"Not now."
She smiled appealingly, but not like a woman sure of the success of her appeal.
That lapse of certainty marked a difference in their relations. He chose to put it down to the strange circumstance of her celebrity; and, though he hesitated, he stayed. To stay was, after all, the thing which at the moment he most wanted to do. And the thing which Tanqueray most wanted to do at the moment that he invariably did. This temper of his had but one drawback, that it left him at the moment's mercy.
That was what he felt now when he found himself alone with her for the first time in many weeks.
She wondered how far he had seen through her. She had made the others go that he might stay with her, a palpable man[oe]uvre. Of course she would not have lent herself to it for any ordinary man. His genius justified her.
Six weeks ago she would not have had to retreat behind his genius. Six weeks ago she had never thought of his genius as a thing apart from him. There was her own genius, if it came to that. It had its rights. Six weeks ago she would not have had to apologize to herself for keeping him.
"I didn't know you could change your mind so quickly," he said.
"If you had my mind, George, you'd want to change it."
"What's wrong with your mind, Jinny?"
"It won't work."