‘I will go to the library for an hour,’ said Rhoda, who had not seated herself.  ‘Mr. Barfoot won’t leave before ten, I suppose?’

‘I don’t think there will be any private talk.’

‘Still, if you will let me—­’

So, when Everard appeared, he found his cousin alone.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked of him good-naturedly.

’To do?  You mean, how do I propose to employ myself?  I have nothing whatever in view, beyond enjoying life.’

‘At your age?’

‘So young?  Or so old?  Which?’

‘So young, of course.  You deliberately intend to waste your life?’

’To enjoy it, I said.  I am not prompted to any business or profession; that’s all over for me; I have learnt all I care to of the active world.’

‘But what do you understand by enjoyment?’ asked Miss Barfoot, with knitted brows.

’Isn’t the spectacle of existence quite enough to occupy one through a lifetime?  If a man merely travelled, could he possibly exhaust all the beauties and magnificences that are offered to him in every country?  For ten years and more I worked as hard as any man; I shall never regret it, for it has given me a feeling of liberty and opportunity such as I should not have known if I had always lived at my ease.  It taught me a great deal, too; supplemented my so-called education as nothing else could have done.  But to work for ever is to lose half of life.  I can’t understand those people who reconcile themselves to quitting the world without having seen a millionth part of it.’

’I am quite reconciled to that.  An infinite picture gallery isn’t my idea of enjoyment.’

’Nor mine.  But an infinite series of modes of living.  A ceaseless exercise of all one’s faculties of pleasure.  That sounds shameless to you?  I can’t understand why it should.  Why is the man who toils more meritorious than he who enjoys?  What is the sanction for this judgment?’

‘Social usefulness, Everard.’

’I admit the demand for social usefulness, up to a certain point.  But, really, I have done my share.  The mass of men don’t toil with any such ideal, but merely to keep themselves alive, or to get wealth.  I think there is a vast amount of unnecessary labour.’

’There is an old proverb about Satan and idle hands.  Pardon me; you alluded to that personage in your letter.’

’The proverb is a very true one, but, like other proverbs, it applies to the multitude.  If I get into mischief, it will not be because I don’t perspire for so many hours every day, but simply because it is human to err.  I have no intention whatever of getting into mischief.’

The speaker stroked his beard, and smiled with a distant look.

’Your purpose is intensely selfish, and all indulged selfishness reacts on the character,’ replied Miss Barfoot, still in a tone of the friendliest criticism.

’My dear cousin, for anything to be selfish, it must be a deliberate refusal of what one believes to be duty.  I don’t admit that I am neglecting any duty to others, and the duty to myself seems very clear indeed.’