"What have you done to agitate him?" said Miss Bickersteth. "You didn't throw cold water on his magazine, did you?" "I shouldn't have known he had a magazine." "What? Didn't he mention it?" "Not to me." "Then something _is_ the matter with him." She added, after a thoughtful pause, "What did you think of him?" "There's no doubt he's a very amiable, benevolent man. The sort of man who wants everybody to marry because he's married himself." "But he isn't married." "Well, he looks it. He looks as if he'd never been anything _but_ married all his life." "Anyhow," said Miss Bickersteth, "that's safe. Safer than not looking married when you are." "Oh, he's safe enough," said Jane. As she spoke she was aware of Tanqueray standing at her side. IX The day was over, and they were going back. Their host insisted on accompanying them to the station. They had given him a day, and every moment of it, he declared solemnly, was precious. They could hardly have spent it better than with Nicky in his perfect house, his perfect garden. And Nicky had been charming, with his humble ardour, his passion for a perfection that was not his. The day, Miss Holland intimated, was his, Nicky's present, rather than theirs. He glowed. It had been glorious, anyhow, a perfect day. A day, Nicky said, that made him feel immortal. He looked at Jane Holland and George Tanqueray, and they tried not to smile. Jane would have died rather than have hurt Nicky's feelings. It was not in her to spoil his perfect day. All the same, it had been their secret jest that Nicky _was_ immortal. He would never end, never by any possibility disappear. As he stuck now, he always would stick. He was going with them to the station. Sensitive to the least quiver of a lip, the young man's mortal part was stung with an exquisite sense of the becoming. "If I feel it," said he, "what must _you_ feel?" "Oh, we!" they cried, and broke loose from his solemn and detaining eyes. They walked on ahead, and Nicholson was left behind with Laura Gunning and Nina Lempriere. He consented, patiently and politely, to be thus outstripped. After all, the marvellous thing was that he should find himself on that road at all with Them. After all, he had had an hour alone with Him, in his garden, and five-and-twenty minutes by his watch with Her. It was enough if he could keep his divinities in sight, following the flutter of Miss Holland's veil. Besides, she had asked him to talk to Nina and look after Laura. She was always asking him to be an angel, and look after somebody. Being an angel seemed somehow his doom. But he was sorry for Laura. They said she had cared for Tanqueray; and he could well believe it. He could believe in any woman caring for Him. He wondered how it had left her. A little defiant, he thought, but with a quiet, clear-eyed virginity. Determined, too. Nicholson had never seen so large an expression of determination on so small a face.