she had once thoroughly
realized his wife it would be easier to give him up to her.

It was George who had tried to prevent her realizing Rose. He, for his
part, refused to be given up to Rose or in any way identified with her.
Nina was right. His marriage had made no difference to George.

But now that she realized Rose, it made all the difference to Jane. Rose
was realized so completely that she turned George out of the place he
persisted in occupying in Jane's mind. Jane had not allowed herself to
feel that there was anything to be sorry about in George's marriage. She
was afraid of having to be sorry for George, because, in that case,
there would be no end to her thinking about him. But if there was any
sorrow in George's marriage it was not going to affect George. She would
not have to be sorry about him.

Like Nina, Jane was sorry for the woman.

That little figure strayed in and out of Jane's mind without disturbing
her renewed communion with Hambleby.

Up till now she had contrived to keep the very existence of Hambleby a
secret from her publishers. But they had got wind of him somehow, and
had written many times inquiring when he would be ready? As if she could
tell, as if her object was to get him ready, and not rather to prolong
the divine moments of his creation. She would have liked to have kept
him with her in perpetual manuscript, for in this state he still seemed
a part of herself. Publicity of any sort was a profanation. When
published he would be made to stand in shop windows coarsely labelled,
offering himself for sale at four-and-six; he would go into the houses
of people who couldn't possibly appreciate him, and would suffer
unspeakable things at their hands. As the supreme indignity, he would be
reviewed. And she, his creator, would be living on him, profiting by his
degradation at percentages which made her blush. To be thinking of what
Hambleby would "fetch" was an outrage to his delicate perfection.

But she had to think of it; and after all, when she had reckoned it up,
he would not "fetch" so very much. She had failed to gather in one half
of the golden harvest. The serial rights of Hambleby lay rotting in the
field. George used to manage all these dreadful things for her. For
though George was not much cleverer than she he liked to think he was.
It was his weakness to imagine that he had a head for business. And in
the perversity of things he had really done better for her than he had
e