It was to catch a ball! You succeeded, I
believe."
I laughed a little awkwardly.
"Yes! I caught it!" I remarked. "Success is something after all, isn't
it?"
"I suppose so," she admitted. "Afterwards I spoke to your cousin about
you. He told me that you lived on your estates, that you played games
well, that you shot birds and rabbits, and sent to prison drunken men
and poachers. 'But about his life?' I asked. 'This is his life,' your
cousin answered. 'He has never gone in for a career!'"
"I suppose," I said slowly, "that this seems to you a very unambitious
sort of existence!"
"Existence!" she answered scornfully, "it does not seem like existence at
all! Your joys are the joys of a highly trained animal; your sorrows and
your passions and your disappointments--they are at best those of the
yokel. What has life to do with games and sports? These things may have
their place and their use, but to make them all in all! The men whom I
have met are not like that!"
"I am sorry," I said. "You see the other things have not come my way!"
"You mean that you have not been out to seek them," she declared.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58