"Not altogether. If I couldn't get you I'd try to get him." "Would you? How do you know that you're going to get me?" He smiled. "I don't. I only know that I'm prepared, if I may say so, to pay for you." "Oh," she said, "it isn't that." He smiled again at her horror. "I know it isn't that. Still----" He named a round sum, a sum so perfect in its roundness that it took her breath away. With such a sum she could do all that she wanted for her sister Effy at once, and secure herself against gross poverty for years. "It's more than we could give Mr. Tanqueray." "Is it?" "Much more." "That's what's so awful," she said. He noticed how she clenched her hands as she said it. "It's not my fault, is it?" "Oh--I don't care whose fault it is!" "But you care?" "Yes." She almost whispered it. He was struck by that sudden drop from vehemence to pathos. "He is a very great friend of yours?" "Yes." "And--he's just married, isn't he?" "Yes. And he isn't very well off. I don't think he could afford----" she said. He coloured painfully as if she had suspected him of a desire to traffic in Tanqueray's poverty. "We should pay him very well," he said. "His book" (she pressed it on him), "is not arranged for." "And yours is?" "Practically it is. The contract's drawn up, but the date's not settled." "If the date's not settled, surely I've still a chance?" "And he," she said, "has still a chance if--I fail you?" [Illustration: "And he," she said, "has still a chance if--I fail you?"] "Of course--if you _fail_ me." "And supposing that I hadn't got a book?" "But you have." "Supposing?" "Then I should fall back on Mr. Tanqueray." "Fall back on him!--The date is settled." "But I thought----" "_I_'ve settled it." "Oh. And it can't be unsettled?" "It can't--possibly." "Why not?" She meditated. "Because--it would spoil the chances of the book." "I see. The chances of the book." Their eyes met in conflict. It was as if they were measuring each other's moral value. "I should make you a bigger offer, Miss Holland," he said; "only I believe you don't want that." "No. Certainly I don't want that." He paused. "Do you mind telling me if you've any other chance?" "None. Not the ghost of one." "So that, but for this all-important question of the date, I might have had you?" "You might have had me." "I'm almost glad," he said, "to have lost you--that way." "Which way?" said she. At that moment a servant of the house brought in tea. She announced that Mr. Nicholson was down-stairs and would like to see Miss Holland. "Very well. You'll stay?" Jane said to Brodrick. He did. He was, Jane reflected, the sort of man who stayed. "Here's Mr. Brodrick," said she, as Nicky entered. "He's going to make all our fortunes." "His own, too, I hope," said Brodrick. But he looked sulky, as if he resented Nicholson's coming in.