She would have suggested his meeting Brodrick, but that the way to Brodrick lay through Jane Holland. She remembered that the gods had thrust Jane Holland between her and George Tanqueray; and she was determined that they should put no woman between her and Owen Prothero. She had taken possession of him and she meant to keep him to herself. The supreme, irresistible temptation was to keep him to herself. It dominated her desire to serve his interests. But she had not refused him when he owned, shyly, that he would like to see George Tanqueray, the only living writer, he maintained, who had any passion for truth, any sweep, any clearness of vision.
It was Tanqueray, with that passion, that diabolical lucidity, that vision of his, who had made her realize the baseness of her secrecy. She had no right to keep Owen to herself. He was too valuable.
His innocence had given a sting to her remorse. He had remained so completely satisfied with what she had done for him, so wholly unaware of having been kept obscure when celebrity was possible. Things came, he seemed to say, or they didn't come. If you were wise you waited.
With his invincible patience he was waiting now, in her room up-stairs, standing before the bookcase with his back to the door. He stood absolutely still, his head and shoulders bowed over the book he was manifestly not reading. In this attitude he had an air of masterly indifference to time, of not caring how long he waited, being habituated to extravagant expenditure of moments and of days. Absorbed in some inward and invisible act, he was unaware of Nina as she entered.
She called him to the supper she had made ready for him. He swung round, returning as it were from an immense distance, and followed her.
He was hungry, and she had a fierce maternal joy in seeing him eat. It was after supper that they talked, as they sat by the window in the outer room, looking at the river, a river of night, lamp-starred.
Nina began it. "Owen," she said, "how did George Tanqueray strike you?"
He paused before he spoke. "I think," he said, "I never in my life saw anybody more on the look-out. It's terrible, that prowling genius, always ready to spring."
"I know," she said, "he sees everything."
"No, Nina, he doesn't. He's a man whose genius has made away with one half of his capacity for seeing. That's his curse! If your eyes are incessantly looking out they lose the power of looking in."