"You think so? It seems to me the most unpredestined, the most horribly, fantastically fortuitous occurrence."
"It was what he wanted. Wouldn't you have given him what he wanted?"
"No," said Nicky, "not if it wasn't good for him."
"Oh, Nicky, how do you know what's good for him? You're not George Tanqueray."
"No. If I were I'd have——" He stopped. His passion, growing suddenly, recklessly, had brought him to the verge of the depth they were trying to avoid.
"If you were," said she, with amazing gaiety, "you'd have married this lady who isn't a lady. And then where would you have been?"
"Where indeed?" said Nicky bitterly.
Jane's face, so gay, became suddenly tragic. She looked away, staring steadily, dumbly, at something that she saw. Then he knew that he had raised a vision of the abyss, and of Tanqueray, their Tanqueray, sinking in it. He must keep her from contemplating that, or she would betray herself, she would break down.
He searched his heart for some consoling inspiration, and found none. It was his head which suggested that irrelevance was best.
"When," said he, by way of being irrelevant, "are you going to give us another big book?"