bad nervous break-down."

Hugh laughed. "My dear Henry, you wouldn't be surprised if everybody had a bad nervous break-down. It's what you're always expecting them to have."

Henry said he did expect it in women of Miss Holland's physique, who habitually over-drive their brains beyond the power of their body. He became excessively professional as he delivered himself on this head.

It was his subject. He was permitted to enlarge upon it from time to time, and Hugh was not in the least surprised at his entering on it now. It was what he had expected of Henry, and he said so.

Henry looked steadily at his brother.

"I have had her," said he, "under very close observation."

"So have I," said Hugh. "You forget that she is an exceptional woman."

"On the contrary, I think her so very exceptional as to be quite abnormal. Geniuses generally are."

"I don't know. For a woman to live absolutely alone, as she does, and thrive on it, and turn out the work she does—It's a pretty fair test of sanity."

"That she should have chosen to do so is itself abnormal."

"It's not a joyous or a desirable life for her, if that's what you mean," said Hugh.

But that was not what the Doctor meant, and he judged it discreet to drop the discussion at that point.

And, as for several weeks he saw and heard no more of Miss Holland, he judged that Hugh had begun to think, and that he had thought better of it.

For the Doctor knew what he was talking about. When a Brodrick meant to marry, he did not lose his head about a woman, he married sanely, soberly and decorously, for the sake of children. It was so that their father had married. It was so that John—well, John had been a little unfortunate. It was so that he, the Doctor——

He stopped short in his reflections, remembering how it was that he had remained unmarried. Like every other Brodrick he had reserved for himself the privilege of the unexpected line.