ed that offer of Persian adventure. Not until now had he
realized how much he had been resenting the performance of a duty.

"You've hardly told me anything about your time in London," said
Pauline.

He looked at her sharply in case this might be a prelude to jealous
interrogation.

"There's nothing much to tell. I settled that my poems should appear
anonymously. I'm afraid their publication may otherwise do me more harm
than good."

"All your poems?" she asked, wistfully.

He nodded, impelled by a strong desire for absolute honesty, though he
would have liked to except the poems about her, knowing how much she
must be wounded to hear even them called worthless.

"Then I've been no good to you at all?"

"Of course you have. Because these poems are no good, it doesn't follow
that what I write next won't be good. And yet I'm uncertain whether I
ought to go on merely writing. I'm beginning to wonder if I oughtn't to
have gone out to Persia with Gascony? I refused the job because I
thought it would upset you. And so, dearest Pauline, when next you feel
jealous, do remember that. Do remember that it is always you who come
first. Don't think I'm regretful about Persia. I'm only wondering on
your account if I ought to have gone. It would have made our marriage in
three years a certainty, but still I hope by journalism to make it
certain in one year. Are you glad, my Pauline?"

"Yes, of course I'm glad," she answered, without fervor.

"And you won't be jealous of my friends? Because it's impossible to be
in London without friends, you know."

"I told you I should never be enough."

Guy tried not to be irritated by this.

"If you would only be reasonable! I realize now that for me at my age
it's foolish to withdraw from my contemporaries. I shall stagnate. These
two years have not been wasted...."

"Yes, they have," she interrupted, "if your poems are not worth your
name."

"Dearest, these two years may well be the foundation on which I build
all the rest of my life."

"May they?"

"Yes, of course. But a desire for the stimulus of other people isn't the
only reason for leaving Plashers Mead. I can't afford it here. My debts
are really getting impossible to manage, and unless I can show my father
that I'm ready to do anything to be a writer, as I can't go out to
Persia, well ... frankly I don't know what will happen. I gave Burrows
notice at Midsummer."

"You never told me," said Pauline.

"Well, no, I wa