was seeing Henry
home.

When he came back he found Jane in the library, sitting up for him. She
was excited and a little flushed.

"So you've had _your_ talk, have you?" she said.

"Yes."

He came to her and put his hands on her forehead.

"Look here. You ought to have gone to bed."

She took his hand and drew him to her.

"Henry doesn't think I'm any good," she said.

"Henry's very fond of you."

She shook her head.

"To Henry I'm nothing but a highly interesting neurotic. He watches me
as if he were on the look-out for some abnormal manifestation, with that
delightful air he has of never being surprised at anything, as if he
could calculate the very moment."

"My dear----"

"I'm used to it. My people took me that way, too. Only they hadn't a
scientific turn of mind, like Henry. They didn't think it interesting;
and they haven't Henry's angelic patience and forbearance. I was the
only one of the family, don't you know, who wasn't quite sane; and
yet--so unlike Henry--they considered me rather more responsible than
any of them. I couldn't get off anything on the grounds of my insanity."

All the time, while thus tormenting him, she seemed profoundly occupied
with the hand she held, caressing it with swift, nervous, tender
touches.

"After all," she said, "I haven't turned out so badly; even from Henry's
point of view, have I?"

He laughed. "What is Henry's point of view?"

She looked up at him quickly. "You know, and I know that Henry didn't
want you to marry me."

The uncaptured hand closed over hers, holding it tighter than she
herself could hold.

"No," she said. "I'm not the sort of woman Henry _would_ want you to
marry. To please Henry----"

"I didn't marry to please Henry."

"To please Henry you should have married placable flesh and blood, very
large and handsome, without a nerve in her body. The sort of woman who
has any amount of large and handsome flesh-and-blood children, and lives
to have them, thrives on them. That's Henry's idea of the right woman."

He admitted that it had once been his. He had seen his wife that was to
be, placable, as Jinny said, sane flesh and blood, the mother of perfect
children.

"And so, of course," said Jinny, "you go and marry me."

"Of course," said Brodrick. He said it in the voice she loved.

"Why didn't you marry her? _She_ wouldn't have bothered your life out."
She paused. "On the other hand, she wouldn't have cared for you as I do.
That sor