"Margaret," said Guy. "If this summer Pauline and I have seemed to run away from people...."
"Oh, but you have," Margaret interrupted. "I don't think I should find excuses, if I were you, for perhaps it's natural."
"I've fancied very often," he said, "that you've thought we were behaving selfishly."
"I think all lovers are selfish," she answered. "Only in your case you began in such an idyllic way that I thought you were going to be a wonderful exception. Guy, I do most dreadfully want you not to spoil in any way the perfectly beautiful thing that Pauline and you in love is. You won't, will you?"
"Have I yet?" asked Guy in rather a dismayed voice.
"Do you want me to be frank? Yes, of course you do, and anyway I must be frank," said Margaret. "Well, sometimes you have—I don't mean in wanting always to be alone or in asking her in to Plashers Mead to say good-night. No, I don't mean in those ways so much. Of course they make me feel a little sad, but smaller things than that make me more uneasy."
"You mean," said Guy as she paused, "my staying on here and apparently doing nothing? But, Margaret, really I can't leave Pauline to be a schoolmaster, and surely you of all people can understand that?"
"Oh, no, I wasn't thinking of that," said Margaret. "I think in fact you're right to stay here and keep at what you're trying to do. If it was ever worth doing, it must be doubly worth doing now. Oh, no, the only criticism I shall make is of something so small that you'll wonder how I can think it even worth mentioning. Guy, you know the photograph of Pauline which Mother used to have and which she gave you?"
Guy nodded.
"Well, I happened to see it on the table by your bunk, and I wonder why you've taken it out of its simple little wooden frame and put it in a silver one?"