“The dishonour would come in if you’d left off caring for her.  And you haven’t done that.  It would come in a little now, I think, if you said that you didn’t care.  But you don’t say it; you don’t even think it.  Shall I tell you the truth?  You’ve let your genius get too strong a hold over you.  You’ve let it get hold, too, of this feeling that you had for me.  And now, though you know perfectly well—­as well as I do—­that it’s all over, your genius is trying to persuade you that the feeling is still there when it isn’t.”

“That is not so, but you can say it is, if it makes you any happier.”

“It does make me happier to think that it’s your genius, not you, that says these things.  For I can forgive your genius; but I couldn’t have forgiven you.”

At that moment he felt a savage jealousy of his genius, because she loved it.  “And yet, you said a little while ago you couldn’t separate the two.”

“You have obliged me to separate them, to find an excuse for you.  This ought not to have happened; but it could not have happened to a man who was not a poet.”

All the time she was miserably aware that she was trying to defend herself with subtleties against the impact of a terrible reality.  And because that reality must weigh more heavily on him than her, she was trying to defend him too, against himself, to force on him, against himself, her own subtilizing, justifying view.

But his subtlety was a match for hers.  “Your cousin once did me the honour to say I was one-seventh part a poet, and upon my honour I prefer his estimate to yours.”

“What is mine?”

“That I’m nothing but a poet.  That there wasn’t enough of me left over to make a man.”

“That is not my estimate, and you know it.  I think you so much a man that your heart will keep you right, even though your genius has led you very far astray.”

“Is that all you know about it?”

“Well, I’m not sure that it is your genius, this time.  I rather think it’s your sense of honour.  I believe you think that because you once cared for me you’ve got to go on caring, lest I should accuse you of being faithless to your dream.” ("Surely,” she said to herself, “I’ve made it easy for him now?”)

But the word was too much for him.  “For Goodness’ sake don’t talk to me any more about my dream.  You may think any mortal thing you like about me, so long as you don’t do that.”

She smiled faintly, as if with an effort at forbearance.  “Very well then, I won’t talk about your dream.  I’ll say you were afraid lest I should think you had been faithless to me.  It would never have occurred to you if you hadn’t seen me again.  It will not occur to you after I am gone.  It will be all over by to-morrow.”

“Why to-morrow?” He spoke stupidly.  Fear had made him stupid.  “Why to-morrow?”

“Because I am going to-morrow.”

Then he knew that it was indeed all over.  The door which had been open to him was about to close; and once closed it would never be open to him again.