"When your marriage, my dear, comes on the horizon—I don't mind how faint a horizon—of the probable, then it will be time to discuss matters in the practical way I suppose Mr. Hazlewood would like them to be discussed. Moreover in any case I forgot that the worthy gentleman was coming."
Pauline was anxious to make excuses for the Rector to Guy, but Guy when he came round next day was only apologetic for his own father's behaviour; and he and she came to a conclusion in the end that parents must be forgiven on account of their age.
"At the same time," Guy added, "I blame my father for his conventional outlook. He doesn't seem able to realize the extraordinary help that you are to my work. In fact he doesn't realize that my work is work. He's been teaching for so many years that now he can no longer learn anything. Your father's behaviour is reasonable. He doesn't take us quite seriously, but he leaves the situation to our disentanglement. Well, we shall convince him that nothing in the world is so simple as a love like ours; but the worst of my father is that even if he were convinced he would be more annoying than ever."
"You must make allowances, Guy. For one thing how few people, even when they're young, understand about love. Besides, he's anxious about your career."
"What right has he to be anxious?" Guy burst out. "If I fail, I pay the penalty, not he."
"But he would be so hurt if you failed," she urged.
"Pauline, if you can say that, you can imagine that I will fail. Even you are beginning to have doubts."
"I haven't any doubts," she whispered. "I know you will be famous. And yet I have doubts of another sort. I sometimes wonder if I shall be enough when you are famous."
The question she had raised launched Guy upon a sea of eloquence. He worried no more about his father, but only protested his dependence upon Pauline's love for everything that he would ever have accomplished.
"Yes, but I think I shall seem dull one day," she persisted with a shake of the head.