Part 33 (1/2)
He smiled his old teasing and tormenting smile.
”Are you sure you're not just a little bit in love with that little banker's clerk?”
”I was never in love with a banker's clerk in my life. I've never even seen one except _in_ banks and tubes and places.”
”I don't care. It's the way you'll be had. It's the way you'll be had by Hambleby if you don't look out. It's the way,” he said, ”that's absolutely forbidden to any artist. You've got to know Hambleby outside and inside, as G.o.d Almighty knows him.”
”Well?” Jinny's mind was working dangerously near certain personal matters. George himself seemed to be approaching the same borders. He plunged in an abyss of meditation and emerged.
”You can't know people, you can't possibly hope to know them, if you once allow yourself to fall in love with them.”
”Can't you?” she said quietly.
”No, you can't. If G.o.d Almighty had allowed himself to fall in love with you and me, Jinny, he couldn't have made us all alive and kicking. You must be G.o.d Almighty to Hambleby or he won't kick.”
”Doesn't he kick?”
”Oh, Lord, yes. You haven't gone in deep enough to stop him. I'm only warning you against a possible danger. It's always a possible danger when I'm not there to look after you.”
He rose. ”Anything,” he said, ”is possible when I'm not there.”
She rose also. Their hands and their eyes met.
”That's it,” she said, ”you weren't there, and you won't be.”
”You're wrong,” said he, ”I've always been there when you wanted me.”
He turned to go and came back again.
”If I don't like to see you celebrated, Jinny, it's because I want to see you immortal.”
”You don't want to be alone in your immortality?”
”No. I don't want to be alone--in my immortality.”
With that he left her. And he had not said a word about his wife.
Neither for that matter had Jane. She wondered why she had not.
”At any rate,” she thought, ”_I_ haven't hurt his immortality.”
XVI
A week after his visit to Jane Holland, Tanqueray was settled, as he called it, in rooms in Bloomsbury. He had got all his books and things sent down from Hampstead, to stay in Bloomsbury for ever, because Bloomsbury was cheap.
It had not occurred to him to think what Rose was to do with herself in Bloomsbury or he with Rose. He had brought her up out of the little village of Suss.e.x where they had lodged, in a farmhouse, ever since their marriage. Rose had been happy down in Suss.e.x.
And for the first few weeks Tanqueray had been happy too. He was never tired of playing with Rose, caressing Rose, talking nonsense to Rose, teasing and tormenting Rose for ever. The more so as she provoked him by turning an imperturbable face to the attack. He liked to lie with his head in Rose's lap, while Rose's fingers played with his hair, stirring up new ideas to torment her with. He was content, for the first few weeks, to be what he had become, a sane and happy animal, mated with an animal, a dear little animal, superlatively happy and incorruptibly sane.