"No, no. How could you seem dull to me?"
"But I'm not clever...."
"Avoid that wretched word," he cried. "It can only be applied to thieves, politicians and lawyers. I have told you a thousand times what you are to me, and I will not tell you again because I don't want to be an egotist. I don't want to represent you to myself as a creature that exists for me. You are a being to whom I aspire. If we live for ever I shall have still to aspire to you and never be nearer than the hope of deserving you."
"But your poetry, Guy, are you sure I appreciate it? Are you sure I'm not just a silly little thing lost in admiration of whatever you do?"
Guy brushed her doubts aside.
"Poetry is life trembling on the edge of human expression," he declared. "You are my life, and my poor verse faints in its powerlessness to say so. I always must be alone to blame if the treasure that you are is not proved to the world."
How was she to convince him of her unworthiness, how was she to persuade this lover of hers that she was too simple a creature for his splendid enthronement? Suddenly one day he would see her in all her dulness and ordinariness, and turning from her in disillusion, he would hold her culpable for anything in his work that might seem to have betrayed his ambition.
"Guy," she called into the future. "You will always love me?"
"Will there ever be another Pauline?"
"Oh, there might be so easily."