But in three months, towards the end of January, one half of Hambleby was done. It then occurred to her that if she was to behave absolutely as if nothing had happened she would have to show him to Tanqueray. Instead of showing him to Tanqueray she took him to Nina Lempriere and Laura Gunning. That was how Jane came back to them. They sat till midnight over the fire in Nina's room, three of them where there had once been four. "Do you like him?" said Jane. "Rather!" It was Nina who spoke first. She lay at all her length along the hearthrug, recklessly, and her speech was innocent of the literary taint. "Jinny," said Laura, "he's divine. However did you think of him?" "I didn't have to think. I simply saw him. Is there anything wrong with him?" "Not a thing." If there had been a flaw in him Laura would have found it. Next to Tanqueray she was the best critic of the four. There followed a discussion of technical points that left Hambleby intact. Then Laura spoke again. "How George would have loved him." Six months after, she still spoke of Tanqueray gently, as if he were dead. Nina broke their silence. "Does anybody know what's become of Tanks?" They did not answer. "Doesn't that Nicholson man know?" "Nicky thinks he's somewhere down in Sussex," said Jane. "And where's she?" "Wherever he is, I imagine." "I gave her six months, if you remember." "I wonder," said Laura, "why he doesn't turn up." "Probably," said Nina, "because he doesn't want to." "He might write. It isn't like him not to." "No," said Jane, "it isn't like him." She rose. "Good-bye, I'm going." She went, with a pain in her heart and a sudden fog in her brain that blurred the splendour of Hambleby. "Perhaps," Laura continued, "he thinks _we_ want to drop him. You know, if he has married a servant-girl it's what he would think." "If," said Nina, "he thought about it at all." "He'd think about Jinny." "If he'd thought about Jinny he wouldn't have married a servant-girl." It was then that Laura had her beautiful idea. She was always having them. "It _was_ Jinny he thought about. He thought about nothing else. He gave Jinny up for her own sake--for her career. You know what he thought about marrying." She was in love with her idea. It made George sublime, and preserved Jinny's dignity. But Nina did not think much of it, and said so. She sat contemplating Laura a long time. "Queer Kiddy," she said, "very queer Kiddy." It was her tribute to Laura's moral beauty. "I say, Infant," she said suddenly, "were you ever in love?" "Why shouldn't I be? I'm human," said the Infant. "I doubt it. You're such a calm Kiddy. I'd like to know how it takes you." "It doesn't take me at all. I don't give it a chance." "It doesn't give _you_ a chance, when it comes, my child." "Yes, it does. There's always," said the Infant, speaking slowly, "just--one--chance. When you feel it coming." "You don't feel it coming."