He sat at his writing-table, tried to work and accomplished nothing. His heart waited for the stroke of nine.
At nine there came to his summons the little, lean, brown man, Rose's uncle. Eldred, who was a groom, was attired with excessive horsiness. He refused to come further into the room than its threshold, where he stood at attention, austerely servile, and respectfully despotic.
The interview in all points resembled Tanqueray's encounter with Mrs. Eldred; except that the little groom, who knew his world, was even more firmly persuaded that the gentleman was playing with his Rose.
"And we can't 'ave that, sir," said Eldred.
"You're not going to have it."
"No, sir, we ain't," reiterated Eldred. "We can't 'ave any such goin's on 'ere."
"Look here—don't be an idiot—it isn't your business, you know, to interfere."
"Not my business? When 'er father left 'er to me? I should like to know what is my business," said Mr. Eldred hotly.
Tanqueray saw that he would have to be patient with him. "Yes, I know. That's all right. Don't you see, Eldred, I'm going to marry her."
But his eagerness woke in Eldred a ghastlier doubt. Rose's uncle stood firmer than ever, not turning his head, but casting at Tanqueray a small, sidelong glance of suspicion.
"And why do you want to marry her, sir? You tell me that."
Tanqueray saw.
"Because I want her. And it's the only way to get her. Do you need me to tell you that?"
The man reddened. "I beg your pardon, sir."
"You beg her pardon, you mean."
Eldred was silent. He had been hit hard, that time. Then he spoke.
"Are you certain sure of your feelin's, sir?"
"I'm certain of nothing in this world except my feelings."
"Because" (Eldred was slow but steady and indomitable in coming to his point), "because we don't want 'er 'eart broke."
"You're breaking it, you fool, every minute you stand there. Give me her address."
In the end he gave it.
Down-stairs, in the kitchen, by the ashes of the raked-out fire, he discussed the situation with his wife.
"Did you tell him plain," said Mrs. Eldred, "that we'd 'ave no triflin'?"
"I did."
"Did you tell 'im that if 'e was not certain sure 'e wanted 'er, there was a young man who did?"
Eldred said nothing to that question. He lit a pipe and began to smoke it.
"Did you tell 'im," his wife persisted, "about Mr. Robinson?"
"No, I didn't, old girl."
"Well, if it 'ad bin me I should have said, 'Mr. Tanqueray, for all you've fam'ly on your side and that, we're not so awful anxious for Rose to marry you. We'd rather 'ave a young man without fam'ly, in a good line o' business and steady risin'. And we know of such as would give 'is 'ead to 'ave 'er.' That's wot I should 'ave said."
"I dessay you would. I didn't say it, because I don't want 'im to 'ave 'er. That I don't. And if 'e was wantin' to cry off, and I was to have named Mr. Robinson, that'd 'ave bin the very thing to 'ave stirred 'im up to gettin' 'er. That's wot men is, missis, and women, too, all of 'em I've ever set eyes on. Dorgs wot'll leave the bone you give 'em, to fight for the bone wot another dorg 'e's got. Wot do you say to that, Mrs. Smoker, old girl?"
Mrs. Smoker, the Aberdeen, pricked up her ears and smiled, with her eyes only, after the manner of her breed.
"Anyhow," said Mrs. Eldred, "you let 'im see as 'ow we wasn't any way snatchin' at 'im?"
"I did, missis."
VI
Mr. Eldred, groom and dog fancier, profoundly musing upon human nature and illuminated by his study of the lower animals, had hit upon a truth. Once let him know that another man desired to take Rose away from him and Mr. Tanqueray would be ten times more desirous to have her. What Mr. Eldred did not see was the effect upon Mr. Tanqueray of Rose's taking herself away, or he would not have connived at her departure. "Out o' sight, out o' mind," said Mr. Eldred, arguing again from his experience of the lower animals.
But with Tanqueray, as with all creatures of powerful imagination, to be out of sight was to be perpetually in mind.
All night, in this region of the mind, Rose's image did battle with Jane's image and overcame it.
It was not only that Jane's charm had no promise for his senses. She was unfit in more ways than one. Jane was in love with him; yet her attitude implied resistance rather than surrender. Rose's resistance, taking, as it did, the form of flight, was her confession of his power. Jane held her ground; she stood erect. Rose bowed before him like a flower shaken by the wind. He loved Rose because she was small and sweet and subservient. Jane troubled and tormented him. He revolted against the tyranny of Jane.
Jane was not physically obtrusive, yet there were moments when her presence in a room oppressed him. She had further that disconcerting quality of all great personalities, the power to pursue and seize, a power so oblivious, so pure from all intention or desire, that there was no flattery in it for the pursued. It persisted when she was gone. Neither time nor space removed her. He could not get away from Jane. If he allowed himself to think of her he could not think of anything else. But he judged that Rose's minute presence in his memory would not be disturbing to his other thoughts.
His imagination could play tenderly round Rose. Jane's imagination challenged his. It stood, brandishing its flaming sword before the gates of any possible paradise. There was something in Jane that matched him, and, matching, rang defiance to his supremacy. Jane plucked the laurel and crowned herself. Rose bowed her pretty head and let him crown her. Laurel crowns, crowns of glory, for Jane. The crown of roses for Rose.
He meant, of course, the wedding-wreath and the wedding-ring. His conversation with the Eldreds had shown him that marriage had not entered into their humble contemplations; also that if there was no question of marriage, there could be no question of Rose.
He had known that in the beginning, he had known it from the uncompromising little Rose herself. From the first flowering of his passion until now, he had seen marriage as the sole means to its inevitable end. Tanqueray had his faults, but it was not in him to bring the creature he loved to suffering and dishonour. And the alternative, in Rose's case, was not dishonour, but frustration, which meant suffering for them both. He would have to give Rose up unless he married her.
At the moment, and the moment's vision was enough for him, he saw no reason why he should not marry her. He wanted to obtain her at once and to keep her for ever. She was not a lady and she knew it; but she had a gentleness, a fineness of the heart which was the secret of her unpremeditated charm. Without it Rose might have been as pretty as she pleased, she would not have pleased Tanqueray. He could withstand any manifestly unspiritual appeal, restrained by his own fineness and an invincible disdain. Therefore, when the divine folly fell upon him, he was like a thing fresh from the last touch of the creator, every sense in him unworn and delicate and alert.
And Rose had come to him when the madness of the quest was on him, a madness so strong that it overcame his perception of her social lapses. It was impossible to be unaware of some of them, of certain phrases, of the sudden wild flight of her aspirates. But these things were entangled with her adorable gestures, with the soft ways of her mouth, with her look when she hung about him, nursing him; so that a sane judgment