DEAR GUY,--Sir George Gascony asked me to-day if I knew of some
one who would suit him as private secretary. He's going out to
Persia next month. I told him about you. Come up to town and meet
him. He's dining here on Thursday. I'm certain you can have the
job.
Yours ever,
COMERAGH.
At first the letter only presented itself to his imagination as an easy
way of punishing Pauline's hysteria. It seemed to him the very weapon
that was wanted to "give her a lesson," and after dinner he went across
to the Rectory and announced his news in front of everybody, asking
everybody if they did not think he ought to go, and talking
enthusiastically of Oriental adventure until quite late. He sternly
refused to allow himself a moment alone with Pauline in which to talk
over the plan; and, even when they were left alone together in the hall,
he kissed her good night hurriedly and silently and rather guiltily.
When Guy was back at home and thought about his behavior, he began to
wonder if he had committed himself to Persia too finally. The prospect,
except so far as it would affect Pauline, had not really sunk into his
mind yet, but now as he read the letter over he began to think that he
really would like to go. It might mean a separation of two years, but it
would reconcile him to his father, and it would assure his marriage at
the end of the time. Persia might easily be almost as interesting as it
sounded, and how remote from debts looked Bagdad. If last year he had
been able practically to settle to be a schoolmaster, how much more
easily could this resolution be taken. Dreamily he let his imagination
play round the notion of Persia, dreamily and rather pleasantly it would
solve so many difficulties, and it held the promise of so much active
romance.
Next morning Mrs. Grey sent round to ask if Guy would come to lunch
early enough to have a talk with her first.
"Yes ... charming.... I really wanted us to have a little talk
together," she said in nervous welcome as she led the way to her own
sitting-room, that with its red lacquer and its screen painted with
birds-of-paradise hid itself away in a corner of the house. Ordinarily
Guy would have accepted it as a sign of the highest favor to be brought
to her small room, but this morning it seemed to imprison him.
"Yes ... charming ... a little talk," said Mrs. Grey; and Guy, while he
waited for her to begin, watched the mandarins that moved in absurd
reduplications all about her arm-chair's faded green pattern.
"Of course it was rather a surprise to us all last night ... yes.... I
expect it was a surprise to you. And you really think you ought to go?"
"I'm getting rather discouraged about poetry," Guy confessed. "I'm
beginning to think that what I've written isn't much good, and that if I
am ever going to write anything worth while it will be because I've
learned to be less self-conscious about it. If I went to Persia with Sir
George Gascony I should probably be kept fairly busy, and if there was
any poetry left in me after that, well, it might be good stuff."
"But you've not seen yet what people think of what you have written ...
no ... you see, the poems haven't been published yet, which is very
vexing ... and so I thought.... I mean the Rector thought that if there
was any difficulty he would like to help you to publish them ... yes ...
rather than go away to Persia ... you know ... yes ... poor little
Pauline was crying nearly all night, and I don't think you ought to go
away suddenly like this ... no ... and we couldn't find an atlas
anywhere!"
"You think I ought not to go?" said Guy, and he realized as he spoke
that he was disappointed.
"I do think that after all these months of hoping for your poems to be a
success you ought at least to try them first, and then afterwards we can
talk about Persia. I'm afraid you think I've been too strict about
Pauline ... perhaps I have ... yes ... and so I think that now Spring is
here you can go out every day ... yes ... charming ... now that the
weather is getting better...."
But now every day, thought Guy, bitterly, there would be recriminations
between them.
"Of course if you think I ought not to go, I won't," he said. "I'll
write to Comeragh and refuse."
"I'm sure you're glad, aren't you?"
"Oh, rather."
"We all understood why you thought you ought to go, and now I've another
plan ... yes ... charming.... I'm going to send Pauline away for a month
... with Miss Verney ... yes ... charming, charming plan ... and you
must make arrangements at once about your poems ... and then perhaps you
could give them to Pauline for her birthday...."
"But I don't think the Rector ought to pay for them," Guy objected.
"The Rector wants to pay for them. But, of course, he won't say anything
about it, and you will have to make the arrangements yourself."
"You're all so good to me, and I feel such a fraud," said Guy.
"You'd better make arrangements with the man you sent them to first ...
and Pauline needn't know anything about it ... and I sha'n't say I've
persuaded you not to go to China ... or else she will be worried ...
she's looking rather pale.... I think two or three weeks by the seaside
... Lyme Regis perhaps or Cromer ... Lyme Regis, I think, because the
trains to Folkstone have been torn out ... yes ... charming, charming."
After lunch Guy told Pauline in the garden that he had decided not to
accept the post he had been offered, and she was so obviously overjoyed
at his decision that he no longer had the heart to feel the slightest
disappointment.
"Guy, I've been so stupid," she told him. "I've depressed you without
any reason, but I will come back from Scarborough quite well."
Guy began to laugh.
"Oh, why are you laughing?"
"Dearest, because I cannot make out where you really are going."
"Scarborough, because Miss Verney has chosen Scarborough."
They talked for a while of the letters that each would write to the
other, and of what a Summer should follow that short parting, when every
day they would be together and when perhaps even such days as those at
Ladingford might come again.
"And you won't worry about anything all this time you're away?" Guy
asked.
"I won't, indeed I won't."
Guy went home to find a telegram from Comeragh saying that Sir George
Gascony had got appendicitis and would not be going to Persia for a
month or two at least. Yet he did not mention this telegram at the
Rectory when next day he came to say good-by to Pauline, because he was
anxious to preserve the idea of his having vainly attempted to do
something, and when he sat alone in his orchard the same afternoon, he
had an emotion of something very near to relief that for a while there
would be no more heart-searchings and stress, no more misgivings and
reproaches and despairs. He was perfectly happy, sitting by himself in
the orchard and staring at the blackthorn by the margin of the stream.