ming irrelevance, "You didn't go all the way to
Putney then?"

She knew he had meant to go. She knew, too, that he had been sent back.

XLIX

On her return Jane went at once to Brodrick in his study. The editor was
gloomy and perturbed. He made no response to her regrets, nor yet to her
excuse that Tanqueray had kept her. Presently, after some moments of
heavy silence, she learned that her absence was not the cause of his
gloom. He was worried about the magazine. Levine was pestering him. When
she reminded him that Louis had nothing to do with it, that she thought
he was going to be kept out, he replied that that was all very well in
theory; you couldn't keep him out when he'd got those infernal Jews
behind him, and they were running the concern. You could buy him out,
you could buy out the whole lot of them if you had the money; but, if
you hadn't, where were you? It had been stipulated that the editor was
to have a free hand; and up till now, as long as the thing had paid its
way, his hand had been pretty free. But it wasn't paying; and Levine was
insisting that the free hand was the cause of the deficit.

He did not tell her that Levine's point was that they had not bargained
for his wife's hand, which was considerably freer than his own. If they
were prepared to run the magazine at a financial loss they were not
prepared to run it for the exclusive benefit of his wife's friends;
which, Levine said, was about what it amounted to.

That was what was bothering Brodrick; for it was Jane's hand, in its
freedom, that had kept the standard of the magazine so high. It had
helped him to realize his expensive dream. The trouble, this time, he
told her, was a tale of Nina Lempriere's.

Jane gave an excited cry at this unexpected flashing forth of her
friend's name.

"What, Nina? Has she----?"

Brodrick answered, almost with anger, that she had. And Levine had put
his silly foot down. He had complained that the tale was gruesome (they
had set it up; it was quite a short thing); Nina's tales usually were
gruesome; and Nina's price was stiff. He didn't know about the price;
perhaps it was a trifle stiff; you might even say it crackled; but the
tale----! Brodrick went on in the soft, even voice that was a sign with
him of profound excitement--the tale was a corker. He didn't care if it
_was_ gruesome. It was magnificent.

"More so than her last?" Jane murmured.

"Oh, miles more." He rummaged among his papers fo