Part 52 (1/2)

She filled his blank, ”And a martyr?”

”What can you expect when a man mates like that?”

”It's natural,” she pleaded.

”Natural? It's one of the most unnatural marriages I've ever come across. It's a crime against nature for a man like Tanqueray to have taken that poor little woman--who is nature pure and simple--and condemn her to----”

She drew back visibly. ”I know. He doesn't see it,” she said.

”He doesn't see anything. He doesn't even know she's there. How can he?

His genius runs to flesh and blood, and he hasn't room for any more of it outside his own imagination. That's where you are with your great realists.”

She gazed at him, astonished, admiring. This visionary, this poet so estranged from flesh and blood, had put his finger on the fact.

”You mean,” she said, ”a visionary would see more?”

He shrugged his shoulders at her reference.

”He would have more room,” he said, ”that would be all. He could at any rate afford to take more risks.”

They were silent again.

”I believe,” he said presently, ”somebody's coming. I shall have to go.”

Jane turned her head. The sounds he heard so distinctly were inaudible to her.

They proved to be footsteps on the staircase, footsteps that could never have been Rose's nor yet Tanqueray's. They paused heavily at the door.

Some one was standing there, breathing.

A large woman entered very slowly, and Jane arrived, also slowly, at the conclusion that it must be Mrs. Eldred, George's wife's aunt.

Mrs. Eldred acknowledged her presence and Prothero's by a vague movement of respect. It was not till Prothero had gone that she admitted that she would be glad to take a chair. She explained that she was Rose's aunt, and that she had never been up them stairs before and found them tryin'.

Jane expressed sorrow for that fact and for Rose's illness.

Mrs. Eldred sighed an expository sigh.

”She's frettin' an' she's worritin'. She's worritin' about 'Im. It isn't natch'ral, that life 'E leads, and it's tellin' on 'er.”

”Something's telling on her.”

Mrs. Eldred leaned forward and lowered her voice. ”It's this way, miss.

'E isn't properly a 'usban' to 'er.”

”You shouldn't say that, Mrs. Eldred. He's very fond of her.”

”Fond of 'er I dare say 'E may be. But 'E neglec's 'er.”

”You shouldn't say that, either.”