He said: "You cannot tread two ways at once. You said your genius was a giant angel sitting in a cave, with huge wings furled."
"Yes; but since then the genius of Anne-Marie has flown with clarion wings into the light."
"You said that your unexpressed thoughts, your unfulfilled destiny, hurt you."
"Yes; but am I to silence a singing fountain of music in order that my silent, unwritten books may live?"
He did not speak for some time. Then he said: "Has it never occurred to you that it might be better for the little girl to be just a little girl, and nothing else?"
"No," said Nancy. "It never occurred to me."
"Might it not have been better if you yourself, instead of being a poet, had been merely a happy woman?"
"Ah, perhaps!" said Nancy. "But Glory looked me in the face when I was young—Glory, the sorcerer!—the Pied Piper!—and I have had to follow. Through the days and the nights, through and over and across everything, his call has dragged at my heart. And, oh! it is not his call that hurts; it is the being pulled back and stopped by all the outstretched hands. The small, everyday duties and the great loves that hold one and keep one and stop one—they it is that break one's heart in two. Yes, in two, for half one's heart has gone away with the Piper." She drew in a long breath, remembering many things. Then she said: "And now he is piping to Anne-Marie. She has heard him, and she will go. And if her path leads over my unfulfilled hopes and my unwritten books, she shall tread and trample and dance on them. And good luck to her!"
"Well, then—good luck to her!" said the Ogre.