Next morning Mrs. Grey sent round to ask if Guy would come to lunch early enough to have a talk with her first.
"Yes ... charming.... I really wanted us to have a little talk together," she said in nervous welcome as she led the way to her own sitting-room, that with its red lacquer and its screen painted with birds-of-paradise hid itself away in a corner of the house. Ordinarily Guy would have accepted it as a sign of the highest favor to be brought to her small room, but this morning it seemed to imprison him.
"Yes ... charming ... a little talk," said Mrs. Grey; and Guy, while he waited for her to begin, watched the mandarins that moved in absurd reduplications all about her arm-chair's faded green pattern.
"Of course it was rather a surprise to us all last night ... yes.... I expect it was a surprise to you. And you really think you ought to go?"
"I'm getting rather discouraged about poetry," Guy confessed. "I'm beginning to think that what I've written isn't much good, and that if I am ever going to write anything worth while it will be because I've learned to be less self-conscious about it. If I went to Persia with Sir George Gascony I should probably be kept fairly busy, and if there was any poetry left in me after that, well, it might be good stuff."
"But you've not seen yet what people think of what you have written ... no ... you see, the poems haven't been published yet, which is very vexing ... and so I thought.... I mean the Rector thought that if there was any difficulty he would like to help you to publish them ... yes ... rather than go away to Persia ... you know ... yes ... poor little Pauline was crying nearly all night, and I don't think you ought to go away suddenly like this ... no ... and we couldn't find an atlas anywhere!"
"You think I ought not to go?" said Guy, and he realized as he spoke that he was disappointed.
"I do think that after all these months of hoping for your poems to be a success you ought at least to try them first, and then afterwards we can talk about Persia. I'm afraid you think I've been too strict about Pauline ... perhaps I have ... yes ... and so I think that now Spring is here you can go out every day ... yes ... charming ... now that the weather is getting better...."
But now every day, thought Guy, bitterly, there would be recriminations between them.
"Of course if you think I ought not to go, I won't," he said. "I'll write to Comeragh and refuse."