He could count on about half an hour of this illusion before Flossie appeared. Afraid of losing one moment of it, he began instantly on the thing he had to say.

"All this time I've been waiting to thank you for your introduction to Fielding."

"Oh," she said eagerly, "what did he say? Tell me."

He told her. As she listened he could see how small a pleasure was enough to give life again to her tired face.

"I am so glad," she said in the low voice of sincerity; "so very glad." She paused. "That justifies my belief in you. Not that it needed any justification."

"I don't know. Your cousin, who is the best critic I know, would tell you that it did."

"My cousin--perhaps. But he _does_ see that those poems are great.

Only he's so made that I think no greatness reconciles him to--well, to little faults, if they are faults of taste."

"Did you find many faults of taste?"

She smiled. "I found some; but only in the younger poems. There were none--none at all--in the later ones. Which of course is what one might expect."

"It is, indeed. Did you look at the dates? Did you notice that all those later things were written either at Harmouth, or after?"

"I did."

"And didn't that strike you as significant? Didn't you draw any conclusions?"

"I drew the conclusion 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 c.o.c.kney 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 always feels, you know, as if he'd got the body under the sofa. It's like homicidal mania; the poor wretch may be cured, but he lives in terror of an attack returning. He knows it doesn't matter what he is or what he does; he may live like a saint or write like an archangel; but one aitch omitted from his conversation will wreck him at the last."

"You needn't be afraid; you never omit them."

"You mean I never omit them now. But I did five years ago. I couldn't help it. Everybody about me did it. The only difference between them and me was that I knew it, and they didn't."

"You _were_ conscious of it, then?"

"Conscious? Do you know, that for every lapse of the sort in your presence I suffered the torments of the d.a.m.ned? Do you suppose I didn't know how terrible I was?"

She shook her head, this time with disapproval. "You shouldn't say these things."

"Do you mean, I shouldn't say them, or shouldn't say them to you?"

"Well, I think you shouldn't say them to me. Don't you see that it sounds as if I had done or said something to make you feel like that."

"You? Good Heavens! rather not! But whatever you said or did, I couldn't help knowing how you thought of me."

"And how was that?"

"Well, as half a poet, you know, and half a hair-dresser."

"That's funny; but it's another of the things you shouldn't say.

Because you know it isn't true."

"I only say them because I want you to see how impossible it was."