Nina, why not Laura? She was small and she was pretty and she was
pathetic, and he liked women to be so. Why was it that with all her
feminine smallness and prettiness and pathos he had never cared for her?

They were talking.

"Tired, Laura?" Jane asked.

"Only sleepy. Papa had another dream last night."

They laughed. So did Laura, though her tragedy was there, the tragedy
which had given her that indomitable face.

Laura lived under conditions which would have driven Tanqueray mad. She
had a father; she who, as Jane said, could least of all of them afford a
father. Her father had had a sunstroke, and it had made him dream
dreams. He would get up a dozen times in the night and wander in and out
of Laura's bedroom, and sit heavily on her bed and tell her his dreams,
which terrified Laura.

"It wasn't funny, this time," said she. "It was one of his horrid ones."

Nobody laughed then. They were dumb with the pity and horror of it.
Laura's father, when he was awake, was the most innocent, most
uninspired, most uncreative of old gentlemen; but in his dreams he had a
perfect genius for the macabre. The dreams had been going on for about a
year, and they were making Laura ill. Tanqueray knew it, and it made him
sad.

That was why he had not cared to care for Laura.

Yet little Laura, very prettily, very innocently, with an entire
unconsciousness, had let him see where her heart was. And as prettily
and innocently and unconsciously as he could, he had let her see that
her heart was no concern of his, any more than Nina's.

And she had not cherished any resentment, she had not owed him any
grudge. She had withdrawn herself, still prettily, still innocently, so
that she seemed, with an absurd prettiness, to be making room for Jane.

He had even a vague recollection of himself as acquiescing in her
withdrawal, on those grounds. It was almost as if there had been an
understanding between him and Laura, between Jane and Laura, between
him and Jane. They had behaved perfectly, all three. What made their
perfection was that in all these withdrawals, acquiescences and
understandings not one of them had given any outward sign. They had kept
their spoken compact. They had left each other free.

As for his mere marriage, he was certain with all of them to be
understood. It was their business, as they had so often told each other,
to understand. But he was not sure that he wanted to be understood with
the lucidity, the dep