talking to his sister. Mrs. Heron held him by one arm, Winny
dragged on the other.

"Those two seem devoted to Mr. Brodrick," said Jane.

"They ought to be," said Miss Collett, "with all he does for them. And
they are. The Brodricks are all like that." She looked hard at Jane. "If
you've done anything for them, they never forget it. They keep on paying
back."

Jane smiled.

"I imagine Mr. Hugh Brodrick would be quite absurd about it."

"Oh, _he_----" Gertrude raised her head. Her eyes adored him.

As if her pause were too profoundly revealing, she filled it up. "He'll
always give more than he gets. It isn't for _you_ he gives, it's for
himself. He likes giving. And when it comes to paying him back----."

"That's where he has you?"

"Yes."

And Jane thought, "My dear lady, if you wouldn't treat him quite so like
a god, he might have a chance to discover that he's mortal."

She would have liked to have said that to Miss Collett. She would have
liked to have taken Brodrick to the seat at the end of the alley and
have said to him, "It's all perfectly right. Don't be an idiot and miss
it. You can't do a better thing for yourself than marry her, and it's
the only way, you know, you can pay her back. Don't you see that you're
cruel to her? That it's you that's making her ill? She can't look pretty
when she's ill, but she'd be quite pretty if you made her happy."

But all she said was, "He's like that, is he?" And she went out to where
he waited for her.

"Have you _got_ to go?" he said.

She said, Yes, she was half expecting Nina Lempriere.

"The fiery lady?"

"Yes."

"You may as well stay. She won't be there," said Brodrick.

But Jane did not stay.

The whole family turned out on to the Heath to see them go. At the end
of the road they looked back and saw it there. Sophy Levine was holding
up the Baby to make him wave to Jane.

"Why did you tell them?" she said reproachfully to Brodrick.

"Because I wanted them to like you."

"Am I so disagreeable that they couldn't--without that?"

"I wanted you," he said, "to like _them_."

"I do like them."

He glanced at her sidelong and softly.

"Tell me," she said. "What have they done to look so happy, and so
perfectly at peace?"

"That's it. They haven't done anything."

"Not to do things--that's the secret, is it?"

"Yes," he said, "I almost think it is."

"I wonder," said she.

XXI

Brodrick was right. Nina was not there.

At the