course of
the creators.

The movement struck Arnott Nicholson aside into his place among the
multitudes of the uncreative. Who was he to judge George Tanqueray? If
_she_ arraigned him she had a right to. She was of his race, his kind.
She could see through Nicky as if he had been an innocent pane of glass.
And at the moment Nicky's soul with its chivalry and delicacy enraged
her. Caroline Bickersteth enraged her, everybody enraged her except Jane
and little Laura.

She stood beside Jane, who had risen and was about to say good-bye.

Caro would have kept them with her distressed, emphatic "_Must_ you go?"
She was expecting, she said, Mr. Brodrick.

Jane was not interested in Mr. Brodrick. She could not stay and did not,
and, going, she took Nina with her.

Laura would have followed, but Miss Bickersteth held her with a hand
upon her arm. Nicholson left them, though Laura's eyes almost implored
him not to go.

"My dear," said Miss Bickersteth. "Tell me. Have you any idea how much
she cares for him?"

"She?"

"Jane."

"You've no reason to suppose she cares."

"Do you think he cared in the very least for her?"

"I think he may have--without knowing it."

"My dear, there's nothing that man doesn't know. He knows, for instance,
all about _us_."

"Us?"

"You and I. We've both of us been there. And Nina."

"How _do_ you know?"

"She was flagrant!"

"Flagrant?"

"Flagrant isn't the word for it. She was flamboyant, magnificent,
superb!"

"You forget she's my friend," said little Laura.

"She's mine. I'm not traducing her. Look at George Tanqueray. I defy any
woman not to care for him. It's nothing to be ashamed of--like an
infatuation for a stockbroker who has no use for you. It's--it's your
apprenticeship at the hands of the master."

XIII

Nina inhabited a third floor in a terrace off the Strand, overlooking
the river. You approached it by secret, tortuous ways that made you
wonder.

In a small backroom, for an unspeakable half-hour, the two women had sat
over the table facing each other, with Tanqueray's empty place between
them. There had been moments when their sense of his ironic, immaterial
presence had struck them dumb. It was as if this were the final,
consummate stroke of the diabolic master. It had been as impossible to
talk about him as if he had been sitting there and had overheard them.

They left him behind them in the other room, a room where there was no
evidence of Ta