Your loving
Pauline.
Pauline looked forward to Richard's return because she hoped that if Margaret married him her own marriage to Guy would begin to appear more feasible, it being at present almost too difficult to imagine anything like marriage exploding upon the quietude of the Rectory. The return of Richard, from the moment she eyed it in relation to her own affairs, assumed an importance it had never possessed before when it was only an ideal of childish sentiment, and Pauline made of it a foundation on which she built towering hopes.
Guy, as soon as he had decided to publish his first volume, instantly acquired doubts about the prudence of the step, and he rather hurt Pauline's feelings by wanting Michael Fane to come and give him the support of his judgment.
"I told you I should never be enough," she said sadly.
He consoled her with various explanations of his reliance upon a friend's opinion, but he would not give up his idea of getting him and he wrote letter after letter until he was able to announce that for a week-end in mid-December Michael was actually pledged.
"And I do want you to like him," said Guy earnestly.
Pauline promised that of course she would like him, but in her heart she assured herself she never would. It was corulean winter weather when the friend arrived, and Pauline who had latterly taken up the habit of often coming into the churchyard to talk for a while with Guy across the severing stream, abandoned the churchyard throughout that week-end. Guy was vexed by her withdrawal and vowed that in consequence all the pleasure of the visit had been spoilt.
"For I've been rushing in and out all the time to see if you were not in sight, and I'm often absolutely boorish to Fane, who by the way loves your Rectory bedroom so much."
"Has he condescended to let your book appear?" asked Pauline.
"Oh, rather, he says that everything I've included is quite all right. In fact he's a much less severe critic than I am myself."