in another way."

"The dishonour would come in if you'd left off caring for her. And you
haven't done that. It would come in a little now, I think, if you said
that you didn't care. But you don't say it; you don't even think it.
Shall I tell you the truth? You've let your genius get too strong a
hold over you. You've let it get hold, too, of this feeling that you
had for me. And now, though you know perfectly well--as well as I
do--that it's all over, your genius is trying to persuade you that the
feeling is still there when it isn't."

"That is not so, but you can say it is, if it makes you any happier."

"It does make me happier to think that it's your genius, not you, that
says these things. For I can forgive your genius; but I couldn't have
forgiven you."

At that moment he felt a savage jealousy of his genius, because she
loved it. "And yet, you said a little while ago you couldn't separate
the two."

"You have obliged me to separate them, to find an excuse for you. This
ought not to have happened; but it could not have happened to a man
who was not a poet."

All the time she was miserably aware that she was trying to defend
herself with subtleties against the impact of a terrible reality. And
because that reality must weigh more heavily on him than her, she was
trying to defend him too, against himself, to force on him, against
himself, her own subtilizing, justifying view.

But his subtlety was a match for hers. "Your cousin once did me the
honour to say I was one-seventh part a poet, and upon my honour I
prefer his estimate to yours."

"What is mine?"

"That I'm nothing but a poet. That there wasn't enough of me left over
to make a man."

"That is not my estimate, and you know it. I think you so much a man
that your heart will keep you right, even though your genius has led
you very far astray."

"Is that all you know about it?"

"Well, I'm not sure that it is your genius, this time. I rather think
it's your sense of honour. I believe you think that because you once
cared for me you've got to go on caring, lest I should accuse you of
being faithless to your dream." ("Surely," she said to herself, "I've
made it easy for him now?")

But the word was too much for him. "For Goodness' sake don't talk to
me any more about my dream. You may think any mortal thing you like
about me, so long as you don't do that."

She smiled faintly, as if with an effort at forbearance. "Very well
then, I won't talk