"I am glad he's coming back, Margaret. But oh, do tell me if you are going to marry him."
Margaret would not answer, but Pauline, all of whose hopes were roseate to-day, decided that Margaret had really made up her mind at last, and she went up-stairs full of penitence for her neglect of Richard, but determined to make up for it by the good news she would send both of herself and of him.
Wychford Rectory, Oxon,
December.
My dear Richard,—I am sorry that I've not written to you for so long, but I know you'll forgive me, because I have to think about so many things. Margaret has just told me you are coming back in April. Be sure it is April, because my birthday is on the first of May, you know, and you must be in England for my birthday. Margaret looked very happy when she said you were coming home. Richard, I am sure that everything will be perfect. Guy's book is finished, and perhaps it will be published in March. If it's published early in March, I will send you a copy so that you can read it on the steamer coming home. There are two poems about Margaret, who was very sympathetic with Guy over me! That's one of the reasons why I'm sure that everything will be perfect for you. Guy wants to meet you very much. He says he admires action. That's because I told him about your bridge. Your father and mother are always very sweet to us when we go and have tea with them. Miss Verney is going to wear caps. Birdwood asked if you would bring him back a Goorcha's—is that the way to spell it?—a Goorcha's knife because Godbold won't believe something he told him. Birdwood said you were a grand young chap and were wasted out in India. Father won a prize at Vincent Square for a yellow gladiolus. It's been christened—now I've forgotten what, but after somebody who had a golden throat. Guy's dog is a lamb. A merry Christmas, and lots of love from
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.