Holland's
face? She doesn't want your horrid hair."

"Yes, I do," said Jane. She was grateful for the veil of Winny's hair.

They had not arrived suddenly, the five of them, at this intimacy. It
had developed during the last fortnight, which Jane, fulfilling a
promise, had spent with Dr. Brodrick and Mrs. Heron.

Jane had been ill, and Brodrick had brought her to his brother's house
to recover. Dr. Henry had been profoundly interested in her case. So had
his sister, Mrs. Heron, and Mr. John Brodrick and Mrs. John, and Sophy
Levine and Gertrude Collett, and Winny and Eddy Heron.

Since the day when they had first received her, the Brodricks had
established a regular cult of Jane Holland. It had become the prescribed
event for Jane to spend every possible Sunday at Putney Heath with the
editor of the "Monthly Review." Her friendship with his family had
advanced from Sunday to Sunday by slow, well-ordered steps. Jane had no
illusions as to its foundation. She knew that Brodrick's family had
begun by regarding her as part of Brodrick's property, the most
eligible, the most valuable part. It was interested in contemporary
talent merely as a thing in which Brodrick had a stake. It had hardly
been aware of Jane Holland previous to her appearance in the "Monthly
Review." After that it had been obliged to recognize her as a power
propitious to the editor's ambition and his dream. For though his family
regarded the editor of the "Monthly Review" as a dreamer, a fantastic
dreamer, it was glad to think that a Brodrick should have ambition,
still more to think that it could afford a dream. They had always
insisted upon that, there being no end to the things a Brodrick could
afford. They had identified Jane Holland with his dream and his
ambition, and were glad again to think that he could afford her. As for
her dreadful, her conspicuous celebrity, the uncomfortably staring fact
that she was Jane Holland, Jane was aware that it struck them chiefly as
reflecting splendour upon Brodrick. But she was aware that her unique
merit, her supreme claim, was that she had done a great thing for
Brodrick. On that account, if she had been the most obscure, the most
unremarkable Jane Holland, they would have felt it incumbent on them to
cherish her. They had incurred a grave personal obligation, and could
only meet it by that grave personal thing, friendship.

How grave it was, Jane, who had gone into it so lightly, was only just
aware. This