There we have the Mary Chaworth legend as it has been handed down from one generation of biographers to another. Byron, according to that legend, saw Mary once after her marriage, but once only. He was on the point of visiting her at a later date, but was dissuaded by his sister. "If you go," Augusta said, "you will fall in love again, and then there will be a scene; one step will lead to another, _et cela fera un éclat_." He agreed that the reasoning was sound, and did as he was advised. He tells that story himself, and adds: "Shortly after, I married." And yet--the legend continues--this hopeless love, which touched his heart at the age of fifteen, was the dominating influence of his life. Mary Chaworth, though always absent, was yet always present. He never loved any other woman, though he tried to love, and indeed seemed to love, several. The vision of her face always came between him and them. His later love affairs were only concessions, or attempts to escape from himself and his memories--unavailing attempts, for this memory continued to haunt him until the end. It sounds incredible. The thoughts of youth may be long, long thoughts; but the memories of youth are short, and the dreams of youth are dreams from which we never fail to wake. And yet Byron insists, quite as much as biographers have insisted. He insists in "The Dream," which was written more than a decade after the parting. He insists in later poems, the inner meaning of which is hardly to be questioned. So that speculation is challenged, and, when pursued, leads us inevitably to a dilemma. For of two things, one: Either Byron was posing--posing not only to the world but to himself; or else the story, as all the biographers from Moore to Cordy Jeaffreson have told it, is incomplete, and after an interlude, had a sequel. To search for such a sequel will be our task presently. Unless we can find one, the development of the personal note in Byron's work will have to be left unexplained. The impression which we get, if we read the more personal poems in quick succession, is of a man who first awakes from the dream of love--and remains very wide awake for a season--and then relapses and dreams it all over again. Unless the story which first set him dreaming had had a sequel, that would hardly be. So we will seek for the sequel in due course, though we must first gather up the incidents of the interlude. CHAPTER IV LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE AND FLIRTATIONS AT SOUTHWELL