The one point of repose was that
shining fixed star of marriage. Still smarting under Winifred's reproach
of his unpoetic literality, he did not intend to force her to marry him
exactly at the end of the twelve-month. But he was determined that she
should have no later than this exact date for at least 'naming the day'.
Not the most punctilious stickler for convention, he felt, could deny
that Mrs. Grundy's claim had been paid to the last minute.
The publication of his new volume--containing the Winifred lyrics--had
served to colour these months of intolerable delay. Even the reaction of
the critics against his poetry, that conventional revolt against every
second volume, that parrot cry of over-praise from the very throats that
had praised him, though it pained and perplexed him, was perhaps really
helpful. At any rate, the long waiting was over at last. He felt like
Jacob after his years of service for Rachel.
The fateful morning dawned bright and blue, and, as the towers of
Oxford were left behind him he recalled that distant Saturday when he
had first gone down to meet the literary lights of London in his
publisher's salon.
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