‘The French proverb is at fault, as far as I am concerned,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I am your friend. I am Dinah’s. At this present hour I reprobate the conduct of both with strict impartiality.’ ‘My conduct is negative. I find myself placed by an outburst of the eternal feminine injustice in a ridiculous position. I must, as men have done before me, live a ridiculous position out. Whatever my wife desires in the way of money arrangements shall be hers. On the day when she is tired of Tavistock Moor I shall be at her feet.’ ‘All this might be aptly said if you were in a stage-box, a critic looking on at the histrionic break-up of other people’s lives, with a view to the morning papers.’ ‘I have tried, since I was a boy, to regard everything concerning myself from an indifferent person’s point of view. The habit has become second nature, and----’ ‘Shake yourself free of it to-night. You are not an indifferent person. You are not criticising a scene in a mixed drama. You have to decide whether you, Gaston Arbuthnot, intend, at thirty, to be a failure or a success.’ ‘A failure!’ repeated Gaston, his pride galled instantly. ‘In your office of peacemaker, Geff, don’t allow your good will to run away with you. We have a score of big examples--Byron, if you choose, at their head--to show how men of shipwrecked lives can give the world the best of their genius.’ ‘When you come to genius,’ said Geff, grimly truthful, ‘we are off our lines. We are talking of common men, not of giants. For a man of your calibre, Gaston, to forfeit his domestic happiness is to forfeit all. In losing Dinah, whatever her folly in proposing the Quixotic scheme, you would lose your right hand. Up to this time, even with a good and beautiful and long-suffering woman at your side, your backslidings have been many. Do you think you are going to work onward and upward without an influence such as Dinah’s has been to hold you straight?’ ‘You speak hotly, Geff.’ ‘I feel hotly,’ answered Geoffrey, without an effort at a fence. ‘My own life has been spoilt--I--I would say,’ he corrected himself, ‘the happiness which men like you, Gaston, can throw away or keep as they choose, is not likely to come near me. Mine must be sought for in such commonplace daily work as I have strength to do. This gives me a selfish interest in the welfare of the people I love. Your fireside and Dinah’s,’ he attempted a lighter tone, ‘is the only one to which I can look forward in my old age.’ Again Gaston watched his face curiously. Perhaps in the moment’s keen illumination he read aright the larger nature than his own, apprehended with his balanced mixture of worldly depth and moral airiness, a page whose intricacies should never, in this life, be wholly deciphered by poor Geff himself. ‘You were right as to genius, Geoffrey. There is an ingredient wanting in me! If I had had your heart I should not at thirty be a manufacturer of third-rate prettinesses for the dealers.’