She understood him. There was nothing on earth like Nicky's delicacy. He was telling her that he would accept any terms, the very lowest; that he knew how Tanqueray had impoverished her; that he could live on moments, the moments Tanqueray had left.
"There are none, Nicky. None," she said.
"I see this isn't one of them."
"All the moments—when there are any—will be more or less like this. I'm sorry," she said.
"So am I," said he. It was as if they were saying they were sorry he could not dine.
So monstrous was Nicky's capacity for illusion that he went away thinking he had given Jane up for the sake of her career.
And Jane tried to think of Nicky and be sorry for him. But she couldn't. She was immoderately happy. She had given up Brodrick's magazine and Brodrick's money for Tanqueray's sake. Tanks would have his chance. He would be able to take a house, and then that little wife of his wouldn't have to sit with her hands before her, fretting her heart away because of Tanks. She was pleased, too, because she had made Brodrick do what he hadn't meant and didn't want to do.
But as she lay in bed that night, not thinking of Brodrick, she saw suddenly Brodrick's eyes fixed on her with a look in them which she had not regarded at the time; and she heard him saying, in that queer, quiet voice of his, "I'm almost glad to have lost you this way."
"I wonder," she said to herself, "if he really spotted me."