Julius looked at him, and set the cat down.

“My dear Lefevre,” said he, “I did not think you could urge such common twaddle!  You know well enough,—­nobody knows better,—­first of all, that there are already more men waiting to do that kind of thing than can find occupation:  why should I go down among them and try to take their work?  And you know, in the next place, that medical philanthropy, like all other philanthropy, is so overdone that the race is fast deteriorating; we strive with so much success to keep the sickly and the diseased alive, that perfect health is scarcely known.  Life without health can be nothing but a weariness:  why should it be reckoned a praiseworthy thing to keep it going at any price?  If life became a burden to me, I should lay it down.”

“But,” said Lefevre, earnestly, “your life surely is not your own to do with it what you like!”

“In the name of truth, Lefevre,” answered Julius, “if my life is not my own, what is?  I get its elements from others, but I fashion it myself, just as much as the sculptor shapes his statue, or the poet turns his poem.  You don’t deny to the sculptor the right to smash his statue if it does not please him, nor to the poet the right to burn his manuscript;—­why should you deny me the right to dispose of my life?  I know—­I know,” said he, seeing Lefevre open his mouth and raise his hand for another observation, “that your opinion is the common one, but that is the only sanction it has; it has the sanction neither of true morality nor of true religion!  But here is the waiter to tell you the carriage is come.  I’m glad.  Let us get out into the air and the sunshine.”

The carriage was the doctor’s own; his mother, although the widow of a Court physician, was too poor to maintain much equipage, but she made what use she pleased of her son’s possessions.  When Lady Lefevre saw Julius at the carriage-door, she broke into smiles and cries of welcome.

“Where have you been this long, long while, Julius?” said she.  “This is Julius Courtney, Nora.  You remember Nora, Julius, when she was a little girl in frocks?”

“She now wears remarkable gowns,” chimed in the doctor.

“Which,” said Julius, “I have no doubt are becoming.”

“My brother,” said Nora, with a sunny smile, “is jealous; because, being a doctor, he must wear only dowdy clothes of dingy colours.”

“We have finished at school and college, and been presented at Court,” laughed Lady Lefevre.

“And,” broke in the brother, “we have had cards engraved with our full name, Leonora.”

“With all this,” said Lady Lefevre, “I hope you won’t be afraid of us.”

“I see no reason,” said Julius.  “For, if I may say so, I like everything in Nature, and it seems to me Nature has had more to do with the finishing you speak of than the schoolmistress or the college professor.”

“There he is already,” laughed Lady Lefevre, “with his equivocal compliments.  I shouldn’t wonder if he says that, my dear, because you have not yet had more than a word to say for yourself.”