ng to get at him.

Tanqueray, a transformed, oblivious Tanqueray, had unrolled the
manuscript. They grouped themselves for the reading, Nina on a corner of
the sofa; Jane lying back in the other corner; Laura looking at
Tanqueray over Nina's shoulder, with her chair drawn close beside her;
Nicholson and Brodrick on other chairs, opposite the sofa, where they
could look at Jane.

It was to this audience that Tanqueray first read young Prothero's poems
of the Vision of God; to Laura, who didn't believe in God; to Jane,
absorbed in her embarrassments; to Nina, tortured by many passions; to
Hugh Brodrick, bearing visibly the financial burden of his magazine; to
Caro Bickersteth, dubious and critical; to Nicky, struggling with the
mean hope that Prothero might not prove so very good.

They heard of the haunting of the divine Lover; of the soul's mortal
terror; of the divine pursuit, of the flight and the hiding of the soul,
of its crying out in its terror; of its finding; of the divine
consummation; of its eternal vision and possession of God.

Nicky's admirable judgment told him that as a competitive poet he was
dished by Prothero. He maintained his attitude of extreme depression.
His eyes, fixed on Jane, were now startled out of their agony into a
sudden wonder at Prothero, now clouded again as Nicky manifestly said to
himself, "Dished, dished, dished." He was dished by Prothero, dished by
Tanqueray, reduced to sitting there, like an angel, conquering his
desire, sublimely renouncing.

Brodrick's head was bowed forward on his chest. His eyes, under his
lowering brows, looked up at Jane's, gathering from them her judgment of
Owen Prothero. Prothero's case defied all rule and precedent, and
Brodrick was not prepared with a judgment of his own. Now and then a
gleam of comprehension, caught from Jane, illuminated his face and
troubled it. He showed, not as a happy creature of the flesh, but as a
creature of the flesh made uncontent, divinely pierced by the sharp
flame of the spirit.

It was so that Jane saw him, once, when his persistent gaze drew hers
for an inconsiderable moment. Now and then, at a pause in the reader's
voice, Brodrick sighed heavily and shifted his position.

Nina leaned back as she listened, propping her exhausted body, her soul
surrendered as ever to the violent rapture; caught now and carried away
into a place beyond pain, beyond dreams, beyond desire.

And Laura, who did not believe in God, Lau