And yet in his
heart he knew that it must be so. "But now the things can't be
published unless you will accept them as they were originally meant.
There's nothing gross about the transaction; nothing that need offend
either you or me."
"I can't--I can't--"
"Well," he said gently, fearing the appearance of grossness in
pressing the question, "we can settle that afterwards, can't we?
Meanwhile at all events the publication rests with you."
"The publication has nothing whatever to do with me--The dedication,
_perhaps_."
"You've accepted that. Still, you might object to your name appearing
before the public with mine."
Lucia looked bewildered. She thought she had followed him in all his
subtleties; but she had had difficulty in realizing that he was
actually proposing to suppress his poems in deference to her
scruples, if she had any. Some shadowy notion of his meaning was
penetrating her now.
"My name," she said, "will mean nothing to the public."
"Then you consent?"
"Of course. It's absurd to talk about my consent. Besides, why should
I mind now--when it is all over?"
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, it was by an effort,
as if he unwillingly obeyed some superior constraint. "If it hadn't
been all over would you have minded then? Would you have refused your
consent?"
"To your publishing your own poems? How could I?"
"To the dedication, I mean. If it hadn't been all over, would you have
given your consent to that?"
His anxiety had deepened to an agony which seemed to have made his
face grow sharp and thin almost as she looked at him.
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