“You’ve never heard of my effusions otherwise, though?” He put on a rueful air. “Such is fame!”
“Are you famous?” Her smile was a little troubled. “I don’t follow things, you know, living here as I do.”
“You read the papers. I have had reviews: good ones.”
“I don’t read them very regularly,” she admitted. “And I so often don’t remember the names of people in reviews, even when I’ve liked what is said of them. Have you any of your poems here? Perhaps you’ll let me read them.”
He felt, with the familiar chagrin, that she would never, of herself, have thought of asking him.
“Yes, my last volume. It’s just out.”
He was going for a walk in the rain with Mr. Haseltine that afternoon. There was an old church in the neighbouring village that his friend wanted him to see. Mrs. Baldwin had letters to write. “Will you have time to look at it while we are out?” he asked.
Although she had shown so little interest in him, he was eager, pathetically so, he felt, that she should read and care about his poems. She said that it was just the time: her letters would not take long. And so he ran up to his room and got the little book for her: Burnt Offerings.
All the time that he was walking with Mr. Haseltine and seeing the church, and the old manor house that took them a half mile further, he wondered what she was thinking about his poems.
By the time they had returned the rain had ceased. A warm September sunlight diffused itself. Veils lifted from the stream and trailed upon the lower meadows. The sky grew clear and the leaves all sparkled. They found that Mrs. Baldwin had had her cup of tea, for it was past four; but all had been left in readiness for them, the kettle boiling; and after Guy had swallowed his, he went out and saw her walking down among the crocuses.