“Are you so sure of that?”

“If I really loved her I shouldn’t refuse to marry her.”

“Are you so sure of that?”

“What’s the use of all this wire-drawing?—­the whole thing is impossible.”

“Why is it impossible?”

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, refusing to be drawn back into the eddy, and completed the bar of the polka.

Then he threw down his pen, rose and paced the room in desperation.

“Was ever any man in such a dilemma?” he cried aloud.

“Did ever any man get such a chance?” retorted his silent tormentor.

“Yes, but I mustn’t seize the chance—­it would be mean.”

“It would be meaner not to.  You’re not thinking of that poor girl—­only of yourself.  To leave her now would be more cowardly than to have left her when she was merely Mary Ann.  She needs you even more now that she will be surrounded by sharks and adventurers.  Poor, poor Mary Ann!  It is you who have the right to protect her now; you were kind to her when the world forgot her.  You owe it to yourself to continue to be good to her.”

“No, no, I won’t humbug myself.  If I married her it would only be for her money.”

“No, no, don’t humbug yourself.  You like her.  You care for her very much.  You are thrilling at this very moment with the remembrance of her lips to-night.  Think of what life will be with her—­life full of all that is sweet and fair—­love and riches, and leisure for the highest art, and fame and the promise of immortality.  You are irritable, sensitive, delicately organised; these sordid, carking cares, these wretched struggles, these perpetual abasements of your highest self—­a few more years of them—­they will wreck and ruin you, body and soul.  How many men of genius have married their housekeepers even—­good, clumsy, homely bodies, who have kept their husband’s brain calm and his pillow smooth.  And again, a man of genius is the one man who can marry anybody.  The world expects him to be eccentric.  And Mary Ann is no coarse city weed, but a sweet country bud.  How splendid will be her blossoming under the sun!  Do not fear that she will ever shame you; she will look beautiful, and men will not ask her to talk.  Nor will you want her to talk.  She will sit silent in the cosy room where you are working, and every now and again you will glance up from your work at her and draw inspiration from her sweet presence.  So pull yourself together, man; your troubles are over, and life henceforth one long blissful dream.  Come, burn me that tinkling, inglorious comic opera, and let the whole sordid past mingle with its ashes.”