She looked at him again and caught him smiling surreptitiously under his heavy gloom.
"I mean," he said, "you needn't be. You wouldn't be if you didn't work so hard."
She crumpled her eyelids like one who fails to see.
"If I didn't what?"
"Work so hard."
He really wanted to know whether it was that or Prothero. First it had been Tanqueray, and she had got over Tanqueray. Now he could only suppose that it was Prothero. He would have to wait until she had got over Prothero.
"I like that," said she, "when it's your serial I'm working on."
"Do you mean to tell me," said Brodrick, "that it's that?"
"I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn't let me talk about it. Not that I wanted to talk about it when the bare idea of it terrifies me. It's awful to have it hanging over me like this."
"Forget it. Forget it," he said.