If Jane had had the face that Gisborne gave her she would never have had any charm for Tanqueray. For what Gisborne had tried to get was that oppressive effect of genius, heavily looming. Not a hint had he caught of her high levity, of her look when the bright devil of comedy possessed her, not a flash of her fiery quality, of her eyes' sudden gold, and the ways of her delicate, her brilliant mouth, its fine, deliberate sweep, its darting tilt, like wings lifted for flight.
When Tanqueray wanted to annoy Jane he told her that she looked like her portrait by Gisborne, R.A.
They were all going to the play together. But at the last moment, she, to Tanqueray's amazement, threw them over. She was too tired, she said, to go.
The celebrities pressed round her, voluble in commiseration. Of course, if she wasn't going, they wouldn't go. They didn't want to. They would sacrifice a thousand plays, but not an evening with Jane Holland. They bowed before her in all the postures and ceremonies of their adoration. And Jane Holland looked at them curiously with her tired eyes; and Tanqueray looked at her. He wondered how on earth she was going to get rid of them.
She did it with a dexterity he would hardly have given her credit for. Her tired eyes helped her.
Then, as the door was closing on them, she turned to him.
"Are you going with them," she said, "or will you stay with me?"
"I am certainly not going with them——" He paused, hesitating.
"Then—you'll stay?" For the first time in their intercourse she hesitated too.
"But you're tired?" he said.