ginning of their love.

Bills came in by every post, but their ability to vex him had vanished
in the promise his manuscript gave of a speedy defeat of all material
difficulties. The reaction from the strain of decking his poems with the
final touches that were to precede the trial of public judgment gave
place to dreams. A dozen times Guy followed the manuscript step by step
of its journey from the moment the insentient mail-cart carried it away
from Wychford to the moment when Mr. William Worrall threw a first
casual glance to where it lay waiting for his perusal on the desk in the
Covent Garden office. Guy saw the office-boy send off the formal
post-card of acknowledgment that he had already received; and in his
dream he rather pitied the youth for his unconsciousness of what a
treasure he was acknowledging merely in the ordinary routine of a
morning's work. Perhaps the packet would lie unopened for two or three
days--in fact, probably Mr. Worrall might not yet have resumed work, as
they say, after a short Christmas vacation. Moreover, when he came back
to business, although at Guy's request for sponsors the poems had been
vouched for by one or two reputed friends of the publisher with whom he
was acquainted; he would no doubt still be inclined to postpone their
examination. Then one morning he would almost inadvertently cut the
string and glance idly at a page, and then....

At this point the author's mental visions varied. Sometimes Worrall
would be so deeply transfixed by the revelation of a new planet swimming
into ken that he would sit spellbound at his own good fortune, not
emerging from a trance of delight until he sent a telegram inviting the
poet to come post-haste to town and discuss terms. In other dreams the
publisher would distrust his own judgment and take the manuscript under
his arm to a critic of taste, anxiously watching his face and, as an
expression of admiration gradually diffused itself, knowing that his own
wild surmise had been true. There were many other variations of the
first reception of the poems, but they all ended in the expenditure of
sixpence on a telegram. Here the dream would amplify itself; and proofs,
binding, paper, danced before Guy's vision; while soon afterwards the
first reviews were coming in. At this stage the poet's triumph assumed a
hundred shapes and diversities, and ultimately he could never decide
between a leader on his work in _The Times_ headed A NEW GENIUS or an
e