said Guy, as she paused, "my staying on here and apparently
doing nothing? But, Margaret, really I can't leave Pauline to be a
schoolmaster, and surely you of all people can understand that?"

"Oh no, I wasn't thinking of that," said Margaret. "I think, in fact,
you're right to stay here and keep at what you're trying to do. If it
was ever worth doing, it must be doubly worth doing now. Oh no, the only
criticism I shall make is of something so small that you'll wonder how I
can think it even worth mentioning. Guy, you know the photograph of
Pauline which Mother used to have and which she gave to you?"

Guy nodded.

"Well, I happened to see it on the table by your bunk, and I wonder why
you've taken it out of its simple little wooden frame and put it in a
silver one?"

Guy was taken aback, and when he asked himself why he had done this he
could not find a reason. Now that Margaret had spoken of it, the
consciousness of the exchange flooded him with shame as for an
unforgivable piece of vandalism. Why, indeed, had he bought that silver
frame and put the old wooden frame away, and where was the old wooden
frame? In one of the drawers in his desk he thought; resolving this very
night to restore it to the photograph and fling the usurper into the
river.

"I can't think why I did," he stammered to Margaret.

"You've no idea how much this has worried me," she said. "I never had
any doubts about your appreciation of Pauline."

"And now you have," said Guy, biting his lip with mortification.

The landscape fading from the stern of the barge oppressed him with the
sadness of irreparable acts that are committed heedlessly, but after
which nothing is ever quite the same. He wished he could tear to pieces
that silver frame.

"No, I won't have any doubts," said Margaret, offering him her hand
again and smiling. "You've taken my criticism so sweetly that the change
can't symbolize so much as I feared."

It was very well to be forgiven like this, Guy thought, but the memory
of his blunder was still hot upon his cheek and he felt a deep
humiliation at the treachery of his taste. He had meant, when he came
here to talk to Margaret, to ask her about herself and Richard, to
display a captivating sympathy and restore to their pristine affection
her relations with him, which latterly had seemed to diverge somewhat
from one another. Now haunted by that silver frame, which with every
moment of thought appeared more and more insiste