"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 dullness 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."
"Never! Never! Every hour, every moment cries 'never!'"
In her heart she told herself that at least none but she could ever love him so well; and in the strange confidence his father's visit had given to her she told him in her turn how every hour and every moment made her more dependent upon his love.
"I want nothing but you, nothing, nothing. I've given up everything for you."
"What have you given up?" he demanded, at once, jealously and triumphantly regarding her.
"Oh, nothing really; but all the foolish little interests. Nothing, my dearest, only pigeons and music and working woolen birds and visiting poor people. Such foolish little things ... and yet things that were once upon a time frightfully important."