xalted by the glories of abnegation that he began to despise
himself in his former attitude as a trifler among books and to say to
himself, as he looked at the volumes which had survived this heartless
clearance, that now he was set on the great fairway of literature
without any temptation to diverge up the narrow streams of personal
taste. The bookseller's assistant was not at all eager for the proffered
bargain, and in the end Guy could only manage to obtain the L30 and not,
as he had hoped, another L10 towards his debts. Nevertheless, he locked
the cheque up in his desk with the satisfaction of a man who for the
first time in his life earns money, and later on went across to tell
Pauline the result of the visit to London.

There was a smell of frost in the air that afternoon, and the sharpness
of the weather consorted well with Guy's mood, taking away the heavy
sense of disappointment and giving him a sparkling hopefulness. He and
Pauline went for a walk on Wychford down, and in the wintry cheer he
would not allow her to be cast down at the loss of his books or to
resent Worrall's reception of the poems.

"Everything is all right," he assured her. "The more we have to deny
ourselves now, the greater will be my success when it comes. The law of
compensation never fails. You and I are Davidsbuendler marching against
the Philistines. So be brave, my Pauline."

"I will try to be brave," she promised. "But it's harder for me because
I'm doing nothing."

"Oh, nothing," said Guy. "Nothing except endow me with passion and
ambition, with consolation ... oh, nothing, you foolish one."

"Am I really all that to you?"

"Forward," he shouted, hurling his stick in front of him and dragging
Pauline at the heels of Bob across turf that was already beginning to
crackle in the frost. Pauline could not resist his confidence, and when
at last they had to turn round and leave a smoky orange sunset, they
came home glowing to the Rectory, both in the highest spirits. Guy wrote
to the publisher that night and announced his intention of accepting the
"offer," a word which he could not resist framing with inverted commas
in case the sarcastic shaft might pierce Mr. Worrall's hard and conical
head.

Sitting back in his chair and thinking over his poems, all sorts of
verbal improvements suggested themselves to Guy; and he added a note
asking for the manuscript to be sent back for a few corrections. He
looked at his work with new eyes wh