Brodrick's shameless intention had been to out-stay Nicky. And as long as Nicky's approaches were so delicate as to provoke only delicate evasions, Brodrick stayed. But in the end poor Nicky turned desperate and put it to him point-blank. "Was there, or was there not to be a place for poets in the magazine?"
At that Brodrick got up and went.
"Nicky," said Jane, as the door closed on the retreating editor, "he came for my book, and I've made him take George Tanqueray's instead."
"I wish," said he, "you'd make him take my poems. But you can't. Nobody can make Brodrick do anything he doesn't want to."
"Oh——" said Jane, and dismissed Brodrick. "It's ages since I've seen you."
"I heard that you were immersed, and so I kept away."
"That was very good of you," said she.
It struck her when she had said it that perhaps it was not altogether what Nicky would have liked her to say.
"I was immersed," she said, "in Hambleby."
"Is he finished?"