els
were better treated usually than they deserved. Verse about as well as it
deserved, which, however, wasn't, as a rule, saying very much. Some kinds
of book were unkindly used--anthologies of contemporary verse, for
instance. Someone would unselfishly go to the trouble of collecting some
of the recent poetical output which he or she personally preferred and
binding it up in a pleasant portable volume, and you would think all that
readers had to do was to read what they liked in it, if anything, and
leave out the rest and be grateful. Instead, it would be slated by
reviewers, and compared to the Royal Academy, and to a literary signpost
pointing the wrong way, and other opprobrious things; as if an anthology
could point to anything but the taste of the compiler, which of course
could not be expected to agree with any one else's; tastes never do. The
thing was, thought Jane, to hit the public taste with the right thing at
the right moment. Another thing was to do better than Johnny. That should
be possible, because Jane _was_ better than Johnny; had always been. Only
there was this baby, which made her feel ill before it came, and would
need care and attention afterwards. It wasn't fair. If Johnny married and
had a baby it wouldn't get in his way, only in its mamma's. It was a
handicap, like your frock (however short it was) when you were climbing.
You had got round that by taking it off and climbing in knickerbockers,
but you couldn't get round a baby. And Jane wanted the baby too.

'I suppose I want everything,' said Jane.

Johnny wanted everything too. He got a lot. He got love. He was
polygamous by nature, and usually had more than one girl on hand. That
autumn he had two. One was Nancy Sharpe, the violinist. They were always
about together. People who didn't know either of them well, thought they
would get engaged. But neither of them wanted that. The other girl was a
different kind: the lovely, painted, music-hall kind you don't meet. No
one thought Johnny would marry her, of course. They merely passed the
time for one another.

Jane wondered if the equivalent man would pass the time for her. She
didn't think so. She thought she would get bored with never talking about
anything interesting. And it must, she thought, be pretty beastly having
to kiss people who used cheap scent and painted their lips. One would be
afraid the red stuff would come off. In fact, it surely would. Didn't men
mind--clean men, like John