‘You seem a man likely to make a mistake.’

‘What’s that?’

’To give too much room to the latent feeling which is rather common in these days among the unappreciated, that because some remarkably successful men are fools, all remarkably unsuccessful men are geniuses.’

‘Pretty subtle for a young lady,’ he said slowly.  ’From that remark I should fancy you had bought experience.’

She passed over the idea.  ‘Do try to succeed,’ she said, with wistful thoughtfulness, leaving her eyes on him.

Springrove flushed a little at the earnestness of her words, and mused.  ’Then, like Cato the Censor, I shall do what I despise, to be in the fashion,’ he said at last. . .  ’Well, when I found all this out that I was speaking of, what ever do you think I did?  From having already loved verse passionately, I went on to read it continually; then I went rhyming myself.  If anything on earth ruins a man for useful occupation, and for content with reasonable success in a profession or trade, it is the habit of writing verses on emotional subjects, which had much better be left to die from want of nourishment.’

‘Do you write poems now?’ she said.

’None.  Poetical days are getting past with me, according to the usual rule.  Writing rhymes is a stage people of my sort pass through, as they pass through the stage of shaving for a beard, or thinking they are ill-used, or saying there’s nothing in the world worth living for.’

’Then the difference between a common man and a recognized poet is, that one has been deluded, and cured of his delusion, and the other continues deluded all his days.’

’Well, there’s just enough truth in what you say, to make the remark unbearable.  However, it doesn’t matter to me now that I “meditate the thankless Muse” no longer, but. . .’  He paused, as if endeavouring to think what better thing he did.

Cytherea’s mind ran on to the succeeding lines of the poem, and their startling harmony with the present situation suggested the fancy that he was ‘sporting’ with her, and brought an awkward contemplativeness to her face.

Springrove guessed her thoughts, and in answer to them simply said ‘Yes.’  Then they were silent again.

’If I had known an Amaryllis was coming here, I should not have made arrangements for leaving,’ he resumed.

Such levity, superimposed on the notion of ‘sport’, was intolerable to Cytherea; for a woman seems never to see any but the serious side of her attachment, though the most devoted lover has all the time a vague and dim perception that he is losing his old dignity and frittering away his time.

’But will you not try again to get on in your profession?  Try once more; do try once more,’ she murmured.  ’I am going to try again.  I have advertised for something to do.’

‘Of course I will,’ he said, with an eager gesture and smile.  ’But we must remember that the fame of Christopher Wren himself depended upon the accident of a fire in Pudding Lane.  My successes seem to come very slowly.  I often think, that before I am ready to live, it will be time for me to die.  However, I am trying—­not for fame now, but for an easy life of reasonable comfort.’