"Yes, of course. But a desire for the stimulus of other people isn't the only reason for leaving Plashers Mead. I can't afford it here. My debts are really getting impossible to manage, and unless I can show my father that I'm ready to do anything to be a writer, as I can't go out to Persia, well ... frankly I don't know what will happen. I gave Burrows notice at Midsummer." "You never told me," said Pauline. "Well, no, I was afraid you'd be upset and I wanted you to have this quiet time when I was away...." "You don't trust me any more," she said. "Oh, yes, I do, but I thought it would worry you. I know my money affairs do worry you. But now I shall be all right. I'll come down here often, you know, and, oh, really, dearest girl, it is better that I should be in London. So don't be jealous, will you, and don't torment yourself about my debts, will you, and don't think that you are anything but everything to me." "I expect you'll enjoy being in London," she said slowly shredding the flowers from a spray of wild mignonette. "I hope I shall be so busy that I won't have time to regret Wychford," said Guy. He had by now broken off all the rank flowers in reach, and the sour stony ground was littered with seeds and pungent heads of bloom and ragged stalks. "You'll never regret Wychford," she said. "Never. Because I've spoilt it for you, my darling." She touched his hand gently and drew close to him, but only timidly; and as she made the movement a flight of goldfinches lighted upon the swaying thistle-down in the hollow of the waste land. "Pauline! Pauline!" he cried and would have kissed her passionately, but she checked him: "No, no, I just want to lean my head upon your shoulder for a little while." Above her murmur he heard the rustle of the goldfinches' song in parting cadences upon the air, rising and falling: and looking down at Pauline in the sunlight, he felt that she was a wounded bird he should be cherishing. _August_ The wedding of Richard and Margaret dreamed of for so long strung Pauline to a pitch of excitement that made her seem never more positively herself. She was conscious as she gazed in the mirror on that Lammas morning that the tired look at the back of her eyes had gone and that in her muslin dress sown with rosebuds she appeared exactly as she ought to have appeared in any prefiguration of herself in bridesmaid's attire. Feeling as she did in a way the principal architect of Richard and Margaret's happiness, she was determined at whatever cost of dejection afterward to bring to the completion of her design all the enthusiasm she had brought to its conception. "Do you like me as a bridesmaid?" she asked Guy. And he with obviously eager welcome of the old Pauline could not find enough words to say how much he liked her. "Richard of course is wearing a tail-coat," she murmured.