on that--that the poet I knew had worked out his
own salvation."

"Exactly--the poet you knew. Didn't it occur to you that he might
never have done it, if you hadn't known him?"

He looked at her steadily. The colour on her face had deepened, but
her eyes, as they met his, were grave and meditative. She seemed to be
considering the precise meaning of his words before she answered.

"No, I didn't."

"What, never? Think. Don't you remember how you used to help me?"

She shook her head. "I only remember that I meant to have helped you.
And I was very sorry because I couldn't. But I see now how absurd it
was of me; and how unnecessary."

He knew that she was thinking now of her private secretary.

"It was beautiful of you. But, you know, it couldn't have happened. It
was one of those beautiful things that never can happen."

"That's why I was so sorry. I thought it must look as if I hadn't
meant it."

"But you did mean it. Nothing can alter that, can it?"

"No. You must take the will for the deed."

"I do. The will is the only thing that matters."

"Yes. But--it was absurd of me--but I thought you might have been
counting on it?"

"Did I count on it? I suppose I did; though I knew it was impossible.
You forget that I knew all the time it was impossible. It was only a
beautiful idea."

"I'm sorry, then, that it had to remain an idea."

"Don't be sorry. Perhaps that's the only way it could remain
beautiful. It wouldn't have done, you know. You only thought it could
because you were so kind. It was all very well for me to work for you
for three weeks or so. It would have been very different when you had
me on your hands for a whole year at a stretch. And it's much better
for me that it never came off than if I'd had to see you sorry for it
afterwards."

"If I had been sorry, I should not have let you see it."

"I should have seen it, though, whether you let me or not. I always
see these things."

"But I think, you know, that I wouldn't have been sorry."

"You would! You would! You couldn't have stood me."

"I think I could."

"What, a person with a villainous cockney accent? Who was capable of
murdering the Queen's English any day in your drawing-room?"

"Oh, no; whatever you do you'll never do that."

"Well, I don't know. I'm not really to be trusted unless I've got a
pen in my hand. I'm better than I used to be. I've struggled against
it. Still, a man who has once murdered the Queen's English al