Bickersteth, "that's safe. Safer than not looking
married when you are."

"Oh, he's safe enough," said Jane. As she spoke she was aware of
Tanqueray standing at her side.

IX

The day was over, and they were going back.

Their host insisted on accompanying them to the station. They had given
him a day, and every moment of it, he declared solemnly, was precious.

They could hardly have spent it better than with Nicky in his perfect
house, his perfect garden. And Nicky had been charming, with his humble
ardour, his passion for a perfection that was not his.

The day, Miss Holland intimated, was his, Nicky's present, rather than
theirs. He glowed. It had been glorious, anyhow, a perfect day. A day,
Nicky said, that made him feel immortal.

He looked at Jane Holland and George Tanqueray, and they tried not to
smile. Jane would have died rather than have hurt Nicky's feelings. It
was not in her to spoil his perfect day. All the same, it had been their
secret jest that Nicky _was_ immortal. He would never end, never by any
possibility disappear. As he stuck now, he always would stick. He was
going with them to the station.

Sensitive to the least quiver of a lip, the young man's mortal part was
stung with an exquisite sense of the becoming.

"If I feel it," said he, "what must _you_ feel?"

"Oh, we!" they cried, and broke loose from his solemn and detaining
eyes.

They walked on ahead, and Nicholson was left behind with Laura Gunning
and Nina Lempriere. He consented, patiently and politely, to be thus
outstripped. After all, the marvellous thing was that he should find
himself on that road at all with Them. After all, he had had an hour
alone with Him, in his garden, and five-and-twenty minutes by his watch
with Her. It was enough if he could keep his divinities in sight,
following the flutter of Miss Holland's veil.

Besides, she had asked him to talk to Nina and look after Laura. She was
always asking him to be an angel, and look after somebody. Being an
angel seemed somehow his doom. But he was sorry for Laura. They said she
had cared for Tanqueray; and he could well believe it. He could believe
in any woman caring for Him. He wondered how it had left her. A little
defiant, he thought, but with a quiet, clear-eyed virginity. Determined,
too. Nicholson had never seen so large an expression of determination on
so small a face.

He always liked talking to Laura; but he shrank inexpressibly from
appro