y existence. Guy, with the prospect of his poems appearing in
the Autumn, felt that he was justified in forgetting responsibilities
and, having weathered the financial crisis of the March quarter, he had
now nothing to worry him until Midsummer. That was the date he had fixed
upon in his mind as suitable for making a determined attempt upon
London. He had planned to shut up Plashers Mead and to take a small room
in Chelsea, whence he would conquer in a few months the material
obstacles that prevented their marriage. The poems, now that they were
in print, seemed a less certain talisman to fame; but they would serve
their purpose, indeed they had served their purpose already, for this
long-secluded time would surely counterbalance the too easy victories of
journalism. He would surely by now have lost that spruce Oxford
cleverness, and might fairly expect to earn his living with dignity. The
least success would justify his getting married, and Pauline would enjoy
two years spent high in some London attic within the sound of chirping
sparrows and the distant whispers of humanity. They would perhaps be
able to afford to fly for magic weeks to Plashers Mead, pastoral
interludes in that crowded life which lay ahead. How everything had
resolved itself latterly, and how the gift of glorious May should be
accepted as the intimate and dearest benefaction to their love! He and
Pauline were together from earliest morn to the last minute of these
rich and shadowy eves. They wreathed their boat with boughs of
apple-blossom and went farther up the river than they had ever gone.
The cuckoo was still in tune, and still the kingcups gilded all that
hollow land; there was not yet the lush growth of weeds and reeds that
indolent June would use to delay their dreaming progress; and still all
the trees and all the hedges danced with that first sharp green of
Spring, that cold and careless green of Spring.

Then when the hawthorn came into prodigal bloom, and all the rolling
country broke in endless waves of blossom, Pauline in her muslin dress
seemed like an airy joy sustained by all these multitudinous petals,
dancing upon this flowery tide, this sweet foam of May.

"My flower, my sweet, are you indeed mortal?" he whispered.

The texture of her sleeve against his was less tangible than the light
breeze that puffed idly from the south to where they sat enraptured upon
the damasked English grass. Apple-blossom powdered her lap and starred
h