Prothero suffered, painfully, the inevitable introduction. Tanqueray had told him that if he still wanted work on the papers Brodrick was his man. Brodrick had an idea. On the long hill-road going up from Wendover station Prothero, at Tanqueray's suggestion, tried to make himself as civil as possible to Miss Holland. Tentatively and with infinite precautions Jane laid before him Brodrick's idea. The War Correspondent of the "Morning Telegraph" was coming home invalided from Manchuria. She understood that his place would be offered to Mr. Prothero. Would he care to take it? He did not answer. She merely laid the idea before him to look at. He must weigh, she said, the dangers and the risks. From the expression of his face she gathered that these were the last things he would weigh. And yet he hesitated. She looked at him. His eyes were following the movements of Laura Gunning where, well in front of them, the marvellous Kiddy, in the first wildness of her release from paragraphs, darted and plunged and leaped into the hedges. Jane allowed some moments to lapse before she spoke again. The war, she said, would not last for ever; and if he took this berth, it would lead almost certainly to a regular job on the "Telegraph" at home. He saw all that, he said, and he was profoundly grateful. His eyes, as they turned to her, showed for a moment a film of tears. Then they wandered from her. He asked if he might think it over and let her know. "When," she said, "can you let me know?" "I think," he said, "probably, before the end of the day." The day was drawing to its end when the group drifted and divided. Brodrick, still imperturbable, took possession of Jane, and Prothero, with his long swinging stride, set off in pursuit of the darting Laura. Tanqueray, thus left behind with Nina, watched him as he went. "He's off, Nina. Bolted." His eyes smiled at her, suave, deprecating, delighted eyes and recklessly observant. "So has Jane," said Nina, with her dangerous irony. Apart from them and from their irony, Prothero was at last alone with Laura on the top of Wendover Hill. She had ceased to dart and to plunge. He found for her a hidden place on the green slope, under a tree, and there he stretched himself at her side. "Do you know," he said, "this is the first time I've seen you out of doors." "So it is," said she in a strange, even voice. She drew off her gloves and held out the palms of her hands as if she were bathing them in the pure air. Her face was turned from him and lifted; her nostrils widened; her lips parted; her small breasts heaved; she drank the air like water. To his eyes she was the white image of mortal thirst. "Is it absolutely necessary for you to live in Camden Town?" he said. She sat up very straight and stared steadily in front of her, as if she faced, unafraid, the invincible necessity.